Yesterday, Chris Cummings,Yellow Pages Association chair and Marquette Group CEO,   accepted our invitation to deliver a featured presentation at Directional Media Strategies ‘09. He will speak on the event’s opening day, Sept. 22.

Cummings joins a powerful list of directory company CEOs who will address DMS, which for the first time is being co-presented by the YPA. Joining Cummings as featured speakers are Frank Jules, president and CEO, AT&T Advertising Solutions; Donat Retif, CEO of Truvo; and Dave Swanson, chairman and CEO of R.H. Donnelley.

Cummings is a longstanding industry leader from the national side of the business. He is the first CMR ever to serve as the association’s chair. He can offer a view of the industry today from the point of view of national advertisers. He can also talk about what the industry needs to do collectively to succeed.

Liberty Media head John Malone, the man who conceptualized the “500 channel” universe and led the cable TV revolution in the 1980s, told an audience at The WSJ’s D7 conference in Carlsbad, California, that he sees the need for local news and local advertising, but doesn’t clearly know how to create a successful local product.

”What’s the role of localism?” Malone asked, according to a transcript of his interview.  “Will all advertising go national? Will all content go national? I really don’t have an answer.”

Malone added that “Barry Diller has been trying to build out Citysearch for a long time, and it’s a real struggle for him. He’s about break-even on it.”

Malone, who has been a major investor in IAC, and recently tried to wrestle control of the company away from Diller, emphasized that he didn’t want to provide any inside information about Citysearch. “I don’t want to give away any secrets,” he said.

Conjuring up Twitter’s business model takes a lot of imagination. But founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone, speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s D conference in Carlsbad, California, said the name of the game will be “enhanced capabilities” aimed at small- business and professional users — something supported by a WSJ poll showing that 24 percent of Twitter users would pay for it.

“Twitter is information dissemination,” said Williams, on video from the conference. Small businesses use it to connect to their customers and build relationships. Commercial users use it for customer support and marketing communications.

One capability that is being discussed is to show “who is behind the Twitter account,” Williams noted. “Maybe that is something we reveal. Authenticity is important on organizational accounts.”

Williams added that the 45-person company is focused on three things going forward: scaling, beefing up the value proposition, and making it easier to “get at tons and tons of information. We disseminate information and build relationships continually,” he summarized. “Everyone has a use for one or both of these things.”

There was a great deal of valuable content and takeaways from last week’s Winning Media Strategies conference. In case you weren’t able to attend or catch any of the webcast, here is a roundup of our own coverage (also see MediaWeek write-up).

More From WMS ’09: How to Get an ‘A’ in Online Display

Last week at the Winning Media Strategies conference, AOL’s Platform-A called out the imbalance of supply and demand that currently exists in online display advertising. With respect to ad impressions, the supply side has exploded in the past few years with the changing ways that people are interacting with online media. The increase in page views from things like social networking, for example, has created a glut of inventory. (read more…)

WMS ’09: Local Advertisers Talk About Their Ad Choices

Local advertisers speaking at WMS ’09 in Washington, D.C., this morning had plenty to say about how they perceive their choices in advertising, online and off. Dianne Bonanno, senior manager, marketing communications, The Graduate School, said that her adult education company is doing good business. “In a downturn, people invest in themselves and institutions,” she noted. (read more…)

WMS ’09: Radio, TV Seek to Extend Reach via Wireless

Emmis Communications President and CEO Jeff Smulyan, speaking at WMS ’09 in Washington, D.C., said radio chips beat cell towers in cases of emergency communications, and can be put into every mobile phone for 50 cents or less — a message he had just been pushing in a day of lobbying on Capitol Hill. The entire installation would be just $1 to $2 per phone. (read more…)

The Sales Debate at WMS ’09: Interactive Specialist or Sell-It-All?

