ORLANDO, Fla. – The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) announced the formation of an Advertising Agency Advisory Board comprised of 12 senior executives from the nation’s leading creative, digital and media agencies. The new board’s objective is to spark dialogue among agencies, publishers and marketers, and even between media agencies and creative agencies. The IAB also intends to use the board to infuse the agency point of view more fully in its guidelines work and to drive forward the importance of premium online experiences, with audience as the first priority. The IAB has also signaled its intention to recapture for online campaigns the emotionally resonant and culturally significant creativity that has long characterized great advertising in other media. The announcement was made at the IAB’s Annual Meeting, Ecosystem 2.0: Brands Battle Back in Orlando, Florida.

2009 Ad Agency Advisory Board includes:

* Brad Brinegar, Chairman and CEO of McKinney, and Chair of the Agency Advisory Board
* Tom Bedecarré, CEO, AKQA
* Jeff Benjamin, Interactive Creative Director, Crispin Porter + Bogusky Advertising
* Alan Cohen, CEO of OMD USA, OMD Los Angeles.
* Colleen DeCourcy, Chief Digital Officer, TBWA Worldwide
* Brian DiLorenzo, Director of Integrated Production and Executive Director of Content, BBDO
* David Droga, Founder and Chairman, Droga5
* Sarah Fay, CEO, Carat North America
* Maria Luisa Francoli, Global CEO, MPG
* Jean-Philippe Maheu, Chief Digital Officer, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide
* Benjamin Palmer, Co-Founder, CEO, Barbarian Group
* Steve Wax, Partner and Chief Narratologist and Co-Founder, Campfire

“This group represents a powerhouse of creative talent that will help lead the interactive industry to the next level by showing us how to harness the potential of the first truly interactive advertising medium—to engage consumers and build brands and communities in new and exciting ways,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “Our interest in forming this advisory board is to enhance the partnership opportunities with agencies that will hasten and smooth the ongoing digital transformation of the full media ecosystem. And a lot of that will happen through creativity, relationships, and implementation.” Rothenberg has been an outspoken advocate for deeper more collaborative relationships between agencies, publishers, marketers and technology. He recently wrote a “Creative Manifesto” on interactive advertising creativity where he named the four enemies of online branding and the new skill sets creative agencies today must possess to attract, engage, and influence consumers. The complete manifesto can be viewed in its entirety at http://www.randallrothenberg.com/2009/02/heartbeats-and-mouseclicks-manifesto-on.html.

“Interactive media opens new doors for creative expression. Unlike predecessor media, we can engage people in an ongoing dialogue that creates a bond between the consumer, the advertiser and the medium that brought them together. The goal of the Advertising Agency Advisory Board is to share the interactive insights and experience of the nation’s top creative agencies with the marketplace in order to maximize the interactive advertising experience for all participants,” said Brad Brinegar, Chairman and CEO of McKinney, and Chair of the Agency Advisory Board.

The group held its inaugural meeting in early February, and its creation was formally announced today at the IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting, Ecosystem 2.0: Brands Battle Back, in Orlando, Florida.

In the coming months, the board’s intention is to help find ways to arm agencies for more success with clients and to field qualitative studies that confirm and highlight case studies of successful agency-publisher collaboration.

In conjunction with the formation of the IAB Advertising Agency Advisory Board, the IAB announced its plans to debut the IAB Creative Agency Boot Camp next month For more information, please go to http://www.iab.net/events_training/690217.

About the IAB:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 400 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

New York, New York (August 19, 2008)–Eyeblaster, home of the world’s most innovative integrated marketing solutions, achieves highest recognition by Nielsen Norman Group for its Campaign Monitor, who named it one of the top 10 user interfaces (UI) of 2008. Campaign Monitor raises the bar for intuitive, efficient campaign management with its functional design that provides a clear graphic overview of campaigns.

Nielsen Norman Group recognizes Eyeblaster’s dedication to agency professionals, designing an application that puts users in control and in a position to maximize advertising campaigns quickly and easily. Campaign Monitor takes the art of campaign management to a new level, giving users complete awareness of a digital campaign’s performance, helping them to make decisions and communicate insights when it counts.

“The company’s focus is empowering media buyers including media agencies, creative agencies and advertisers to plan, create, serve, manage and measure online campaigns,” said Nielsen Norman Group. “Eyeblaster aims to provide advanced management tools, and Campaign Monitor does just that.”

Eyeblaster’s Campaign Monitor includes a visual dashboard with graphical gauges that display real-time data for key performance indicators such as setup and approval status, under-delivery and over-delivery and performance metrics including Interaction Rate, CTR and ROI.

“To be recognized by Nielsen Norman Group as one of the top user interfaces of 2008 exemplifies our commitment to our agency customers and our goal to provide solutions for holistic campaign management that delivers true transparency, relevance and ROI,” said Gal Trifon, CEO and Co-founder of Eyeblaster. “We understand the importance of connecting with our clients and we’re thrilled to receive this honor.”

By providing a consolidated, bird’s-eye view of all campaign activity, users can manage every aspect of their digital campaigns, helping the user and industry as a whole achieve optimal results to keep clients coming back and encourage online industry growth.

For more information on Campaign Monitor, visit http://www.eyeblaster.com/products/campaign_monitor.asp

About Eyeblaster
In 1999, Eyeblaster was among the pioneers in rich media communication. Today, Eyeblaster extends its inventive heritage in digital advertising through Ad Campaign Manager (ACM). ACM enables interactive agencies, advertisers and publishers to manage campaigns across digital media channels, including online, mobile and in-game, and a variety of formats, including rich media, in-stream video, display and search. ACM is a robust, integrated and easy-to-use platform that allows customers to focus on campaign strategy, creativity and media efficiency without having to worry about the technical complexities associated with managing global advertising campaigns online.

In 2007, Eyeblaster delivered campaigns for nearly 7,000 brand advertisers serving approximately 2,500 ad agencies across over 2,700 global web publishers in over 40 countries worldwide throughout North America, South America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. Learn more at http://www.eyeblaster.com.