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October 1, 2009

Survey: 34% of Ad Agencies Plan to Hire

A survey performed by the Creative Group, a recruiting agency, found that 34 percent of the advertising and marketing executives surveyed plan to hire in the coming 12 months.

Another 55 percent said they plans to maintain current staffing levels.

The skills in most demand? One in two said they plan to hire staff in four areas: Web design or production, creative or art direction, interactive, and account services.

Least in demand? Only 10 percent said they were looking to hire workers for media services and only 23 percent for public relations, according to the survey.

"Many firms are interested in expanding their digital presence," Megan Slabinski, executive director, said in a news release. Rather than hire full-time employees, companies often bring in talent on a project basis, she said. That way businesses can avoid laying off workers if the economy loses momentum

According to the Creative Group, its survey was based on 250 interviews: 125 with ad executives randomly selected from the nation's 2,000 largest advertising agencies and 125 with senior marketing executives randomly selected from the nation's 2,000 largest companies.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 5:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

IAB Says Privacy Bill Must Consider Third Parties, Too

The U.S. House may have an online privacy bill introduced as soon as November - that is, if Rep. Rick Boucher, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet comes through with what he says he hopes to accomplish before Congress goes into winter hibernation.

"We are making rapid progress and hope to have a bill introduced before recess," he said in an interview with beltway pub The Hill on Tuesday.

"The key elements [of the legislation] are going to be that every website will have to disclose every piece of information that they collect from visitors and how that information is used by the website that collects it. And then users should have control over that process," added Boucher in the interview.

When reporting on this story yesterday, I was unable to get Interactive Advertising Bureau VP of Public Policy Mike Zaneis on the line. I figured he'd have a response to Boucher's recent statements about his plans for legislation.

You bet he did.

Mike sent me the following comment via e-mail this afternoon:

IAB welcomes the further delay in introducing online privacy legislation, as there is clearly more work to be done in helping Congress understand the interactive advertising ecosystem, especially the distinction between first party publishers and their third party partners. The current approach being outlined by Congressman Boucher is especially troubling as he seems to favor imposing strict liability on publishers for all data usage. You cannot address legitimate online privacy concerns by implementing a publisher-only solution, that approach ignores the operational realities of the Internet and misplaces many of the consumer protection obligations.

The IAB's membership consists mainly of Web publishers, so it's not surprising this is the angle the organization is taking. But no matter what the IAB's agenda, there's no question that third-party firms play a major role in all forms of online ad targeting, including behavioral. How they will be addressed in any future legislation remains to be seen.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Twitter Lists Present Cool Possibilities for Brands

If you haven't seen it already, Twitter has announced it's testing "Twitter Lists," essentially lists of users that can be categorized according to who they are or what they write about. According to a Twitter blog post yesterday, "The idea is to allow people to curate lists of Twitter accounts."

In non-pretentious language, that means eventually anyone will be able to assemble a group of Twitterers, allowing people to easily follow all those accounts.

So, I've been thinking about what this could mean for brand marketers. Well, if anything, it should mean that marketers will have a number of options when it comes to creating their own lists. For CRM or customer service, they can readily compile all their brand-related Twitter accounts into one. Think @ford/teamtwitter. Or whatever.

I also see a ready opportunity for cause marketing. Let's say a brand really wants to connect with charity activity around breast cancer, or wants to establish itself as a leader in the movement towards clean energy. If I understand Twitter's offering here, a brand could assemble a list of Twitter accounts associated with individuals or organizations it believes are influential in that particular category and promote the list on their own sites and through their own Twitter accounts. Think @google/netneutrality.

Of course, this could work for non-cause stuff, too. Say a brand wants to get noticed among running enthusiasts or among fans of Asian cinema. It could put together a list of Twitterers who post about those topics. How about @Asicsamerica/running?

This is akin to what Microsoft has already done in conjunction with Federated Media and Twitter in its ExecTweets site.

Then there's politics. The parties can compile lists of people or party organizations aligned with their side. Or a candidate could assemble a list of thought leaders he'd like to draw attention to (or he'd like to draw attention to him). Think @lpnational/thoughtleaders.

Though I think this offering alone presents some good opportunities to brands, it ultimately could become a good source of revenue for Twitter. A brand could sponsor an official Twitter List, for example.

So, now, before Twitter actually launches this feature, brands ought to start thinking about how they might want to use it.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Great Ad: Apple Assaults Wired.com

Apple Takeover of Wired.com from Ian Schafer on Vimeo.

Apple continues to be the gold standard in rich online advertising. Best known for its takeovers of The New York Times and WSJ, the company's high production value display ads (No, that's not an oxymoron) for Mac, iPod and iPhone have appeared on a slew of other properties. The above ad on Wired gives interruption a new name. Industry take note: If you're good enough, you can get away with that. (Courtesty of Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer)

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Omnicom Creates Unit to Oversee Digital

A couple stories ClickZ's editors are reading:

Omnicom Forms Unit to Oversee Digital Operations (WSJ)

GE said to entertain offers for NBC

GM, eBay End Online Sales Effort (WSJ)

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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