Revised Expectations

A few weeks ago, eMarketer drastically cut back its online advertising forecast, based on the IAB's/PWC's numbers, separating out video from rich media.

The revision says two things: 1) eMarketer forecasts (and the same should probably be said for Jupiter/Forrester) are definitely more art than science, and 2) the economic environment will keep online advertising slow longer than expected. No doubt, in better economic conditions, the video ad market would benefit from more generous budgets, test-friendly moods, and experimentation. On the side of the content owners, the networks would be going along, pouring more money into digital content expansion and being more aggressive with user experience guidelines, for example, further limiting pre-roll to 10 seconds instead of 15.

On the topic of revised forecasts, about five years ago, an analysis took research firms to task for providing overly rosy forecasts by then comparing against actual numbers. It would be nice to see accountability in forecasts again.