Double, Double Toil and Trouble. Media Industry Caldron Bubbles.

After nearly 17 years with MTV Christina Norman stepped down yesterday as the networkamp8217s president Last May Christina told me amp8220For the past few years we have been talking about our challenges and now it39s become all about the possibilities We rise and fall on how we embrace possibility This is a new playground and we39re eager to find out the next actamp8221 While her words referred to MTV today they appropriately describe her own future the time she intends to spend at home with her two talented daughters her possibilities and her next act There was another major personnel move yesterday when veteran AOL sales executive Kathleen Kayse moved to Discovery Communications as Executive Vice President Digital Media Sales A 24year veteran of Time Warner Kayse was most recently Executive Vice President Marketing Solutions for AOLamp8217s PlatformA organization With continuing shifts and the escalation of behaviorally and contextually enhanced network ad sales revenues at AOL layoffs today at Yahoo the inevitable acquisition of Yahoo most likely by Microsoft disruption of the network television Upfront marketplace and Fall television season by the writersamp8217 strike management shifts on the horizon at several other major media companies and a possible advertising recession these are certainly interesting timesYahoo is at the center of the media storm and at yesterdayamp8217s DaSilvaPhillips Media Dealmakers Summit in New York several executives predicted the company would definitely be sold and that Microsoft would ultimately gain the prize even if other suitors entered the fray At the Summit former Yahoo Chief Revenue Officer Wenda Harris Millard who is now President Media for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia commented that the Microsoft bid amp8220was absolutely inevitable and predictable Yahoo lost sight of who they are and what business they are in Theyamp8217ve had a monomaniacal obsession with Google as their competitor But 90 percent of their revenue comes from advertising so their primary competitors should be the broadcast TV networks Yahoo owned the online brand advertising space but they decided to completely abandon itamp8221Ad sales at Yahoo Microsoft Google and AOL are all now headed by executives with primarily search and systems infrastructure experience At none of these leading operations are there senior executives with extensive experience in traditional brand amp160Ask Jack Myers Live Video Chats on Wed Feb 13thadvertising sales Millard pointed out the acquisition of aQuantive by Microsoft and DoubleClick by Google amp8220continues to focus a business that is art and science unduly on science It is as if the scientific community is taking over advertising and advertising is not about science Advertising is not all about algorithmsamp8221Advertising she believes is about effective brand communications and amp8220while the scale that advertising networks may offer is important for products that are not strong brands trusted media brands will be stronger online than offline Consumers need the filters that brands offeramp8221 she argued amp8220Aggregation of inventory for scale may serve some direct marketers but this should be a piece of the businessamp8230 not the businessamp8221 Millard is concerned that overemphasis on ad sales networks amp8220may be doing damage to the industry before advertising value is setamp8221 Trusted brands she suggested will be very powerful and valuable and should not be subjected to marketplace metrics and pricing dynamics defined in a amp8220scientific commodity environmentamp8221Microsoft Chief Advertising Strategist and cofounder of aQuantive Michael Galgon agreed that marketers will increasingly lean on media brands At the DaSilvaPhillips event he commented that marketers will amp8220find golden nugget brands and pivot off those brands Brands sit at the center of the media mixamp8221 he said and marketers will amp8220invest in those brands that are valuable to consumersamp8221However amp8220the definition of a media company has changedamp8221 believes Glam Media founder and chairman Samir Arora amp8220Creating and leveraging content has morphed Moving traditional media to the web doesnamp8217t work The model of a few large content creators and distributors doesnamp8217t workamp8221 Executing ad campaigns based on audience reach demographics and engagement metrics is very difficult on the web Arora explained Glam aggregates content from 500 publishers and websites clustered around areas of interest such as fashion Glam originates only ten percent of its content enabling content creators to focus on their brands and premium ad sales while Glam delivers broad audience reach to them Arora points out amp8220in television once the three networks were established the market focused on premium inventory On the Internet there is a lack of leverage and reach and the power of sales forces cannot be used in the way done originally by networks and magazinesamp8221 Ninetyfive percent of web display ads he points out are subprime with costsperthousand under 2 amp8220We need to define primetime inventoryamp8221 he saysWhat do you think are the most critical challenges to executives charged with the responsibility of defining their markets expanding their businesses understanding the impact of market disruption and managing through a depressed and often depressing time

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