I wish there was another way to put it, but there isn’t: Richard Eyre, the chairman of IAB UK, who was keynoting the UK Association of Online Publishers’ Annual Awards and Conference yesterday, literally begged for a merger consideration with AOP…he said that the online industry needs clarity and unanimity of voice. There are too many industry bodies right now, he said. “If the ad recession breaks, which it will in the next 12 months, and if we don’t band together”, the traditional advertisers will become more confused. He gave the example of the radio industry, which has unanimity of voice when it comes to marketing the industry as a whole. “IAB and AOP should split resources…it would be completely daft and idiotic that we should be duplicating this effort.”
“We have to think about merging our organizations, and I sincerely hope we have talks on that.”
People in the audience were a bit shocked at his speech…the audacity to come to a rival trade group (sorta) conference and ask for a merger is not the greatest way to do it, I suppose.
My coverage of the conference is sponsored by M-Till, UK’s mobile micropayments company….
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