Painting a picture far less bleak than Bob Garfield did with his Chaos Manifesto, DoubleClick Director of Research Rick Bruner has published The Decade in Online Advertising, a look back at the history of online advertising as well as a look forward to what can be expected in the future. Granted, Garfield’s piece focused on the entire field of advertising while Bruner’s piece focuses on the online segment, there are similarities, namely, the increasing control consumers will have over the consumption of media. Along with the increase in consumer control, Bruner states online media’s accountability will cause marketers to demand more accountability in traditional media and the recent rapid growth of online advertising will turn the medium from a buyer’s market to a seller’s market.
While Garfield has painted the future of advertising as some sort of doomsday, Bruner has produced a fact-filled, optimistic viewpoint of the future. Both, though, are well worth reading. Garfield’s is here. Bruner’s DoubleClick report is here (pdf).
