According to the IAB and Bain Study “Building Brands Online,” brand marketers will spend close to 40 percent of their budgets on cross-platform campaigns in the next three years. Up from roughly 25 percent, that’s about $52,000,000,000 being spent on cross-platform campaigns in the near future. And unless you start making changes in your organization to satisfy this new rise in demand, you won’t get a dime of it. Let’s explore why.

What do these new demands look like for marketers?

A marketer looking for "cross-platform" means they want to use multiple ad platforms or vehicles to convey a single message. A brand like Nike, for example, might want to reach a specific set of women at home, during their evening commutes, during recreation time, and even at work. To do that, Nike needs a number of options to distribute its message: display, online video, mobile, social media, TV, outdoor, newspapers and magazines.

Meanwhile, the list of mediums continues to grow. In the past two months, for example, hundreds of magazine publishers scrambled to build iPad apps, knowing that a decent percent of their audience would be checking out (or fleeing completely) to the digital versions of their publications.   

Marketers are starting to require multiple touch points in their campaigns, with an increased focus on digital. The focus coincides with increased awareness of digital as an accountable, efficient way to build brand equity; they're also putting pressure on their marketing departments to become more cross-platform as a result.

What can media owners and publishers do to keep up with these demands?

Let’s take a break from the macro-level talk and get into the day-to-day reality. Let's say that the media buyer you met at a networking mixer nine months ago calls you up:

“Hey ... long time, how are you?… Great, great…Listen, we're doing this thing for my client; trying to reach men aged 18-49 that are interested in buying a car.  And um… they're really trying to do this across multiple outlets… something that covers all the standard online ad units, but a campaign that's custom too. So, if you could put together something that’s both standard and customized, with video, mobile, online and social components, that's targeted to male car buyers between the ages of 18 and 49 that live in the Northeast, that'd be great. Oh, wait, I need it by this Friday, OK? Thanks, you’re the best.”  

Only one type of publisher will get this order -- a publisher that can execute, and do it at scale. The ones that can't, spend all of their reacting to these requests and searching for data. This leaves very little time to sell, brainstorm, and be creative.   

Translation: Said publisher -- could that be you? -- likely won't get this deal. And here are the three factors that typically keep publishers from executing on cross-platform campaigns.

1. Technology and data fragmentation is still a huge problem.

A typical publisher uses more than 30 systems to run both their content management and ad sales businesses. There’s one ad server for video, one for mobile, and one for display. If you want to include a TV component or a print component, there’s a whole different set of systems to access -- both to just view the available inventory, as well as see how much it costs. Plan to offer ad space on an iPad app? Well, you'll have to deal with that now, too. The data is fragmented, yet absolutely necessary to access to stay competitive in this new marketplace.

2. The sales teams needed to complete the RFP or contract often don't even sit on the same floor -- let alone same time zone or office.

Publishers often have separate digital and "traditional" sales teams that need to collaborate to fully execute the client's chosen idea. Unfortunately, the non-digital execs are often detached from the digital sales teams' goals, haven't been vested in the process of selling this kind of inventory to this particular client, and could even have their own agendas in mind.  

3. Ad operations teams are typecast and segmented by the media they implement

The same goes for the ad operations teams that will optimize campaign performance (and deliver performance reports to the client). For many publishers, one team traffics standard and display rich media, while another traffics mobile, or even uses an outsourced mobile ad network. TV and print production teams don’t even sit in the same office -- or may not exist within the company at all. These are not ideal conditions for selling a cross-platform deal.

So what can publishers do about it?

1. Take a leadership role by getting all of your data in one place for the sales teams

Plan for the future. According to the Booz & Company Marketing Media Ecosystem 2010 study, 67 percent of media owners said they need to upgrade their supply chain capabilities in 2010. Part of this investment translates into having one screen to access all of the inventory, products and rate cards available for video, mobile, display, social and even TV, radio and newspapers, where applicable.

This needs to happen, regardless of the number of ad servers or execution systems a publisher is using, so that at the time of proposal, the sales team has all the info they need in an instant.   

2. Centralize ad operations teams and production resources

Fragmented ad operations teams are unable to help sales drive revenue that comes from cross-platform RFPs. While it would be difficult for many publishers (today) to have the same ad ops teams traffic TV, digital and print, there are steps that can help move an organization in the right direction.

First is getting everyone to communicate using one platform, and the way to do it is to ensure that each specific ad platform -- each team's "favorite" -- is integrated into the new core system. This will make them want to use that system. By merging several departments onto one system, the new proposals, orders, demands and alerts from across the entire sales team would be visible.   

Bottom line: How do these steps help publishers better execute cross-media campaigns?

By implementing these steps, the organization as a whole will be able to react quickly to client demands. The sales team will have more data to educate buyers with; they'll also be able to move upstream faster in the buying process -- and get closer to the execs that are really in control of the big budgets.

Meanwhile, the ad ops and production teams can become strategic partners with sales, helping to provide a competitive advantage over other publishers competing for the same dollars.

Of course, this is not easily done. Someone with influence in the company needs to step in and be the "VP of Change."  Someone who has power, that cares about revenue -- but also -- cares about the brand. Someone that is forward-thinking enough to adapt before it’s too late.

With the right "someone" or team of someones, the integration of data becomes easier, centralization of operations starts to fall into place and the company will start to rally towards a common cause: Getting its fair share of that $52,000,000,000 in increased cross-platform spend.

Lorne Brown founded Operative in 2000, armed with four years of technology and service outsourcing experience. During his tenure at Operative, Lorne has developed relationships with such premier brands as DoubleClick, News Corp. and MSN.