• by October 24, 2000

As promised, here's my first impression of the Digitrends Fall Media Buyers summit in Iconocast-like terms:

* Organization - stellar, except for the deceiving piece of paper that not only sent attendees to the wrong places, it told them the wrong time for the event of the day - the panel discussion about the definition of an impression. * Content - nothing you haven't heard/read before. * Schmooze Factor - the BEST I've seen EVER.

The first two points are probably negligible in the context of most industry gatherings. People found their way to wherever they were supposed to be without too much trouble and heard the truly illustrious panelists and presenters talk about pressing issues.

The main event, as I mentioned yesterday, was the panel discussion on the value of an online impression. Not that I'm surprised, but the discussion actually didn't focus on the topic at hand, nor did the panelists come to a consensus. Buyers and sellers are on different sides and always will be, but some notable points did arise. For example, almost everyone on the panel agreed that click-throughs are an ancient metric and we need to come up with a better way of measuring response. Also, branding on the web is still questionable and no one knows how to deal with it. And, Cost-per-Click and Cost-Per-Action pricing is both the media buyers' holy grail and the latent ruin of online publishers. No breakthroughs there.

The bottom line is, as Digitrends CEO Rick Parkhill said, "the industry is moving along at a wonderful pace," as it was confirmed by an earlier AdRelevance presentation which showed that "ad spending started the year with a bang, increasing by 50%, then hit rough seas after the NASDAQ fall, but surged again to a 70% increase over Q4 1999."

More importantly, the reason most attendees shook their heads in an enthusiastic "yes" when asked "is this thing wroth the $5000 you've paid," was the schmooze factor. As one media buyer said, "I never would have given my business to two companies if I didn't meet them here."

Day two, according to the above-mentioned piece of paper, promises discussions on "Getting a Grip on Wireless," and "Reducing Costs of Buying Online Advertising." And if the rain lets up - more schmoozing.