What's the brand value of residual impressions that aren't clicked on? Jon Diorio, group manager, AdWords at Google, says he is often asked this question. They do focus group studies to find out.Here's what happened in the food/snack category. Brand lift rose depending on placement of the test brand, at the top of the organic list or on the side, for example. And, he says in agreement with Pavan Lee of Microsoft, Google was able to see how competitors' brands suffered by the search advertiser's presence! So a good offense really works here! Diorio advises, "Don't buy paid …

Pavan Lee of Microsoft Advertising is talking about the difficulty in studying Sony because of its high favorability rating, in the 90s, among consumers. However, it did find that branded terms were more effective in driving brnd lift than generic terms. Sony got a 9-point lift in "intent to buy" and a 5-point lift in "likely to recommend." Interesting point here: Exposure to search drove a less positive attitude toward competitors' brands, she says, which Microsoft found "surprising." Lee says they found a 10-point difference between the ROI of paid search versus organic search, adding that she thinks …

Panelists agreed that mobile differs from other platforms not only in its ubiquity but in its utility; Berman said the mobile phone is becoming everyone's "alarm clock, wallet, music player" among other things. "It's becoming the dominant utility," he said. B/c the cell phone is such a powerful and personal device, Nokia's Jeremy Wright said it would change agencies that figure out how to tailor marketing and advertising to the medium would be able to charge more for their services. But while mobile phones may be a highly useful utility for people wherever they go, it doesn't necessarily follow …

Asked about when mobile advertising other than text-messaging will scale by moderator Steve Smith, Webster Lewin of MS&L Digital, instead emphasized the strength of mobile for niche marketing campaigns because its the most personal device that people have, compared to PCs and TVs. "It's about reaching influencers, said Lewin. Larry Harris, president of Ansible said reach isn't really a discussion at the company. He stressed the measurability of mobile media and the benefit to brands of reaching people who have typically opted in to receive marketing messages. AT&T's Jordan Berman, not surprisingly, focused back on the ubiquity of cell …

How does Avenue A/Razorfish deal with the matter of social media metrics? “With a great deal of humility,” said Shiv Singh, the agency’s Vice President of Social Media & Global Strategic Initiatives. “We’re all learning as we go along.” What does Avenue A say to a client when it’s become clear that they’ve made a mistake, or, perhaps worse, when no clear campaign response can be measured? “Look on the bright side,” Singh says he tells the client. “We only used a small portion of your overall budget.” (Measured laughter from the audience.)

Josh Quittner, editor at large, Time, Chris Anderson editor in chief at Wired magazine both agreed that home pages are an aspect of wired and wireless that is shrinking as people go directly to content. "We live in world of hyperlinks, a  river of conversation, where individual stories rise on thier own merits," says Anderson. Quittner noted that New York Times for iPhone has one advertiser on the home page.  "So how do you monitize free content on digital devices?" he asks. Anderson, who noted that one advertiser is fine if the price is right, added that, besides …

The answer to effectively monetizing social networks, according to Anderson (who himself claims to be too ‘wired’ to partake in the medium), is hyper vertical content segmentation. At that point, advertising has the opportunity to become so relevant that’s it as attractive to consumers as content itself. The distinction between content and advertising fundamentally blurs.

With the Chrome web browser, is Google aiming to cut off Microsoft, Quittner asks. Without really answering the question, Anderson says the real question is whether we should be worried about Google overall? Neither good nor evil, continued Anderson, Google is fundamentally a company driven by math -- true and altruistic -- making it perhaps Darwinian principal at work. Then why is Google responsible for so many (‘till-now) unsuccessful projects and services? That’s not a failure of the underlining philosophy that math always wins, says Anderson.

So, "Where’s the Wired magazine app (as in web application)," asks Josh Quittner, Editor-at-Large Time, Inc, of Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief, Wired Magazine. “It’s the first thing I’m really getting excited about in a decade,” said Quittner. Without really answering the question, Anderson said parent CondeNet does have some dedicated iPhone app’s. Right now we think of the iPhone as a great web browser, said Anderson. “I really don’t like the web browsing as much as the pure apps,” Quittner said in retort. The debates goes on...