As more and more digital products and partnerships are introduced, a real debate is emerging whether they can be sold by a traditional media sales type who may be more focused on core product, have limited time to make his or her case (and apparently, a “C student” as well). (read more…)

D.C. Insider Dick Wiley at WMS ’09: Broadband Is Top of Agenda

Broadband is at the top of the agenda for the Obama administration and the FCC, with digital TV a close No. 2, according to influential Washington lawyer Dick Wiley, who was speaking at BIA’s Winning Media Strategies. Broadband is going to be “the big one,” with a special focus on underserved, vulnerable parts of the population, said Wiley, a pre-eminent communications lawyer in D.C. who previously served as FCC chairman 30 years ago. (read more…)

WMS ’09: New Tech Is Redefining the TV Experience, Business Models

New digital technologies using ATSC-DTV standards are redefining the TV experience and enabling new business models, said Glenn Reitmeier, VP of tech standards and policy for NBC Universal, who was speaking at BIA’s Winning Media Strategies conference in Washington, D.C. “We are at a really exciting phase” akin to General Sarnoff’s use of radio receivers to redefine the radio industry. (read more…)

WMS ’09: Arbitron Sees ‘Explosive Growth’ of Video, Social Networking, Mobile, Internet Radio

The use of online video, social networking and mobile services has “exploded” in the past year, and Internet radio is a big contender to join this group in 2009, according to Arbitron Executive VP of Sales Pierre Bouvard, who was speaking at BIA’s Winning Media Strategies conference in Washington, D.C. (read more…)

Many Nods Given to Mobile at Winning Media Strategies

One thing that stood out as a theme throughout today’s sessions was the mobile opportunity. It was mostly discussed in terms of how the mobile device can extend the viewing or listening audience in an incremental fashion. “Building on a mature media platform, mobile has the ability to extend home-based viewing,” said Glenn Reitmeier, NBC Universal VP of technology standards and policy. (read more…)

Last week at the Winning Media Strategies conference, AOL’s Platform-A called out the imbalance of supply and demand that currently exists in online display advertising.

With respect to ad impressions, the supply side has exploded in the past few years with the changing ways that people are interacting with online media. The increase in page views from things like social networking, for example, has created a glut of inventory.

The lowered barriers to online interactive services that are at the heart of Web 2.0 have likewise flooded, and fragmented, the market. We no longer see consolidation of traffic on major sites to the degree that we used to. The question then becomes, how do you maximize revenues during all these transitions?

Lynda Clarizio, former president and Eric Bosco, senior VP of operations of Platform-A gave a series of guidelines for Web publishers trying to answer this question:

– Be very choosy: With respect to where you put ad units, create scarcity to lift prices.

– Utility impressions: When possible, bring in social tools or widgets that can have higher engagement levels and can increase ad performance.

– Don’t be shy about testing: This includes A/B testing over ad placement, size, color, copy, etc. This is the business of yield optimization and companies like YieldBuild (which sat on our Digital Hollywood panel earlier this month).

– Bigger isn’t better: Don’t use ad units that take over too much screen real estate. — The future of online advertising will involve multiple platforms (mobile, social, search, video). Partner to gain access to platforms where you don’t “live.”

– Consumer experience is paramount: When doing all of the above, you can experiment with different revenue streams but consumer experience will ultimately drive longer-term revenues. — Advertisers are demanding accountability: This will drive the growth of mobile and search. For other formats, find ways to communicate ROI.

– Most display advertising happens at the top of the tail: the top 300 advertisers that make up for 90 percent of display ad spending. The goal is to move down the tail to attract more SMBs. There is an underserved SMB market, which is adept at using tools like AdWords but needs to be given better tools to create and manage display (a la AdReady).

Local advertisers speaking at WMS ’09 in Washington, D.C., this morning had plenty to say about how they perceive their choices in advertising, online and off.

Dianne Bonanno, senior manager, marketing communications, The Graduate School, said that her adult education company is doing good business. “In a downturn, people invest in themselves and institutions,” she noted.

Advertising-wise, things are changing quickly, as the company seeks to attract decision makers at companies who pay for their employees’ tuition, as well as open enrollment students who are paying for themselves. “We were a lot in print, but as a national institution, we have moved to a lot of online. We’ve added social media, too. It doesn’t cost hardly anything. There are so many free tools. We are taking full advantage of that.”

Bonanno also noted that social media takes the place of a lot of e-mail and other correspondence, which is too cumbersome to manage. The company also advertises in the Washington metro, news channels, news radio and other broadcast networks. Whenever possible, however, Bonanno said it works to put codes in its advertising to measure it.

