On Monday of this week, the first meeting of the ARF Online Media Council was held. I am privileged to be chair of this council. The mission of this group is “to promote the establishment of accurate, reliable and acceptable measurements in the areas of planning, buying and assessing the efficacy of online media as marketing tools.” What, you say?

I think changing the way the upfront marketplace works is an excellent idea. And if doing so would accommodate the inclusion of online media, which would also be of interest. The real problem is, however, that the entire idea of the upfront marketplace is an antiquated one that needs to be not only changed, but likely dispensed with all together.

We all know that Interactive media planning can be a combination of science and voodoo, but one intangible element that has festered at the base of my skull when proposing a site consideration list is whether an endemic online brand is stronger or weaker than the extension of an offline brand on the web?

Every online media department needs some entry-level help at one point or another. This week, I thought I would tell you all a bit about what I look for when I’m hiring someone for an entry-level online media spot. (With a little luck, pretty soon things will pick up in the industry and we’ll all need to do some hiring…)

It’s my first week on the Spin Board, and I thought I’d be able to come out of the gate with pom-poms waving (notice I’m the only girl in the group), but no such luck. Why, you ask? Simply put, the pending war.

Narrowing down creative executions to the most successful can lead advertisers down a dead-end path. Interpreting creative results isn’t just about what ad made how much of a return on investment. It’s also about discovering the very mechanisms that make people interact with the advertiser’s brand and makes them purchase. This process should lead to a profusion of additional creative concepts and executions – not lead to a winnowed down, “optimized” few.

We have all been over the debate time and again regarding just what it is that online media can accomplish better: branding or direct response. It is my feeling that this debate has, thankfully, been settled with a resounding “both.”

This price fixing on CDs is just one more example of the perversity and lack of forethought by an industry that, if for just one instant had thought straight, would have benefited exponentially by the development and growth of the Internet.

One of the deficiencies I see in direct marketing, especially online, is the failure on the part of some marketers to differentiate prospective customers and their existing customers. Many times, when I sign up for a business service, the company I sign up with still treats me like a prospect. I still get acquisition messages, both online and offline. This is a big problem.

This week I want to discuss another way a lack of faith is manifest among the advertising community. This lack of faith is not borne of a solipsistic market sampling of the self. Rather, it is because there is doubt about the value of interactive media compared to those media with which a client has more familiarity.