• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 14, 2011

Microsoft next week will reveal the findings of a new industry research initiative showing how people experience the same kinds of advertising messages across various "screens," and how advertisers and agencies can optimize that, a top analytics executive of the company said Monday during one of the opening sessions of the Advertising Research Foundation's annual Audience Measurement Conference in New York.

"Each screen has very unique properties and characteristics that tap into very different [consumer] mindsets," Natasha Hritzuk - global director of insights and analytics, Microsoft Advertising, said during a panel examining how digital media companies are working to unify their advertising metrics with traditional media and marketing criteria.

Hritzuk indicated that consumers typically have "legacy" relationships with each screen - TV, online, tablet and mobile hand-held smartphones - that influence the way they relate to and experience advertising content on each of them.

"You have to have the right screens, but you also have to have the right message that taps into the consumer's mindset with that screen," she said, adding, "Yes you can take that 30-second spot and stream it, but I think the real art lies in having the right creative."

She said the research is part of a push by big digital media companies like Microsoft to shift their focus from agency media planners and brand marketers who already understand the unique differences and values of each screen toward Madison Avenue's creative community who are responsible for making the ads that appear on them.

"In a funny way, we've been so focused on the planners," she said, but, "to make sure that digital has a place at the table, I think creative is just as important."