“As online video and the Web claim a growing share of ad budgets, Madison Avenue isn’t just standing by. The agency behemoths are joining the crowd looking for a piece of the digital action. Just as they maintain an uneasy alliance with Google, so too the holding companies are partnering with digital innovators to avoid creeping irrelevance.

“The world is changing much faster than the holding companies are prepared to change,” says Denuo’s Hanlon. The unit was started by Publicis last year as a “flank strategy” for the agency’s future. Hanlon adds that most of the industry’s innovation is coming from entrepreneurs in garages “who may not have the appreciation or nostalgia for how media and advertising has been done historically.”

For Right Media CEO Walrath, the Yahoo cash infusion was as much about gaining validation in the marketplace as capital to fund the business. “We almost certainly could’ve gotten a better valuation if we had gone with pure venture investors,” says Walrath. He and other entrepreneurs say they’re raising money not so much because they have to, but because they can.

Since Web companies are much cheaper to start now than during the first boom due to factors like low-cost storage and open source software, they don’t require as much early-stage capital. When asked how Spot Runner is putting its pile of money to work, CEO Grouf replies, “A lot of it is sitting in our bank account.”

Not lost on the incumbents is the expected expansion of the online ad market. A recent Piper Jaffray report forecasts Web advertising will more than about double to $42 billion ($81.1 BILLION) by 2011, accounting for 11.4 percent of total ad budgets, up from 6.6 percent in 2006. Additionally, last year, venture funding alone in online advertising and marketing businesses hit $411 million, up from $164 million two years ago, according to data from Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young. And there’s no sign of a slowdown so far in 2007.” >Read More

via (MediaPost)

It might be time for all of us around here to start seriously considering putting some of that love in a Greensboro bank.