GoogleBurner is coming your way

What Is The Value Of Online Display Ads?: "Now that Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and WPP have spent collectively $10.4 billion to acquire the largest online display ad platform companies (DoubleClick, Right Media, aQuantive, and 24/7 Real Media) on the bet that display ads will be a key driver of growth for online ad spending, it’s fair to ask exactly what the value of an online display ad is."

The answer? Pretty bleak: display banners can "foster familiarity" but since the advertisers themselves obsess over clicks, the ROI is pretty low.

Google AdSense, on the other hand, is sucking away larger and larger chunks of the online budgets every month. Why? Because GoogleAds "use the format of the universal call to action on the web — the text link."

Interesting to see what happens when (or rather, if) Google buys Feedburner, "the leading provider of media distribution and audience engagement services for blogs and RSS feeds". RSS advertising is coming our way and my bet is, that it's going to be mainly text-based too.

Who'll serve the ads? "GoogleBurner" will. Who'll buy them? The same advertisers who are happy with GoogleAds' ROI. But who will be the media? The usual suspects (portal sites and other online media), but also the bloggers. I know some of the bloggers love reading RSS feeds for its ad-lessness, but when they can make money by inserting AdSense (or DoubleClick) ads in their own blog's feed, believe me: they will.

UPDATE (May 23 2007): $100 Million Payday For Feedburner - This Deal Is Confirmed.

Internet advertising complaint department is very busy

The (British) Advertising Standards Authority has just published their 2006 Annual Report: the changing face of advertising. This report (.pdf) reveals that (in the U.K.) the number of complaints about internet advertising in rose by 33%, which makes is the 2nd most complained non-broadcast format. Five years ago, in 2001, the Internet ranked as the eighth most complained about of all nonbroadcast media.
This has of course to do with the importance of internet as an advertising medium. And with the fact that the online audience does not hesitate to use it's own medium backchannel to complain about advertising that is offensive to them.
Curious? Have a look at the Top 10 most complained about ads: the number one is a really weird ad from the Gay Police Association.
The ASA is, by the way, not able to sanction "faulty" internet ads. But they do have a clear mission: "It isn't just the change in advertising that has been remarkable over recent decades, but where and how that advertising appears." The challenge is not to create innovative advertising, but to make sure advertising techniques and concepts remain "legal, decent, honest and thruthful - and socially responsible too."

Found via 901am.com.