• by Ross Fadner , July 28, 2004

Yahoo!'s Chief Sales Officer Wenda Harris Millard delivered a loud rallying cry worthy of the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday to attendees of Jupiter Media's Advertising Forum in New York. Despite Wall Street's lukewarm reception of Internet stocks of late, Millard prompted Madison Avenue's interactive community to be bullish about its future.

"It was the beginning of the tipping point that will forever change the balance of media," Millard proclaimed of 2003. She noted how traditional marketers' complaints about the television upfront process hit new heights this year--a fact that, combined with the impressive growth of a medium that has found new accountability to measure its successes, should empower marketers to put their faith (dollars) in this Brave New World of opportunity.

Millard noted that fear and failure will be the greatest barriers to progress and creativity. "The impetus for change has never been greater in the marketing and media world," she stated, adding that the aversion to change is great, but results will not change if the media mix stays the same.

Millard remarked that the shifting media landscape is driven by the changing habits of consumers. She said that digital video recorders (DVRs) like TiVo aren't merely about ad-skipping: DVRs are about consumers being programmers. According to Millard, trends like this underline the fact that the future of media is about relinquishing control to the consumer.

Recent results from studies conducted by Yahoo!, Carat Interactive, and Starcom MediaVest Group support this by revealing that the Internet has become the number one media choice for teens and women. Earlier in the day, Jupiter analyst Gary Stein noted that the Internet is also currently the fastest-growing media. However, this is a recent phenomenon, and it will take time for marketers--especially brand advertisers--to react accordingly.

Yahoo!'s Millard said these advertisers are getting savvier. "Two-thousand three was the year when most major advertisers stopped asking 'why' and started asking 'how,'" she said. Stein, citing Jupiter Research's projections for industry growth, noted that he's heard the same thing from interactive agencies. "I keep hearing that agencies no longer need to sell online, they just need to show their ideas," he said.

While Millard was bullish about online's future prospects, new Jupiter research shows that she has every reason to feel that way. According to the new forecast, online spending will grow from $8.4 billion to $16.1 billion in 2009, surpassing magazines; forty-nine percent of the online spend will go to the major online portals, including Google, America Online, MSN, and Millard's Yahoo!