Jerome Fowlkes, managing member, Broadlands, LLC, a discount haircut company, said it is spending 10 percent of its gross on advertising, in part via co-op campaigns with other haircut stores. It zeroes in on people looking for a deal or a discount, so direct mail efforts like RedPlum work especially well. Newspapers aren’t in the works, however.

“When a newspaper rep calls me, they don’t understand how I think. Basically, I ran a couple of ads with you, and got no response. Now I have moved on.” Fowlkes has also done some Internet marketing, and has aspirations to do more. “I want a more robust-type Web site to bring people in,” he said.

Valerie Passwaiter, assistant marketing manager for Northwest Federal Credit Union (and wife of BIA sales exec Steve Passwaiter) said her company has “benefited from recession in ways we never could have imagined” because credit unions are perceived as safe places to store money and provide good customer service. Her company has recently boosted its marketing budget by 10 percent to leverage the new interest in credit unions.

Some of the money is being spent on a co-op campaign developed by WRC-TV, which lets the credit union use a template ad that has 10 seconds customized for it at the end. Broadcasters aren’t necessarily going to win a larger share of the ad budget, however, “because they don’t listen. They talk at me.”

Newspapers are guilty of some of that as well, but they at least benefit from being a well-known commodity. “I know what they are, where they serve,” she said.

Some of the broadcast advertising has come with a Web site complement. The Web element is well worth the money, she said. “It has the best tracking mechanism. When we ran a campaign for auto loans on WTOP-FM, the Web site part of it on WTOP.com had clickthroughs from banners on top of the page. That $15,000 campaign ultimately was found to bring in $200,000 in car loans during a two-week period — a major success.

Passwaiter would like to use social media more as well. She has seen the success of Verity Credit Union in Washington state, which is paying young bloggers to comment on the good, bad and the ugly as they like. But company executives don’t see the value of it as a marketing tool. “They see daily visits to the fridge; what their kids are doing,” she said. “It is also tough for us to investigate as a tool, except on employees’ own time, because many office locations have restrictive Web site policies.”

Radio and TV station executives and industry groups are seeking to get chips inserted into mobile handsets to extend the reach of their respective programming. And they may do it with federal help as a public safety issue.

Emmis Communications President and CEO Jeff Smulyan, speaking at WMS ’09 in Washington, D.C., said radio chips beat cell towers in cases of emergency communications, and can be put into every mobile phone for 50 cents or less — a message he had just been pushing in a day of lobbying on Capitol Hill. The entire installation would be just $1 to $2 per phone.

“Cell systems jam,” said Smulyan. “They’re only geared to take calls from 32 percent of the population, or something like that. But in an emergency, that goes up to 90 percent.”

The radio chip would have natural business extensions for the radio industry, in addition to providing emergency communications, added Smulyan. “It would change the perception of the [radio] industry as a dinosaur.” And it  would be in the public interest because it would defend radio’s localism. “If you hear a song on the radio [over your phone], you could download it,” he said. “That’s just one application we’re talking about.”

Radio over a mobile phone would also be more appealing than streaming over the Internet because “streaming is very expensive. You have to serve the whole world. But with a chip, you would only serve your local marketplace.”

Meanwhile, the TV folks are also itching to get a chipset onto mobile devices. Anne Schelle, executive director of the Open Mobile Video Coalition, said digital TV viewing is measurable, has unlimited capacity and costs less than a penny an hour for each viewer. It stands in stark contrast to dedicated mobile video channels, which can only handle 25 streams at a time, and have network costs of $4 an hour.

Jerry Fritz, senior vice president, Allbritton Communications, said broadcasters have the right plan, but the logistics will be a challenge. “You have to have five things go together,” he said. “You have to develop the measurement of mobile use. You have to have the manufacturer install the chip. And the broadcaster has to acquire the bandwidth.”

As more and more digital products and partnerships are introduced, a real debate is emerging whether they can be sold by a traditional media sales type who may be more focused on core product, have limited time to make his or her case (and apparently, a “C student” as well).

