The Poster Boy of New Media Advertising

When a giant consumer products company such as Procter & Gamble speaks, everybody in the advertising biz listens. After all, the company is expected to spend about $3 billion this year on advertising (but only $12 million online).

And for the past few weeks, it seems, Procter & Gamble’s affable Denis Beausejour has been beckoning from the pages of every business publication that’ll have him. He’s become, in effect, the poster boy of new media advertising for the biggest Fortune 500 companies, according to ClickZ’s report on the P&G FAST Summit last week in Cincinnati.

“How can we further the ad vehicles and technology to entice advertisers into the online arena?” asked ClickZ. “How can we wire up more consumers, producing an audience sizable enough to make them want to come? These are the kind of questions Beausejour has floated in his interviews and speeches in recent history–including his seminal talk at @d:tech in May, when he first spiked this concept into the court.”

“It was a smart move for Beausejour, who thrust himself and P&G into a leadership role on the ad issue at a time when most other corporate giants are still slumbering peacefully, sleepily unaware of the opportunities online,” the report said.

P&G’s vision is “to bring together major stakeholders in the future of online advertising,” Beausejour was quoted as saying at the conference. Furthering the business of online advertising holds exciting promise for consumers, advertisers and agencies alike, he said, adding, “Our mission is to get there faster and better.”

Will it work? Can this fragmented, nascent industry really become an advertising powerhouse akin to television? Well, it’s a definite maybe, said ClickZ. Much depends on P&G’s ability to carry the momentum forward. And the upshot is that Web marketers need to focus on three major areas: supporting privacy initiatives and communicating them to consumers; promoting the Web to consumers and working within the framework of targeted marketing and permission marketing to give consumers more–not less–control over what ads appear on their screen.

For ClickZ’s report in depth by editor-in-chief Ann Handley, click here.