Like many of you I was altered to IBM’s recent report by the team over at TechCrunch. On November 8th, IBM released “The End of Advertising as We Know It,” which predicts a world in which the advertising industry will undergo exponentially increasing changes to traditional advertising models. Initial responses to the report are eloquently framed by pundits reverting back to their high school days: “Duh.” I will spare the report synopsis (I encourage you to read), except to say that if you have been half awake during the last five years, there is a good chance you would have arrived at the same conclusions (startling, but it turns out that traditional 30 second ads don’t work as well in new communication mediums, including short-form downloadable media).

So why is a report that states the apparently obvious, so important to the conversation? In part because it is primary research from a reliable source. 2,400 survey respondents represent a statistically significant sampling of consumers. And 80 advertising executives provide at least a view into the industry awareness that consumers are tired of interruptive ads, and more willing to explore digital media as a primary source of information, community and entertainment. We could use more of these reports. They don’t have to unearth new insight so much as continue to underscore the same patterns of communication dysfunction.

If you are a new media publisher you probably have had the mixed blessing of fulfilling an ad buy that doesn’t exactly meet your optimal view of an effective message. Put another way, you may have taken the money and placed the ad even though you had reservations of the efficacy. You know your audience better than anyone else. But the advertiser may not necessarily agree with you. Possibly they just met you and your unique, hyper-loyal audience. The advertiser might have spent upwards to hundreds of thousands of dollars perfecting their message strategy. Now a new media upstart is attempting to influence a process chain that was never designed to include your valuable input. And herein lies the potential friction. If the deal is not easy to do it may never get done. Hence the rationalization to a compromised ad fulfillment.

Good news is that this is a temporary, transitional issue, remedied with better advertiser-publisher information exchange and smarter application. This IBM report helps to encourage this exhange, by doing its part to shift broad-scale awareness to the fact that like a gold prospector, there are great yields to be achieved if you are willing to sift and adjust your prospecting field. It is not simply that advertisers are slow to adopt, that they are somehow blind to the opportunity. Some of the best and brightest working in these organizations understand fully well the changing environment. It is that the industry needs a structure within which to fulfill ad buys in scale and communicate effectively. This report encourages traditional advertisers to address the new mediums with new ad products, as opposed to fitting creative from old linear formats where they fail to yield benefit. It doesn’t happen over night, and nimble agencies can gain a toe-hold where risk-averse firms are unwilling to venture. Great opportunites await for those willing to invest in understanding new sponsor-driven communication vehicles like downloadble media.

ADM is at the early stage of facilitating the broad adoption of ad-supported downloadble media. We intend to provide primary research (given adequate funds and resources) that, like the IBM report, encourages advertisers to consider the vast opportunity available through highly engaged communications via RSS media and related open- and closed-loop content delivery mechanisms to consumers. If you would like to participate in this conversation, we encourage your membership.