Much of the discussion on this morning’s ILM:08 panel titled “Localizing the Ad Nets: Display Channels” revolved around discussion of what was to become of the display ad network environment in 2009. Panelists Shawn Riegsecker (CEO of Centro) and Russ Fradin (CEO of Adify) had differing views on this area. Fradin expects the display market to decline in the single-digit range in 2009, while Riegsecker is still optimistic about the display market and is projecting 20 percent growth for his own company in this space in the next year.

Fradin believes we cannot ignore that some industries that have been driving this space, like mortgage or credit companies and auto dealers, are nearly going out of business and that we’re starting to see wholesale pricing drops in CPMs. To that point, the panel, which included Lat49 President and COO Keith Ippel, agreed that CPM rates, which had been holding steady in the $8 to $10 range for the past couple of years, declined to the $6 to $7 range this year.

Ippel, meanwhile, took more of a middle-of-the-road approach, believing that display spend would be stable, helped out by the consumer products industry. Ippel believes we can’t lose sight of the P&G’s of the world as they tend to spend more in a down year as they try to maintain or gain market share.

Another interesting takeaway regarding 2009 was the view from the panelists that ad spending for both social networks and mobile is going to take a hit next year as those media are considered experimental and will be the first to go in ad budget planning.

In 1996, one of our keynote speakers at a Kelsey conference was Greg Riker, who was vice president of technology at Microsoft and responsible for “wearable technologies.” A lot of what he did sounded like science fiction, but what he was testing has now become part of our daily lives.

In that vein, every year we conduct a session that we call The Next Wave Interview at ILM. Mike Liebhold, senior researcher at The Institute for the Future, was kind enough to take a break from a conference his organization was running on “Blended Realities,” or how our ordinary lives are becoming increasingly digital, to share some of his thoughts on the future. Liebhold has a biography that could easily fill two full columns in The New York Times. He has been a researcher at Intel Labs, developed large-scale IT services and IP networks for rural and remote regions of the world, been a senior consulting architect at Netscape, served as chief technology officer for Times Mirror publishing and a senior scientist for Apple Computer, essentially serving as John Scully’s right-hand man for technology.

The Institute for the Future is a 40-year-old not-for-profit organization spun off from the Rand Corp., and Liebhold’s job is to study the impact of communications on society. He helps enterprises think systematically about the future. “I don’t spend much time on what’s happening today; I tend to look out at what will be available in five years.”

In his discussion with conference organizer Peter Krasilovsky, Liebhold went on to say that we are becoming an urban planet — soon 50 percent of the population will live in a city. We are passing through a very important inflection or tipping point where phones aren’t just phones, they are computers. (During ILM, we heard several speakers say that the iPhone was a game-changer, and Michael Boland held a fascinating session on local iPhone demos.) Prices on smartphones are coming down … Liebhold said there are some subsidized smart mobile phones available for $79. As a result, he predicts “in five years, everyone will be able to afford a mobile computer.”

What is of equal importance is the opening of the mobile Web. Today the carriers still control the networks, but these “walled gardens” will fade fast. Liebhold is a strong proponent of open systems, and he believes it is just a matter of time before “our environments are going to talk to us.” He said that in most every talk he gives that kind of statement makes people nervous about privacy, but he cautioned that location tracking has to be done on an opt-in basis, and he believes that people will opt in. An important element of this is geoRSS. This is a grass-roots development of location-based data that most major companies have adopted as a standard to make sure it works across the board.

It appears that Riker’s wearable technology is fast upon us and Liebhold underscored the theme of Interactive Local Media 2008: Extending Local Channels.

The phone is quickly advancing as a means of pushing out ad-sponsored content that mimics some of the popular mobile advertising features.

Greg Webster of VoodooVox, at ILM:08, debuted some of the new features of the company’s In-Call Media group, demonstrating additional marketing opportunities via on-hold messages, “pre-call” messages when using calling cards, and distribution over a network of telephone audio outlets such as 1-800-FREE-411, radio stations and major call centers. Many of the major functions include sending information to your mobile phone and being able to push a button to get extended information beyond a typical :09 message now utilized on the network. The ICM interface allows advertisers to set up their own campaign, direct it to specific states and even defined DMAs.

Two case studies clearly showed the power of this emerging media. One study involved the promotion of an event aimed at Hispanics by Food4Less, which utilized “pre-call” messages on calling cards used in identified Hispanic communities. The net result of this campaign was a 40 percent increase in awareness, a 15 percent increase in attendance and a 35 percent increase in new customers. Another approach used by Buena Vista International targeted radio station on-hold messages to promote a limited release movie aimed at teen girls.  The real aim of this new media approach is to take advantage of lost sales opportunities while customers are on hold with messages that are more relevant and appealing rather than simply playing “Muskrat Love” or “your call is important to us.” Much like mobile phone advertising, in-call media aims to provide a more intimate connection with customers to drive specific actions or to raise awareness. 

This isn’t a brand-new item but is something I just noticed: Yellowbook.com now offers the ability for users to rate businesses and read the reviews of others.

The reason this is notable is that the IYP for a while was a holdout in not doing this, with the assertion that there wasn’t enough demand among its users to guarantee enough review content to make it worthwhile. This joins a series of recent moves by the IYP including redesigns, SMB video, a recent partnership with YouTube, etc. (listed here). All good moves.