Wall Street may be down on ad revenue prospects for web sites offering editorial content, but media buyers agree with a recent Forrester Research study that concludes it's just a matter of time before advertisers flock to absorb unused ad inventory.
   "I definitely believe that content sites are an important venue for advertising," says Michael J. Pierre, associate media director with digital@jwt.
    "Content sites allow us to align our clients with content that is important to the consumer, and makes sense for the brand," Pierre says. "The key point of the agencies and the advertisers is to make sure that the content that they are advertising with, or sponsoring, is relevant to what they're advertising."     
    An end-of-the-year report from Forrester Research claimed that web sites currently scrambling to survive on ad revenue will see the light at the end of the tunnel in about two years. Once online ad spending hits $13 billion, as Forrester says it will at that point, content sites will begin to be profitable.
    "Overall, I agree with Forrester’s report," says Merry Heim, vice president, technology group, at Harmelin Media. "I also believe that content sites are and will be a viable venue for advertising."
    Like Forrester, however, Heim doesn’t expect all content sites to last long enough to reap the benefit of an eventual ad bonanza online.
    "It will be ‘survival of the fittest’ for content sites," she says. "Only the biggest, best, and most innovative will survive."
     Some of this innovation may have to do with an ability to provide advertisers with better data.
    "Lately the content sites have been touting the large reach and branding effects of running impressions on their sites to pull in more traditional advertisers comfortable with traditional media measurements," says Jerry Courtney, interactive media strategist for GSD&M.
    "But even traditional brand advertisers are looking to the internet maybe not as a pure direct marketing tool but at least a quasi one. Which means they are expecting some sort of response or effect on sales at some level.
    "The effects of online ‘branding’ need to be specifically quantified by the content sites," Courtney continues. "The deeper information we need is how many consumers were exposed to an add, didn't click, but visited the client's site anyway. That's a branding effect."
    But not all media people are happy with the pat scenarios offered by the likes of this Forrester Report.
    "This is a tricky subject, actually," says Mike Potter, creative and production director at MFP Interactive. "When I read a report like this, I always get the feeling that they are assuming that the marketplace will be the same in five years as it is now. And it most certainly won’t."
    Potter thinks technological question marks such as what broadband penetration will be like in a few years and what other technological advances we will have experienced by then renders Forrester’s speculation not too useful.
    "To a certain degree it’s all a question of bandwidth and the inevitable march of technology," he says. "As bandwidth increases and technology improves, the internet as we know it today is going to be phased out."
    Forrester does presume a certain amount of stability on the web scene. One of the report’s biggest pieces of advice to advertisers is that they should be taking advantage of the today’s low prices by opting for long-term ad deals whenever possible.
    Some media people go along with this suggestion.
    "Advertisers should always lock in multiyear ad deals at low costs," says Merry Heim.
    Others, however, feel the environment is too volatile for such long-term deals.
    "With the nature of the online world, I think it’s a mistake to attach yourself to one site for that long of time," says Michael Pierre.
    On the other hand, Pierre says, the shifting nature of the web may also be the very thing to help bring about the resurrection of ad-supported content sites, as big advertisers come onto the web and help lead sites in new directions.
    "I would hope that the big brands will lead the way for new content ventures. The beautiful thing about the web, is the ability to do new and different things. If a big brand is spending the money on a particular site, they should be able to come up with new content and interesting programs."

-Jeremy Schlosberg is senior editor for new media.

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