• by Masha Geller , April 14, 2003

In the beginning of this year, Paul DeBraccio and his online rep firm Interevco conducted a simple survey of nearly 600 of the top industry minds asking them about the Biggest Obstacle and the Biggest Red Herring to industry growth. The survey received a 12% response rate and although it's not the usual "Landmark Study" that we report on every week, it yielded some interesting results about the industry.

Paul promised our readers would be interested in the results (or he owes me a martini,) so here goes.

The main question was "What do you think has been the Red Herring in the Online Ad Industry?" Respondents said that Lack of Education of Buyers is the #1 reason for all sorts of [problems.] The biggest percentage of responders (13.1%) thought that click-through rate discussions are a waste of time. The second anti-productivity prize went to Branding vs. Direct Response debates (7.9%). Almost 7% of the respondents though that banner ads debates are ridiculous, followed closely by pop-up debates (6.6% thought these were a waste) and Reach Frequency debates.

Six topics annoyed the online luminaries equally (3.9% each) - CPA deals debates, the need for Performance Metrics discussions, Gator debates, ad size standards conversations, the "collapse of the Internet," and rich media. "T&C's standards" and "agencies creating digital-only sub agencies" both annoyed 2.6% of the respondents.

Some other time-wasters mentioned in the survey responses were "trying to apply traditional media standards online," "Focus on ROI only," the "need for larger ad units" and "Is online taking over or replacing old media?"

I'm not sure we should stop talking about any of the above, but it's nice to know I'm not the only one seeing red every time I hear "Branding vs. D.R."