I have been having an on-going debate with my team.  Basically, the two sides are:

Chris:

I see a lot of ugly banners out there.  I want to tell people that not only are these banners ugly, they are ineffective and I want to spell out to everyone why they are ineffective and how they could be improved.  It is in this way that we can prove our own expertise, and simultaneously raise the standard for digital creative work in Vietnam.

The other side:

We shouldn’t say bad things about potential advertisers and our competition.  Firstly, it is not professional, and potential clients can see our criticism as being overly proud/negative.  Secondly, it also makes us a giant target for other agencies to criticize our own work.

I understand full well why agencies do not critique each other’s work.  It is simply safer to stay under the radar and have unofficial opinions.

However, in doing so we allow mediocre work to survive.  We have all done mediocre work, but we, the internet advertising industry of Vietnam, will continue to create mediocre work if we refuse to acknowledge it, and find ways to improve them.  Furthermore, I understand the dangers of saying potentially inflammatory things about other agencies work, but I will just make it clear that I am NOT criticizing advertisers or agencies, but just CRITIZING THE WORK.

We all have opinions.  I want to be counted as one of the brave ones who voices it out loud.

For me, why ad networks are necessary are an easy one.  Of course, I am VERY BIASED in saying so, as I had the honor of running Vietnam’s first, biggest (and as far as I am concerned BEST) ad network, Admax Network.  And of course, this article posted on the Admax website has its own POV, that ad networks are a necessary part of the media landscape.

I have been away from Admax for over four months now, and let me tell you, doing media plans without ad networks sucks.  In a recent report, Comscore reported that the top portals reached 72% of the online population in Singapore, but they only spent 30% of their time online there.  People were prone to spend 55-60% of their time online with niche sites, content or demographic-specific sites that were more tailored to their personalities and needs, instead of the mass, “lowest common denominator” portals out there.

In Vietnam, we have the same thing, except the top portals have a greater reach than in Singapore.

What is challenging from a media planning perspective, is that we do not just want to have the most people see our ads, we want them to spend the most TIME with them.  If you are only looking at reach, and your target audience is only seeing your ad 3-5 minutes per week, you are missing out on deeper and more effective engagement with them as they spend more time on niche sites of 20-30 minutes per week.

Ok, these numbers are anecdotal;  my gut tells me that they are off, but not far off.  Until Comscore or Effective Measure releases these statistics, we won’t know.  But as the Vietnamese market gets a better understanding of how online media works, these sorts of statistics will be important.

And as people realize that “Time on Site” and how it correlates to “Time on Internet,” “Share of Voice” and “Dwell Time,” the more important incorporating niche sites (and their high rates of time on site) into media plans will be.  And Ad Networks are the only way to really use niche sites with any scale, and reduced drama.

So Effective Measure and Comscore, I’m looking at you guys to release those sorts of statistics.  I know Ambient Digital has (though fairly unverifiable).