IAB Engage 2008: Online advertising to emerge stronger from financial downturn

Yahoo! chief executive Jerry Yang believes that online advertising will emerge from the forthcoming recession stronger than when it went in.

Speaking at yesterday’s IAB Engage conference, Yang said that performance based advertising, such as search and direct response, continues to be a growing area. However, he added that it is difficult to predict how a consumer led recession will affect this growth.

Branded advertisers in particular will have to look at how they spend and adjust to deal with the effects of the financial crisis, he said.

He added that it remains to be seen whether the downturn will delay the widespread adoption of new platforms – eg IPTV and mobile advertising. “We’ll have to see whether marketers are willing to put money into new platforms,” he said.

One of the key themes Yang spoke about was the opening up of the web, which he said would fuel relevance and drive consumers to connect to what they want and give them more flexibility and choice.

Yang declined to speak about the recent announcement by Google that it would no longer be pursuing a search advertising deal with the company (see Google terminates Yahoo! ad deal).

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