• by Kate Kaye , March 11, 2004

One of the most exciting aspects of the interactive ad industry is its constant evolution. Unlike tried and true jobs in the traditional world, working in digital media demands a thirst for learning. Nobody knows that better than this week's In the Trenches subject, Matthias Wolf, associate media director at itraffic, who deals daily with the intricacies of what each interactive media outlet offers both consumers and advertisers.

Basic Training
Call him itraffic's prodigal son. Following a five-year stint at traditional agencies, the siren of digital music lured Matthias away briefly, as did a sales planning gig at America Online. Eventually Matthias came to his senses, returning to his rightful place in media at Agency.com's online advertising division, itraffic.

"Media is very hardcore strategy--very high energy," pronounces Matthias with exuberance. "I'm not just working on one property, but with every property out there on the Internet and with every type of execution. I'm always learning, always having to push myself."

Daily Drills
Although he works mainly on the Discovery Channel account, monotony isn't a problem. He deals with Discovery's diverse offerings, including Animal Planet, TLC, and Discovery Times. Matthias's days are spent in a constant state of planning, defining his target, and determining how best to reach it. In any given day, he might be briefed on one project, send out requests for proposal letters for another, conduct research, or present ideas to a client.

It's not all left-brained strategic stuff, though. Matthias is often engaged with itraffic's creative team, facilitating the communication required to ensure that technologically intensive campaigns go off without a hitch. It's important, says Matthias, that negotiations to secure media for less standard campaigns with viral or gaming executions, for instance, be dealt with early in the process.

"In traditional agencies, there's definitely more church and state separation between media and creative," he observes.

Tough Battles
Working for an interactive agency, Matthias is keenly aware of the fact that most advertisers remain reluctant to put a substantial portion of their budgets on the Web. Some of the most valuable categories of Internet media are the utilitarian ones such as email, chat, portals, and maps, he says. "They're not as sexy," he admits, "but they offer a lot of efficiencies and lot of reach, as well as demographic targeting that you can't get other places."

Base Camp
When Matthias says, "there are no walls around here," he means it--literally and figuratively. He may work in a cubicle, but the atmosphere at itraffic's downtown New York office is anything but confining. All itraffic departments share ideas, says Matthias, who's constantly speaking over his cubicle or walking over to talk to his fellow staffers in creative. "I actually enjoy that environment because it's conducive to communication," he adds.

Mission Possible
The term "standardization" is bandied about quite liberally in the Internet ad industry, but Matthias would like to take the notion a step further than simply discussing ad format and file sizes. He'd like advertisers to move away from certain floating rich media formats that "consumers are starting to see as pop-up-like," and migrate toward full-page pre-stitial ads that play before a site page loads. "All categories should adopt it universally so the consumer will accept it quicker," he opines.

And that's not all. Full-page formats shouldn't allow for skip functions, contends Matthias. "Consumers aren't stupid. They understand they get a lot of value in the content they get for free."

Do you know someone who deserves a salute from MediaPost's In the Trenches? Let us know! Contact Kate Kaye at kate@mediapost.com.