It’s back to school time…. Do you know where your kids are hiding? And more importantly, do you know how to grab their attention?

These days, many youngsters are busy creating their own social circles by blogging about the Jonas Brothers, updating their social network profiles, and uploading videos of their latest dance party. Using sites such as YouTube, even real stars like Miley Cyrus are taking advantage of these free mediums.

So how do marketers aiming to target this Online Generation, get their message heard? Well, it is becoming increasingly apparent that simply displaying some text ads on Google is not the only answer. These kids want rich media, gadget ads and expressive ad copy. In order to stay competitive in this market, companies targeting America’s youth need to take a long hard look at their current marketing plan and allocate the necessary time and funds into these new mediums. The days of simple keyword search are numbered with this group.

If you don’t believe me then read this… According to a recent MSN Article, this generation is responsible for spending $150 million dollars per year! How can you pass up the opportunity to be a part of that?

The Olympics are hitting the airwaves, and computer monitors

With the Olympics starting in a few days I found myself searching for Olympic related news over the weekend.  I went to Google and searched on the keyword “Olympic coverage”.  My search eventually led me to nbcolympics.com and I was pleasantly surprised to see how much coverage NBC is providing through online media.  If their website is correct, you can watch over 1400 hours of Olympic coverage on TV and 2000 hours online!  Yes, you read that correctly.  NBC, the network TV giant, is planning to show more Olympic coverage online than on TV.  Who would ever have guessed 10 years ago that you could watch more Olympic coverage on your computer than on your TV?

So, I decided to research this a little more and discovered that YouTube has a deal with the International Olympic Committee to televise, err I mean stream, about 3 hours a day of exclusive content.  Wow, YouTube has come a long way from the days when it was perceived as a place to watch regular people post funny (and sometimes contrived) videos.

With this unprecedented increase in coverage of the Olympics through online media I can just imagine the shift in advertising dollars from traditional marketing channels to online marketing.  Lehman Brothers Internet Analyst Doug Anmuth expects $100 million dollars spent on internet marketing this year for the Summer Olympics.  While this is a fraction of the $1.5 billion dollars marketers will be spending overall in advertising for the global event, it represents the growing trend of major traditional ad spends moving over to the online world.  So expect to see more banners ads, Pay-per-Click ads, and social media marketing this summer.  The Olympics are right around the corner and the hottest sport this summer is extreme internet exposure.

Many marketers had predicted that 2007 was going to be the year that this advertising option would break through to the mainstream, but Mobile Advertising has still not begun to realize its huge potential. Slow growth of high speed networks and lack of an overall mobile internet audience have slowed the mass adoption by advertisers.

The recent introduction of flat-rate mobile plans and lower cost smart phones should help to expand the mobile phone user audience and increase mobile ad spending levels. According to eMarketer, worldwide mobile ad spending will grow from 2.7 billion in 2007 to over 19 billion in 2012. Text message (SMS) campaigns will likely account for the majority of the spend, with advertisers using the “walk before you run” approach before testing more complex campaigns with Mobile Search and Display formats.

Consumer costs continue to drop and mobile technology is improving, but there are still obstacles to overcome with mobile carrier constraints, user privacy, multiple ad formats, campaign tracking, and the unawareness of what the space can provide to an advertiser. 2008 probably wont be the year that Mobile Ads hit the mainstream, but its a good bet that Mobile Advertising will eventually rival Search Advertising.