Expanding on yesterday’s post, another blog post of mine that started as a comment. This time, to Noah, commenting on yesterday’s post

I think there is a TON that can be done with the banner. I have a whole host of thoughts about that – not dissimilar to yours. As you know, we do still take the occasional banner job, and I always find it hilarious how pleasantly surprised our clients are at our abnormally high interaction and clickthrough rates. They’re always wondering what tech or theory we’ve applied, and are always confused when I tell them we just made the banner with a creative approach, from the heart. It’s such a rarity people consider it innovative.

That being said, I do think, broadly speaking, that the banner has a marginal, at best, place in really making a great brand initiative online. What are the great brands that have been built using the web? Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zappo’s, Netflix. Banners have barely been involved. This, I think, is the crux of the issue: to make a great brand online, you need a methodical strategy, a plan, and a lot of manpower. What you don’t need is a lot of paid placement. And our industry still makes its bread and butter on paid placement.

I did an IAB panel not too long ago and the one thing I said that people actually agreed with was that “our industry shot itself in the foot, when it comes to the internet, when we split media and creative.” It was a great idea, given the circumstances at the time. It’s making our job nearly impossible on the internet. There are these media companies that control the money, and they have a massive disincentive to move that money to the Internet, because it’s a lot more work for them, for less money, and less impactful results. This is not just theoretical. I’ve seen it in every single relationship I’ve had with a media company. Clients want to spend more on the internet, so they tell their media company to shift their dollars. But what’s the media company gonna do? Take an effective, lucrative arrangement with CBS and funnel that money into some half-assed content partnership with MSN? They know in their hearts that it’s not as effective, and it’s more work.

That poor CMO’s screwed too, because his extra funds to the internet aren’t being applied correctly. Because where you actually make an impact on the internet is over on the creative and strategy side. Websites, games, branded content and utilities, a social media strategy. Stuff that creative shops make, not media shops. And those shops, who are desperately need of greater funds to make bigger impressions for brands on the internet, cannot get the funds they need, because all the money’s locked over on the media side. And then the media side try and make all of that stuff, to capture the revenue, but they don’t have any good digital creatives, because what great digital creative would want to work at Giant Media Company X, when they could be working here or at RGA? It’s a total mess.

The solution, obviously, is for companies like us to get into Planning, as RGA has. This, of course, has it’s own set of problems – economies of scale on purchases, executing the purchases, and the need for a new type of smarter, more web-savvy media planner who views a Twitter feed or an ad on the Massive network in-game or a blog mention as viable media channels just as much as a Yahoo! partnership or search. And the old media companies are no dummies, of course, so whenever such media planners do crop up, those companies snap them up immediately. Usually somewhere around their fourth interview here, since, you know, it’s our first one, and we want to be careful. Ha. So it’s a slog. But one I think, over time, we can prevail in. It’s gonna take another 2-3 years, though. But even then, the bulk of major marketer’s money will be locked up at the Group Ms of the world, and even as more money is shifted to the internet, the bulk of it will be wasted on half-assed creative and ill-conceived partnerships, not providing value for anyone and tainting CMO’s view of the efficacy of interactive advertising.

Another theoretical solution for this would be to see the Aegis/Carat’s of the world really truly properly integrate their creative boutique offerings (such as, in their case, FarFar) as part of the big picture from the getgo when planning an online marketing spend, but here you get to the last, ugly but undeniable truth.

You have a million dollars of a client’s money to spend online. Which is more profitable? Give it to a boutique studio that has a team of 15 expensive people on the project, with high overhead costs and a lot of freelancer bills, or to give it to Yahoo, and take 25% profit off the top, and assign one media guy to oversee it? The profit pressure is immense to just give it to Yahoo.

But which is more effective for the client? 15 of the best people in the world building something great and unique for your brand, or another freakin’ bland content partnership with a portal, and some banner ads?