As anticipated, focus of this show has been deal structure and alliances for digital. Simon Assaad of Heavy and Greg Spiradellis of JibJab had some interesting thoughts about the nature of advertising and brand identity on their respective sites – audio is available here, courtesy of the moderator our friend Rafat Ali. Broad themes of that panel and the show are that the length of ads – 5 sec, 10s, 30s or 2 min – is still completely up for grabs. Whatever feels organic and unobtrusive is good and ads matched to specific content are obviously ideal. On the rights side, buyers are backing off on exclusivity – multiple deals across multiple platforms and partners are becoming the norm, which is better for everyone. It’s a big world, for now, and we should play together as nicely as we can. The nasty kids will eventually be found out and be removed from the sandbox. But we learn by doing so let’s do.
