A few years ago, TV networks banned an LG ad that promoted the adskipping capabilities of their TV

I read recently in the Australian that the TV advertising industry is facing “carnage” due to presure from media companies to lower rates on spots.  There is no doubt that in these uncertain economic times, advertisers are looking for ROI and digital seems cheaper and infinitely more accountable.

But while the internet may well be a critical component of the shift, no doubt the introduction of the PVR has helped move this forward.  While the Free to air networks have worked hard to resist the impact of adskipping, perhaps this is only forestalling the inevitable.

If we make the broad assumption that TV ads will continue to decline (and feel free to differ on this point), this leads to an interesting discussion about the future of the advertising form.  Will this lead to more interesting forms of long form advertising posted on youtube and other social network sites, are we going to see even more spots showing up in video banners or will the entire advertising industry need to evolve radically to gear up to a more lean forward future rather than continuing down the path of cute jingles and compelling images?

This might be a somewhat controversial topic, particularly for some of our more traditional creatives but I am interested to hear if you guys think things about to fundamentally change or just evolve within the same creative format?

• Video advertising
• IPTV
• Mobile
• Email
• RSS
• SEO
• SEM
• Affiliate Marketing
• Social Media
• Digital PR
• Virtual Worlds
• Banners
• Rich Media
• Analytics

Now I know that these are pretty broad topics so we will be looking to get some more definition around each over the next few weeks.

I will start rolling out some of the buzz around these but feel free to comment on this post if you feel there are any other areas that should be covered or if there is anything in any one of these areas that is particularly interesting.