Many have been talking about how to innovate in the online advertising market.  Specifically, online video ads, and the need for measurement on brand impact and other aspects of sponsorship typically considered unmeasurable. It’s a topic that resonates right now with what I’m hearing from others who are building major content brands themselves.

I’m here at Ad:Tech SF2009, and yesterday attended the panel hosted by Pete Blackshaw (@pblackshaw) entitled “Innovate or Die: Building Great Brands in the Age of Disruption.” On the panel with Blackshaw was Tina Sharkey President of Babycenter (@tinasharkey), Joel Rubinson Advertising Research (@joelrubinson), and John Travis VP Branding Adobe, Eric Feng VP Audience Development of Hulu.

The panel covered a lot of different aspects in the new ecosystem of the social media dominated reality, and offered some practical and hands on advice. For instance, Eric Feng talked about what they’ve learned and when they learned it.  One thing that is clear is that social media is the new interactive and these leaders are all agreed that the culture within big companies are not there yet to support the social media movement.

Social media impact:  Hulu: learn 99% about their  product after the product is released and that the feedback on their customer and community is realtime.  Babycenter is pushing the notion of horizontal networks.  Tina Sharkey pointed out that vertical social network are different then the big horizontal networks.  Not sure I agree that the benefits of these networks are mutually exclusive, but her point about the intimacy of vertical affinities are right on the money.

Another key point coming out of the innovation side of ad:tech is that learning about customers comes form different places – surveys were old way now learning and key insights come from post product launch.  The question is who’s putting all of these new data points together?? My angle: no one has this yet; the net is one big always on focus group.  This will present a big opportunity and challenge to brand advertisers and marketers.

In another panel Tim Hanlon of Comscore moderated a panel on the Modern Agency with Sharon Gallacher Neo@Ogilvy; Jordon Warren Agency.com; Winston Binch Crispin Porter + Binch; Torrence Boone Enfatica

Key points in this panel was that the young talent is driving the change.  Senior skills necessary to manage the new talent.  One issue is how to get the new talent on the right set of core set of business issues.  There are multiple disciplines involved in the innovation of social media.  In the past most of the agency’s disciplines have been sidelined and now they all need to work together – "we need to kill the silos" – says Torrence Boone of Enfatica.  The modern agency needs a broad set of capabilities.  New and young talent is important in today’s environment, but people who understand the breakthrough insights and how to activate those ideas into the brands are older with years of experience.  The skill of understanding brand building is a skill that can’t be thrown out because something is a new trend or technique.

Another discussion on the modern agency is the evolution of the big agency – also known as "the holding company model".  The general feeling at ad:tech is that holding companies are to big to handle the nimbleness of clients needs.  Is it the right model?  After years of roll ups we all are wondering if it’s the right model to serve clients?  Each holding company has different service model.  Clients need to have their own expertise first then decide to figure out which agency.=

Some discussion points:  re: social media: Facebook is really about knowing that the people are out there.  Regarding targeted communities a simple formula is working in reaching these targeted consumers.  Rather than make clutter brands should make the experience good for those users who are already out there.  Torrence went on to point out that agencies and clients shouldn’t confuse strategy with tactics.  The existing support structure is important such as leveraging cross channel analytics.  Torrence went on to talk about data models that he built for Dell.  Analytics need to be front and center.

ROI and who is driving it is very important.   The best returns are not always the latest shiny new tool.

Overall at Ad:Tech SF the focus was on what is beyond search.  Two major trends were clear:  social media is the new interactive and search is evolving beyond paid inclusion.  For me there were a few standout signs at the event:  1) advertisers and marketers are looking for social media insights and an execution roadmap for their business (not a new shiny tool), and 2) SearchMe.com who was showing off their new search engine – a visual search with interlaced results.

On the search monetizaiton side I really liked SearchMe.com’s new offerings.  What was very interesting was that searchme.com has innovated the ad model in visual search – they basically provide a display ad with a performance component (CPC) – so the advertisers gets display ad and a CPC product at one price.  Additionally, Searchme has now fully integrated their visual search on mobile with a killer iPhone app and Nokia support.

My angle is that new innovative search and social media will continue to be a hot areas at Ad:Tech for many years.