13 Feb 2008 | Susan Le May

No Huge Demand From Agencies For An Online Currency

Agencies are not demanding an online currency, and cost could prove a significant barrier to the development of one, according to Richard Firminger, the outgoing regional sales director, northern Europe, at Yahoo!, who was speaking on the panel at yesterday’s MediaTel Group ‘Future of Online’ seminar.

“The agencies should speak up [if they do want an online currency] because I don’t hear it,” he said.

However, he did admit that it is possible that this currency is required. “It [would] help our industry grow up and compare apples with apples. Though those business that are expected to fund it I think are going to find it difficult, and I think the agencies need to decide whether they are prepared to fund it through a licence,” he added.

Speaking from the floor, Chris Boyd, the chief executive of the ABC, said: “[Richard Firminger] mentioned that buyers aren’t demanding [an online currency] at the moment and that’s absolutely true. Until the buyers demand a currency, you won’t see one.”

He added: “I think It’s up to the buyers in the end to decide what they want to be able to prove to their advertisers what sites and sectors are actually working.”

Media journalist, Ray Snoddy, said: “I love the disparity between the online people who are quite happy to sign up to forecasts that their industry is going to be worth £2.5 billion by the end of the year, but ask them for some money for standardised research and they start pleading poverty. I think they should just pay up.”

Sheryl Norman, digital director, UK, at Omnicom Media Group, said that a currency would be a positive development for agencies. “From the agency side, one standardised tool that is going to help us sell online better is a good thing at a very fundamental level,” she stressed.

However, she did express reservations, saying that there are “clearly a lot of issues in actually developing that tool.”

She continued: “Ultimately whether or not agencies are going to be willing to sign up to it and invest in it is going to be based on the ultimate end product And is the cost of that going to be worth what it is actually going to deliver for us in terms of our clients, and moving some of our clients over that we’re having a tougher time convincing to move into online.”

Fellow panellist, Louise Ainsworth, MD EMEA at Nielsen Online, admitted that when she first entered the research space 18 months ago, she did not feel there was a need for an online currency.

“The internet is the ultimate measurable medium, you get what you pay for, you can track the performance all the way through to acquisition and to the sale in many cases,” she said.

“But I think it is really when you are trying to tap into those FMCG dollars, when you’re trying to tap into the CPM space that you release that it’s all about the research – because you are not in fact able to say what the result of that transaction is or engagement in any one moment.”

She now believes there is an argument for having an online currency and it is to do with helping online grow with the advertisers and creating a standard definition within the marketplace.

“It’s helping to take some of the confusion out of what is already a very complicated space,” she said.

Peter Bowman (see

Moving Towards A Planning Currency For Online

Moving Towards A Planning Currency For Online www.mediatelgroup.co.uk