• by Adam Bernard , May 8, 2001

Online advertising was both defended, and criticized last week at a Credit Suisse First Boston media and broadband conference in New York. While the concept of advertising online was defended, the way things are done today was not.

Now, online advertising is hoping to be viewed as a means of increasing a company's productivity and profits, according to a panel at the conference. In a nutshell, the general feeling was that in order to have online advertising perform at its highest potential, it's not just a matter of finding the right way to advertise, but the right advertisers.

DoubleClick's Chief Executive, Kevin Ryan, noted that people don't go online for information about detergent, but instead look for information about cars, technology, insurance, and travel, and it's those latter companies that can benefit from online advertising.

How those companies should advertise on the net is a major question now, with so many options, from banners, to pop-ups, the way a company chooses to advertise can have a major impact on a campaign. A concept that has taken off recently is email marketing, which generates higher click through rates than traditional banner ads.

Myer Berlow, President of worldwide interactive marketing at AOL Time Warner Inc., feels that there isn't much of a future for email marketing, though, cautioning that if it gets overused it will just become spam. Of course, email marketing companies would disagree, citing the large number of deals recently signed to deliver television style ads into people's email boxes.

It's ironic that after saying they were going to defend the concept of online advertising, panelists went on to talk about everything that is wrong with the industry. And no definitive answer as to how to make it all work was arrived at.

- Adam Bernard may be reached at Adambernard@mediapost.com