• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, November 6, 2008

“More and more we are starting to look like advertising networks,” Don Epperson, CEO of Havas Digital acknowledged during his keynote kicking off the OMMA Ad Nets conference in New York this morning. “I am here today to tell you what agencies can learn from advertising networks.”

And he did.

So what’s the main takeaway? Well, agencies are learning to target consumers based as individuals, not based on advertising placements. To illustrate that, Epperson showed a banner ad for Havas client Air France on the nytimes.com, and implied it may no longer be making such placements based on the context of the editorial content, but on the context of the user that happens to be on that page.

“That’s a very big change,” Epperson emphasized.

Before he went on, he added the obligatory disclaimer: That for all the power of Havas Digital’s super, hyper-targeted optimization capabilities, it’s still fundamentally a brand steward that relies on all the powerful consumer insights that traditional shops have always relied on.

“Regardless of what we talk about today, strategic planning, communications planning, brand planning are never going to go away,” he emphasized, adding, “They will always be very important. It will always be art and science.”