I just attended the OMMA conference in Hollywood. It inspired me to speculate on the future of online and interactive marketing; what’s coming up in ‘08 and what’s down the road. Several things strike me and inspire me. For instance, GM announced this week that it will dedicate half of it’s $3 billion budget to digital and one-to-one marketing in the next three years. Wow. According to a recent survey by Prospero Technologies 90% of marketers who already use social media are planning to increase spending. Marketers say they are seeing their objectives reached or exceeded, even though they do not always have methodologies and metrics for measurement. This report from ComScore and Media Contacts shows impressive numbers in terms of online video. The report tells us that 20% of those who watch online video (heavy viewers) watch an astounding 841 minutes each month. While 30% (moderate viewers) watch an impressive 77 minutes per month. When you take into account that most web videos average no more than 2 or 3 minutes in length, that translates to an impressive number of videos viewed.

This is all great data, it seems to suggest that a number of things are falling into place:

Consumers are becoming savvy, in a good way, to internet marketing
Marketers are learning how to harness the power of the internet to communicate with their audience in a meaningful way
Brands are less skeptical and are kicking down with some budget dollars
Technology has begun to catch up to creative vision

We still need better metrics, but they are getting there, moving in the right direction.

2008 = huge year for interactive marketing!