WMS ’09 participants in Washington, D.C., this week got their fill of the debate. Gordon Borrell of Borrell Associates is clearly of the school that Internet specialists have to be hired. “If you are developing interactive, you can’t do it without salespeople,” he said, encouraging the broadcasters in the audience to budget for more feet in the street, even in these tough times. But, he adds, “I have not seen a single case where people are selling two products,” although “a lot of people are trying to do that.”

Kelsey Group CEO Neal Polachek, however, said the issue is really how we define the idea of a “salesperson.” In this day and age, “a salesperson is not just a salesperson; he is a solution solver,” said Polachek.

“He has to go in and figure out the best way to generate [the client’s] objectives. It might be one place on the wheel, or it might be two places. To go in and say: ‘I am going to sell Gross Ratings Points to you,’ or ‘I am going to sell Internet Yellow Pages to you’ is not going to fly.”

Rob Weisbord, regional group manager and director of digital interactive, Sinclair Broadcast Group, said much of the issue is simply whether the salesperson has the mental bandwidth to handle multiple products. “There are too many C students,” he said. The current environment requires “A students” because “knowledge is the paradigm,” especially as Sinclair tries to “close the loop” of the array of ad products for three screens: TV, PC and mobile.

“They are 360-degree customer solution sellers,” says Weisbord. Consequently, “the best rep comes from a marketing background. We’re looking for athletes. They’re the most competitive.”

Broadband is at the top of the agenda for the Obama administration and the FCC, with digital TV a close No. 2, according to influential Washington lawyer Dick Wiley, who was speaking at BIA’s Winning Media Strategies.

Broadband is going to be “the big one,” with a special focus on underserved, vulnerable parts of the population, said Wiley, a pre-eminent communications lawyer in D.C. who previously served as FCC chairman 30 years ago. “Unfortunately, that isn’t clearly defined,” said Wiley, but a lot of money –$7 billion — is being thrown at it. He noted that $2.5 billion is earmarked for The Rural Utility Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with the impact of making this relatively obscure division a major player in communications policy.

The second big issue for the administration is digital TV, which is finally getting the big switchover from analog signals on June 12 after 22 years of policy development, noted Wiley. Enormous opportunities lie in wait with digital for broadcasters in business, and in regulatory relief. Broadcasters can use digital to extend their core competency in wireless communications and localism, he said. “Here is an area where being a broadcaster is a plus.”

Wiley also said that he doesn’t see the Fairness Doctrine coming back, but that there may be more restrictions on embedded advertising.

New digital technologies using ATSC-DTV standards are redefining the TV experience and enabling new business models, said Glenn Reitmeier, VP of tech standards and policy for NBC Universal, who was speaking at BIA’s Winning Media Strategies conference in Washington, D.C. “We are at a really exciting phase” akin to General Sarnoff’s use of radio receivers to redefine the radio industry.

Reitmeier said what we’re seeing is a new software-based environment that acts as “an application framework” allowing such features as conditional access, subscription pay per view, digital rights management and content downloads. When that is combined with interactive channels, a whole new world opens up, including voting, social networks, e-commerce and targeted ads.

The advances will enable broadcasters to reclaim their fundamental advantage by 2015, said Reitmeier. But it isn’t about the home TV. Fundamentally, consumers just want content on any screen. Devices such as video-enabled phones are exploding, helping achieve growth from this “very mature business.” Non-real time services are also an important part of the equation, including on demand and clipcasting, targeted ad insertion, and location-based preference codes.

Mike Bloxham, director of insight and research at the Center for Media Design at Ball State University, speaking on the same panel, continued on the same theme. Indeed, a recent study by the center quantified 65 different categories of media consumption using four types of screens: TV, computers, mobile and “other,” including GPS, in-screen navigation, etc.

While digital has added diversity at every demographic, Bloxham was quick to note that live TV still dominates and is used 318 minutes per day on average. That includes more than an hour of commercials — more time than is spent viewing news.

Pundits who have written off live TV in favor of the Internet, game consoles and digital video recorders are getting ahead of themselves, he notes. It hasn’t happened yet. Those media are used far less. “Television is a very solid business for many years to come,” says Bloxham.

At the same time, “television” now consists of a mishmash of each platform. There are no ‘TV companies’ anymore, he says. “There is ‘platform promiscuity.’ Consumers don’t care in the slightest if programs coming in via telcos, mobile whatever.”