And Then there was One

History has gone through cycles of consolidation and decentralization. The Internet world is no exception. News Corp. and NBC are looking to capitalize on their combined talents rather than go it alone. This joint video-venture site has yet to be named but it is going to be one of the largest ad platforms to hit the Web, according to a MediaPost article.

Extensive distribution deals with company like Microsoft's MSN and Time Warner's AOL will allow this site to reach 96 percent of the U.S. Web audience. This reason alone has got advertiser scrambling to become part of this phenomenon. For advertisers, the ease of going to just one site to reach the majority of a viewing audience will change the way advertisers do business.

The article also stated that it's unclear the roll that pre-rolled ads would play in this new site, but with so much hype surrounding it the possibilities are endless. When considering ad placement and media buying don’t discount this new platform.

Consolidating Online Media Buying

Advertisers can now target ads to run in newspapers and specific markets by using Web based buying systems such as Google, according to a News.com article. When radio and television stations have unsold inventory, they can sell the remainder online at the last minute. They can sell at a local level, which would be impossible otherwise. It's about consolidation, a one-stop site instead of calling every station. Other benefits of this method include: decreased prices, and allowing smaller companies opportunities they would not normally gain.

Google is leading the pack and has plans for a test involving more than 100 advertisers and more than 60 newspapers. Its automated advertising system for radio, Google Audio Ads, now works with 700 stations in 20 metro markets. This system is efficient, cost-effective, and flexible, since Google allows advertisers to shift ad campaigns around easily between markets and different sections of the newspapers.

This is the way of the future, and it is only a matter of time before all media buying is done in this fashion. Smaller companies can now compete with larger ones due to a level playing field. Corporations also need to understand, which Google has mastered, the ubiquitous business mantra of "change or die." If companies want to survive they need to realize that marketing is not static, but dynamic and fluid in nature.