Forrester Report on Interactive Marketing

Just amazing to see the growth here:

All Channels Lead To The Consumer

According to a new Forrester Research report released at the Forrester Consumer Forum 2007 in Chicago, interactive marketing spending in the US will more than triple over the next five years, reaching $61 billion by 2012. The growth in interactive marketing spending represents a 27 percent compound annual growth rate over the next five years, and interactive marketing, 8 percent of all ad spending, will grow to 18 percent of total ad budgets in five years.

Forrester Research Principal Analyst Shar VanBoskirk, said "As firms continue to make customer centricity a higher priority, they will recognize that maintaining separate marketing teams to manage different sets of channels that all target the same customers makes no sense," ... (as) interactive technologies gradually infiltrate... such traditional paragons as television, billboards, and direct mail... the concept of a separate interactive marketing organization will disappear."

Based in part on a survey of 344 interactive marketing professionals and their budget decisions affecting display ads, search, email marketing, online video, and emerging media (social, mobile, and advergaming). Forrester's breakdown of spending includes the following:

Search marketing will triple in five years. Mainstream marketers' aggressive use of search marketing will grow the category at a CAGR of 26 percent to $25 billion by 2012 due to the increasing costs of paid search, additional spending on optimization tools and services, and international expansion

Display advertising will reach $14 billion by 2012. Display ads will be a key factor in the interactive marketing budget by having an essential supporting role for all interactive campaigns

Services and integration will drive email marketing growth. Spending will focus on improving email relevancy with analytics and data management, and will grow to more than $4 billion by 2012

Online video ads will significantly increase. Growing consumer adoption of online video will result in a dramatic 72 percent increase in online video ad spending to $7.1 billion by 2012. More customer-centric online video applications will increase the medium's appeal for consumers and marketers

Social media will drive emerging channels to $10 billion by 2012. Mainstream adoption will boost spending in emerging channels such as social media, mobile, game marketing, widgets, podcasts, and RSS. Spending on social media alone will grow to $6.9 billion.

Mobile marketing will grow to $2.8 billion. As consumers become increasingly tied to personal computing handsets, they'll want to extend their mobile utility to accommodate transactions. This transition will drive mobile marketing to grow to $2.8 billion by 2012.

VanBoskirk adds "These changes will... give interactive marketing professionals a more legitimate seat at the marketing table... with interactive marketing gaining executive visibility.. for its popularity with young consumers (as well as) measurability and cost effectiveness... "

For the complete release, visit here, or the US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2007 To 2012 is available from Forrester here.

Fortune Article on Google Stock Price

Geoff Colvin of Fortune actually did the analysis I was hoping would get done on the Google stock price. EVA analysis does a nice job of breaking down the assumptions that must play out to support a stock price. Then you can determine if the assumptions make sense. At $500, Colvin says it doesn't. This is the same analysis that said CSCO was overpriced at $85 as well as a host of other companies...it was right.

Great for conversation as the google price sits at $675 as of 10/26/07 and price targets are as high as $800.

We'll see what happens over the next 2-3 years.

Don't go gaga over Google
The business is a dynamo. The stock is a pipe dream, says Fortune's Geoff Colvin.
FORTUNE Magazine
By Geoff Colvin, Fortune senior editor-at-large
July 24 2007: 3:59 AM EDT

Interview with P&G CMO

Great insights about how the largest advertiser in the world is looking at marketing now and into the next few years.

Makes some strong statements about mobile and its potential.

Selling P&G
How do you sell $76 billion of consumer goods? One brand at a time. Fortune's Geoff Colvin talks with Jim Stengel.
FORTUNE Magazine
By Geoff Colvin, Fortune senior editor-at-large
September 18 2007: 9:58 AM EDT

See the interview

Interesting names in Out of Home Media

A couple names of companies doing some interesting things in this space...

JC Decaux
SeeSaw Networks

Second Life and Business: IBM making a bet

IBM is making a smart move by figuring out how to use second life and other virtual worlds for business purposes. Would be a killer app for collaboration, etc. Making it an open platform would be amazing if combined with a Skype and some resource/project management/document storage tool such as basecamp.

Reuters Article - Oct. 24, 2006
TechCrunch Posting - Oct. 10, 2007
Second Life and Business - SecondLife.com