When Lance Armstrong signed up with Radio Shack for a new cycling team, it seemed like a match of convenience. Being a cycling fan that puts in the hours watching Versus, I’ve learned that there are only a few marketers that seem to care to advertise to our quirky US niche audience (not to mention that Ford considering dropping Mercury leaves a big hole in the ad line up!).

That said, this ad campaign that Radio Shack has created is about as fantastic as it gets on all levels.

First, Lance is on par with Peyton Manning in his ability to deliver a jovial and credible persona. Second, the whole idea that Lance is the lead of Mobility, Radio Shack’s main profit driver, connects the man, what he’s known for and the brand he’s pitching seamlessly.

On track.

More surprising, the growth rate of PPC ad is expected to be 23% in 2008. I’ve bought into the idea that online ad share v. traditional media is not proportionally correct and should shift dramatically, like double from where it is at. With less than 10% share of the overall ad market, online advertising isn’t growing as fast as it seems like it could.

Advertisers don’t seem to be easily going away from the tried and true version of traditional media campaigns to less chartered waters. In the internet world, are there [non-tech] brands that have grown on mostly interactive media? Without concrete poster children, proving to the majors that the media mix should go in a new direction, it won’t.

In all of this talk of interactive v. traditional, let’s step back. 1:1 marketing is value creating in ways that traditional media isn’t. Creating virtuous cycles by fostering conversations with consumers is how brands will win in a people as marketing message world.

How does Yahoo! create *unique* value for those that aren’t more aggressively integrating online ads? They could:

• Prove that the US population is using the internet (seriously, many still doubt it)
• Partner, buy or merge with a major advertising agency and become a force on Madison Ave.
• Approach advertisers with PPC media buys in a way that feels like traditional media
• Integrate more seamlessly with traditional media campaigns in terms of timing and branding
• Get a case study on how branding and sales are grown – prove that it works beyond just getting people signed up
• Create and leverage centers of content excellence that advertisers will want to associate with

Frankly, AOL and Microsoft don’t improve Yahoo’s chances in being more unique when compared to Google, do they?

TiVo Effect
The Oscars just aired one of its worst showings and Patrick Goldstein of the LA Times nails the current consumer sentiment on advertising attention:

“The academy should heed his advice. Here’s how we watched the Oscars in my household: We TiVo-ed the broadcast, came back from Little League practice, hopped in bed with some snacks and zapped through the commercials…”

I’m all over DVR’s, too. An hour of broadcast content dialed down to 42 minutes? Yes, please. Netflix for season 1 of Battlestar Galactica is on order, ad free.

Strategically, the TiVo effect notes an even more damaging trend line: people arrange their technology to not watch ads. Like the old high-low pricing strategy, consumers are being trained to think in a certain way which feeds on itself. This trend won’t be fixed by forcing cable companies to end fast forwarding for on-demand, btw.

Return on Marketing Investment
Paid sponsor search advertising should be the best method of getting the right audience at the right time and give them a great message. Is it? Google is still tweaking their search and ad placement for a reason:

[source: comScore blog]

Ad coverage is being managed down, and CTR’s are also declining. Google is likely responding to the backlash of the noise that exists in the paid search world, click farming, which exacts an unexpected toll on a system that was meant to be superior to other venues.

Google’s CTR’s are down over the past year. Is a similar trend of consumer ad avoidance entering paid search like it is with DVR’s? Maybe. Google’s inability to have any other significant revenue sources other than paid search should be a concern because the company has already trained users on many other services from maps to finance to expect any advertising trade off. Of course, they can be seen as Google’s own advertising campaign of sorts.

Relevance Marketing
The next wave of interactive marketing will not be about paid advertising at all. Video and blog publishing cost almost nothing but time to develop it. Leading marketers are realizing that transparency is essentially a requirement nowadays. An aside, how awesome is Trent in building anticipation: “soon” is all today’s post says.

It Should be What it Always Was
User based needs turned into unique solutions then communicated to end users in a way they can learn about the offer to then take action. That’s advertising in a nutshell and it hasn’t changed.

Interactive advertising has a long way to go to meet up with its name. In fact, most of the advertising that Google and Yahoo provide isn’t interactive, it is just a more efficient form of classifieds followed up with almost 1999 web page as product brochure sales sheet. Google, et al, innovated the business model of classified, not the classified ad itself.

There’s a lot more to be explored here and with luck, a bit more on examples of what’s on track.

I am especially interested in seeing is SalesGenie can get out of the bottom spot (last year was awful), how edgy GoDaddy will be and if a .com, namely Cars.com, can pull off a dot-com sized spot in a down economy.

I’m not expecting a lot, but I look forward to seeing some new work.

Update: I thought the globally-transferable Coke Macy parade ad, Bud Light and Pepsi did great as always. Not so sure I can say the same for the dog-bowl lopping Gatorade “man’s best friend” was as good, but the push for their diet version, G2, with Manning wasn’t so bad. Oh, yeah, SalesGenie? Wheels off, year 2.