#2 Audience Impressions. This is pandering to the data companies that are now major influencers of the IAB. Data is far from perfect, here are a couple highlights from my BlueKai profile:
Age 50-59 (I’m in my 30′s!)
Location: Washington DC (I’m in Portland, Oregon area and haven’t been to DC, even an airport, in more than 5 years, never with my current laptop)
Movie Goer: Haven’t been in 3+ years and I don’t even read about entertainment
iPhone User: I have never owned an iPhone or seriously considered purchasing one

If buying an audience is critical, marketers can purchase directly on demographic or behavioral data points. But with the current state of audience data, this needs to be a choice, not a standard.

#3 We have a classification system, with TOO MANY options, and publishers regularly create their own in an effort to differentiate. It is worth noting that TV, print and other markets are going through the same thing right now, it isn’t just a 15, 30 and 60, with product placement, sponsorship and various overlay and integrated placement.

Second, if the lack of standardized names is killing this market, every digital media planner should be fired. It is their job to see through this (and it isn’t rocket science folks).

#4. Interactivity metrics that matter? I thought the problem was that digital wasn’t comparable enough to print, TV and other channels? Why is a core principle to create another non-comparable (and standard across clients to the point it likely doesn’t actually meet any real client need)? Opportunities to measure interactivity are a good thing, but standardizing on a metric that works for everyone will quickly degenerate to the point where it works for no one.

#5 Better comparison across channels will be helpful, but not at the expense of good measurement options. Today, there are challenges comparing across any two channels, impressions (or points, …) in one channel are not the same as an another. Sure, lets strive to improve, but different channels are apples and oranges, measurement will not be apples to apples.

– @wittlake

The simple fact is that digital branding budgets remain a miserly fraction of their TV counterparts because digital has consistently failed to deliver scalable reach, the only non-discretionary line item in any big brand awareness spend, and the singular reason why TV CPMs continue to rise while digital CPMs continue to tank (despite the rapid erosion of TV reach in recent years, and despite the equally rapid explosion of digital inventory).

George Bernard Shaw once remarked that all professions are conspiracies against the laity (he’d likely go bad ass all over the IAB and the current crop of self-professed marketing experts, few of whom can distinguish their own brands, let alone someone else’s).  Marketing metrics are a scam; they never describe what works as much as they describe what can be sold.  The IAB is proof enough.Contact me if you haven’t already ceded common sense to your smart phone, and we’ll talk it over…