All's Quiet on the Digital Front, Damn It. - Matthew Greene - MediaBizBloggers

Finally recovering from a frenetic end-of-year round of celebrations in December including approximately 15 breakfast meetings, 15 luncheons and 10 dinner events. And with some difficult due diligence at the gym, I think I'm back on the right track and ready to rock 'n rolla' in Twenty10.

The one thing I heard over and over again from everyone in the digital advertising and media business was that they were excited to be 'still standing' at the end of 2009, and that the second and third quarters were very positive from a revenue perspective.

Cut to January, I've been hearing some disquieting bits and pieces about 1Qbudgets not materializing, or perhaps not as big as people had anticipated. And I don't get it.

Given the stock market's fortunes of last year (not counting last week's momentary downturn, of course), and the fact that Holiday retail was looking pretty good at both the store level as well as at e-commerce sites, and the added 'good news' that Google and Apple are on a digital media buying-spree while making 2010 a very good year for a few friends of mine, I'm left wondering when exactly the media share-shift from traditional media to digital outlets will finally happen. This media 'incrementalism' is killing me. But perhaps even more importantly, I think it's killing any forward momentum with the Top 100 advertisers.

Oh, I see random articles on a few companies such as Pepsi foregoing a Super Bowl presence in favor of a social media campaign (which went horribly awry), or major companies like the aforementioned placing very expensive bets in mobile by acquiring AdMob (a mobile advertising network), or buying Quattro (a competitor to AdMob), but I haven't seen a ton of leadership from the major advertising brands.

At a moment in time when the great "hope" and "change" positioning of the Obama administration hasn't turned out they way most of us had hoped; when congressional bickering appears to be at an all-time high; when people's regard for the two major political parties is at an all-time low, I'm thinking maybe I should create a new political office, and then run for that office. What do you think of Digital Advertising Ombudsman?

My Platform is simple. Create a ton of new jobs, bring companies into the 21^st century and grow brands, which in turn will create more new jobs.

Executing my Platform is equally simple. Any major Brand *not* committing at least 25% of its annual advertising budget to digital channels will be voted off the island (by consumers) and replaced by its next largest category competitor.

Let me know if you think this idea could work.

Matthew Greene has over twenty-five years of strategic advertising and marketing experience working with blue-chip companies. Matt can be reached at matthew.greene@blueribbondigital.com

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