• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, May 7, 2003

This week I've been listening to a number of intelligent people whom I respect speak rather poetically about our industry and there appears to be one underlying element that I am recognizing. Our industry still has an inferiority complex.

In the beginning, the topic facing our industry was standardization (a topic that still needs to be addressed). In stage 2 of the development of our industry, the topic became, "How do we get offline marketers to spend money online?" Stage 3 revolves around the concept of growth via integration. Stage 3 is not about convincing offline marketers of the strength of the Internet, it is about patience and time and the continual development of strong ideas.

Every statistic that I read states more and more clearly that our industry usage patterns are increasing and eating into the usage of other forms of media. The Internet is already an integral part of many people's lives and the audience that utilizes the Internet the most is arguably the audience that most marketers are seeking. So why do we still feel the need to keep shouting over and over that, "The Internet should receive more of your advertising budgets"? It reminds me of the old cliché of a comedian who walks on stage and says, "Laugh at me, I'm funny!"

Every year Internet ad spending has increased. Every year broadband penetration has increased. Every year the model for advertising online has evolved and improved. Every year more established offline brands are spending a portion of their budgets online.

The Internet is not going away. Time will prove us to be correct if we just continue to do good work and lead by example.

In 5-10 years time, there will be no argument at all for why advertisers should incorporate more Interactive media into the mix of their advertising, and recent studies and presentations by a number of people will prove that to be true, so why do we still feel the need to defend why the Internet is so innovative and important?

What we truly need is patience and to focus on cleaning up our own processes. We need to continue to push the boundaries and tie our ad models into other forms of advertising so that cohesive campaigns across multiple forms of media will make our case for us. In time, these examples will continue to show the value of the web as an ad tool, and we shall not have to listen to another argument for increasing ad budgets as they will already be increasing by themselves.

Patience is not one of my more readily apparent virtues, as you can ask most anyone who knows me, but in this case I have lost patience not with our impending maturation, but with our supposed "need" to propagate our own opinions that we deserve a larger slice of the traditional budget. We are not entitled to a portion of an ad budget, but we will deserve it soon enough. The growth in utilization of the internet is proving that our audience needs us and it is the best use of our time not to restate the obvious, but rather to identify the correct mix of tools and philosophies that will help us to be successful as our time approaches.

Do you agree with this interpretation of the state of our place in the mix?