The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has formed another committee. Actually, the official name of the group is “Associate Member Board,” and its purpose is to help the IAB better represent the
interactive advertising industry by paying more attention to “companies whose business supports the sale of interactive advertising and marketing.”
Basically, these are the companies that supply
the Internet ad industry with tools – ad servers, rich media vendors, researchers and the like, who until now didn’t have their own committee within the IAB.
According to the official announcement,
“representing the perspective of companies that support the interactive advertising industry, associate member companies will work with the IAB Board in identifying and prioritizing key issues and
initiatives the industry will undertake to improve the overall effectiveness and efficiencies of the business.”
Generally speaking, you don’t want to get me started on committees and other groups
that do nothing but meet once a quarter (if that often) to talk about establishing subcommittees that "outline next steps” and report back to the other subcommittees that in turn report to the
committee that reports to the board, which decides that the subcommittees are “on the right track” with their meeting schedules.
That said, I do think the IAB is on the right track with today's
intiative for two reasons. First, I think it’s good for the IAB to pay attention to someone other than the biggest sites. Second, the star power here is hard to ignore -- Atlas DMT's President Tom
Sperry has been named Chairman of the AMB. Joining him on the board are Lynn Bolger, EVP, Agency Development at comScore Media Metrix; Nick Nyhan, CEO of Dynamic Logic; Gal Trifon, CEO of Eyeblaster;
John Vincent, CEO of EyeWonder; Lee Smith, COO & President, InsightExpress; Charles Buchwalter, VP Client Analytics, Nielsen//NetRatings; and Richard Hopple, CEO of Unicast -– all people well known
for actually getting things done in this industry.
As Sperry put it, "Now, more than ever, the success of the industry depends not only on cooperation, but identifying those areas of commonality
which are necessary for the industry to grow with direction and purpose."
I'm strangely optimistic that this group will find the right direction. You?