PhrMA among the early industry groups to step up an support healthcare reform.  Often criticized for blocking healthcare reform, pharma is an early participant toward reform making huge concessions in the Medicare prescription drug coverage plan.  Kudos to the industry for stepping up and being a leading force towards change.

View the PhrMA Statement and   Read the statement on the AARP-White House Press Conference

The first time I heard this phrase was in the article title of an Adotas article comparing “Social Media” vs. “Traditional Online Advertising”.   Almost daily, I make comparisons between “Traditional Advertising” and “Online Advertising”, but in the context of Web 2.0, social media (and evolving media beyond banners and text links) are beginning to compare themselves to tried and true online advertising by usign the adjective “traditional” in front of the known entity.  “Traditional Online Advertising”.   It has a funny ring, but it makes sense in defining “the banner’s and text links that we know work… but this new thing isn’t that”.  The whole thing has a de ja vue element too it, whereby the new media begins to compare itself to the old (acceptable) media as a proxy for defining itself and how it’s different than the “traditional”.  The world is moving faster and apparently gaining speed.  When will be be talking about “Traditional iPhone Apps” and  “Traditional Behaviorial Targeting”.

Client Vendor Relationships

Click the link above for a comedic look at how some client vendor relationships conversations would translate into real world purchases… I’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a Hamburger Today.  Thanks to Dan McKillan of Healthday for sending in the video.

President Obama gave a speech yesterday to the American Medical Association in which he emphasized reducing the cost of healthcare.  In his speech he stated, “When it comes to the cost of our health care…the status quo is unsustainable.  Reform is not a luxury, but a necessity… To say it as plainly as I can, health care reform is the single most important thing we can do for America’s long-term fiscal health.”  View excerpts from the speech and read the transcript at the Huffington Post.  Additional video clips can be found on local Chicago coverage by NBC.

I had the pleasure of attending the WPP/247 Real Media digitial summit yesterday.  Kudos to Dave Moore, Jon Hsu & the gang for putting on a great program and a great party.  Nothing like bringing back a bit of 1999 in the midst of this recession - it was refreshing indeed.

Program topics included both entertainment and education.  To reinforce WPP’s commitment to digital (they do seem to be one of the more forward thinking traditional agencies who is rapidly migrating to digital), this video parodying the death of media was played at the opening of the conference:  Warning to traditional media publishers - this may cause depression:

WPP is clearly moving aggressively toward digital adoption.  In an opening recorded address by Sir Martin Sorrell, he stated that WPP clients currently spend 12% of their budgets online, but this needs to increase dramatically.  He also stated that at an $850MM spend, WPP is Google’s largest customer.  I say, with “frienemies like that, who needs friends” (Sir Martin was the one who coined the term frienemie in relation to Google at Zeitgeist a few years ago - see my blog post from Zeitgesit).

In true Internet fashion, after some entertaining and educating brief presentations by various WPP execs, industry experts and WPP partners, the ‘09 Digital Summit ended with a happy hour and rooftop party.  Kudos 247RM on a great event and kudos to WPP on setting a high bar with your rapid embrace of digital.

Lorne Brown of Operative states it well in his blog post titled, “How do I get ahead of the Agency RFP.” The bottom line is that as a media salesperson, if you are not ahead of it and part of the process in determining direction of a campaign, than you are late to the game and will be luck to get crumbs off the ad budget table. Just being on the circulation list to receive RFPs isn’t enough. You need to be part of the strategic discussions around campaign purpose and direction well prior to the act of issuing RFP’s.

One of the world’s largest advertisers has cut spending dramatically during Q1 2009, compared with the same quarter a year ago. According to TNS Q1 2009 advertising spending for P&G during Q1 2009 was $674.1 Million compared with $820.0 Million for Q1 2008.

It’s not all bad however, stalwarts like J&J increased their spending from $308.2 Million in Q1 ‘08 to $397.2 Million in Q1 ‘09 - an increase of 28.9%.

U.S. Advertising, according to Nielsen, took a 12% hit in Q1 2009 vs. Q1 2008.  In dollar terms, this equates to a drop of $3.8 Billion.  Internet display advertising proved more resilient than most categories dropping only 3.4%.  Still, this is the first time since the dotcom meltdown almost a decade ago that the Internet has declined on a year-over-year basis.

While Performance marketing enjoys it’s day in the sun (much like our banking and mortgage industry did a few year ago) ,Adotas in “Will Performance Marketing Survive” provides a unique look at the dangers of “excess” that tend to come with too much of a good thing.

As I have predicted for years, the “flawed” business model of the Hybrid Ad Networks (the networks that own & operate their own sites in addition to representing partner sites) is showing through in a down economy. The conflict has been there all along, in that its most profitable for an owner/operator to put the best most high paying ads on its own properties first before relying on partners where they have to share the revenues. In a rising market, this conflict has been overlooked by publishers, but publishing partners of hybrid networks are feeling the pain of the economy now more than ever. This is illustrated in even the mother of all hybrids - Google. In a recent IBD article on AOL’s spin off (need a subscription), Peter Barlas writes the following:

“Google might be less concerned about AOL for another reason. These days, Google generates a greater percentage of its revenue from its own Web sites than from its partner Web properties.

In the first quarter, Google said its Web sites produced revenue of $3.70 billion, up 9% from the year-earlier quarter. But revenue from its partner sites fell 3% to $1.64 billion.”

The chickens have come home to roost. Publishers should seek representation from TRUE rep firms, who have THEIR best interest at heart and who don’t have the conflicts of both supporting their own owned/operated properties, and feeding the mothership with more profitable ad dollars.