Gross Impressions. I must have said those two words together hundreds of times, though I never really thought much about the implications. I should be more careful when speaking about impressions being "gross." Business reasons aside, it's just not considerate. It's a new year, and a new resolution is in order. So let's look at both sides of the issue before I make it stick.

As marketers demand more innovative advertising campaigns to help drive sales and cultural relevance for their products, the lines between general and interactive agencies, film and video, and traditional and digital are fast beginning to blur. Yet, it's amazing how few creative agencies are breaking down their work, looking at the traditional to interactive mix, and responding by hiring more talent with cross-disciplinary skills who can produce campaigns both online and on-air.

As online video advertisements become more pervasive, so too does the argument over the merit and viability of pre-roll. After it's boiled down, there are generally three schools of thought on pre-roll video: those who believe that it will soon become pre-historic; those who are proponents of pre-roll; and those who are on the proverbial fence, seeing the value while acknowledging its shortcomings. I happen to believe that, while I wouldn't consider it perfect, pre-roll has its place in a complete integrated campaign and is a good beginning for online video outside of the banner.

Business is booming for online media companies, but agencies and advertisers can tell that we are straining to keep up with the growth. We can't maintain our growth trajectory unless we find ways to improve our client relationships through effective sales and finance support, and leverage good operational practices that allow us to save time in our end-to-end workflow.

Why is it that, when it comes to online video, the last thing buyers and sellers seem to want to factor into their performance dialogue is the role of the creative. My guess is, it's because they're completely removed from it. So typically, it comes down to, "We've got a video window, you can fill it, here's how efficiently it will reach your target and here's the 9 things we can tell you about playback."