With the rash of online ad network bashing going around lately, I thought I’d highlight someone who is defending their model and their benefits. And more importantly, is a neutral third party.

From ClickZ’s Quote of the Day:

“Advertisers will move their budgets around and around the web, forever. Ad Networks serve a huge percentage of all of the display ads shown online, so even if advertisers test smaller sites, or different sites, they could not possibly make enough spot buys to equal the sheer volume they can get from one or two network buys. In addition, networks represent the most measurable portion of display advertising: therefore it is the most immune to economic downturn.”

-Jupiter Research analyst Emily Riley, writing on display advertising during a recession.

I can’t help but point out that OVW raised the issue back in January. Not display advertising specific, but online in general.

Yahoo expectedly disappoints, Google misses. Everyone blames a soft economy. But when the advertising industry goes into belt-tightening mode, will buyers smarten up or continue to do business as usual?

Online has been looking for that spark that signals our arrival. The sign from above that finally gives us our rightful seat at the table with mainstream media. Its hard for me to believe that we aren’t considered mainstream enough yet to stop calling those ‘other’ media “mainstream.” Same goes for rich media. Is Web 2.0 “richer” media? But I digress.

Some say we’ve arrived. Others say we’re in the first inning of the ballgame. Others use even more vague euphemisms to avoid addressing the issue with any substance at all.

For years, the online advertising industry has touted our measurability and accountability as the advantage we have over those other guys. So when media planners and buyers are taken to task, will the online advertising industry really suffer? Or is this the opportunity we’ve been waiting for to prove that we’re the smart way to spend their very limited marketing dollars?

What marketers will ask their agencies, “How many more (cars/bars of soap/insert product here) did we sell?” And more importantly, will those same marketers ask our TV buying brethren to do the same? I’m sure this is mostly wishful thinking, but I can’t help but wonder if a recession and tightening of advertising budgets isn’t the impetus the media buyers need to shift those budgets somewhere they can “prove” that got their money’s worth.

Lost returns to ABC tonight, and I’m going to Carnegie Hall for “An Evening of Music and Comedy with Family Guy’s Alex Borstein and Seth MacFarlane.” The DVR is set, and I plan on blowing past every single ad, just like you. Or maybe I’ll watch the high-def stream from ABC.com tomorrow, instead of the poorly encoded version my DVR records. But I’ll definitely be reading what fans think about the episode, what every clue means, and speculate about how the season will play out. And I’ll be doing that online. Maybe those ad dollars will follow me? One can only hope.