• by Jonathan Blum , August 24, 2006

A stubborn old-media video problem is beginning to appear in new media: What exactly are marketers getting when they buy a video spot online? While Web sites strive to create a unified marketing message, their ad sales efforts are anything but.

Most of the better video Web sites are complex marketing agglomerations that sell their cache of media inventory through many different storefronts.

Web sites peddle stand-alone ads that can either be purchased directly from the Web or through ad sales teams working under an online brand.

Take ESPN.com, for example. ESPN offers places extensive information for marketers right on its home page, through which ad buyers can link directly to an ad sales force ready to sell ESPN's ad space. Media buyers are a few clicks away from spending their money.

But ESPN is also attached to Walt Disney Co. and its myriad ad channels (film, cable, broadcast, and print). Conglomerates such as Disney like to offer exposure on their other properties to sweeten deals, so an ESPN TV buy might also include a video spot on espn.com. But what does that mean for the ads a buyer can get just by going online and clicking a link?

Complicating the situation even further for marketers, most Web sites are members of ad syndication networks. These networks resell the same video ad inventory yet again to more audiences.

The ad sales channels for ad networks are complex. There are behavioral targeting networks such as Revenue Science, which leverage Web user histories to target ads; contextual advertisers like Clicksor, which use similar tools; and geographic networks and direct targeting outfits like AdDynamics.

Marketers are confused. There are no maps and no scorecards. Online marketing, particularly for video, is becoming a headache.

"It's the big worry," says a marketing manager at a major online advertiser who requested anonymity. "With so many salespeople selling what's in effect the same Web opportunity, I question what I am paying for."

Agency buyers and planners bristle at the notion that they cannot manage the complexities of modern multitouch marketing environments.

"We haven't run into (this) situation enough to label it a problem," says Kari Hooper, associate media director of Starcom USA, a Chicago-based advertising and buying agency. "The means by which new media is sold via integrated sales channels is progressing nicely."

Although Hooper thinks ad channels remain separate and distinct, and thus easy for marketers to differentiate, the subtleties are lost on marketers.

The anonymous marketing manager adds: "I find it just like the old days of buying fringe day parts on television. You try to save money by buying 'Seinfeld' in syndication but you wind up in 'Judge Judy.' And the client goes haywire when they see the crummy buy at home. It's a nightmare."