SpectatorBytes

Over the past couple of years, I have advised the digital companies with which I am and have been involved to minimize their marketing spending. Instead, I have advocated that management teams focus on product development and maximizing distribution, which I strongly believe is a superior recipe for success.
The list of digital products that [...]

We are entering a new stage on the Web. Significant elements of the digital publishing, video, advertising and social media infrastructure have been laid out. Scale winners in each of these ecosystems have emerged such as YouTube, Wordpress, Facebook, MySpace, Advertising.com, Google’s Ad Sense, etc. Now, new players are emerging as a second wave [...]

As I evaluate how the display advertising environment is evolving, I have come to realize that the advertising agencies still have a significant opportunity to recapture their leverage in the marketplace. Today, ad networks have most of the leverage in the display marketplace. The display ecosystem has been built around advertising networks whose primary [...]

This week, I had an interesting conversation around the value of Marketing for consumer products on the Web. In my chat, I was guiding a company in which I am involved to rethink their marketing spend. The young company believed that spending on Marketing was critical to support their products in the highly competitive [...]

I have written several posts about the need for offering innovative ad solutions to brand advertisers. I wanted to share a couple of solutions for brand advertisers that two companies in our portfolio have developed (obviously I have a vested interest in the success of these two companies). Nevertheless, I think that they are offering [...]

Some interesting news came out GM today (see GM roars Forward Into Digital Ad Channels). This suggests brand advertisers are finally ready to commit significant spending to digital media. This is certainly good news for the industry, and in particular for companies that are creating solutions specifically designed to serve brand advertisers.
GM’s [...]

I recently came across an article in Ad Age that urged us to think differently and consider a scenario in which the Web is not a medium suited for advertising (Think Different: Maybe the Web’s Not a Place to Stick Your Ads). While the argument is well constructed, I believe the author may [...]