Brand marketers focus their attention on display advertising, a medium historically known to elicit a direct response.

"Online display advertising continues to shift from a direct-response form of advertising to branding media" Laurie Sullivan says on Mediapost.com in an article published last Friday. She points at a study released by Collective, finding that 57% of agencies believe the majority of their display objectives are to build the brand, yet only 11% cite ad creative as critical to the campaign's success. Although 60% of agencies cite brand recall and intent to purchase as the most important measures of online success, clicks and conversions however remain the key criteria agencies say they use to evaluate media, according to the Collective study.

New technologies and ad formats, enabling interactive messages, brought advertising and promotion to a next level beyond clicks, impressions and conversions as a measure performance. 

Full article on Mediapost.com: 

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=159708&nid=131751

Note: We are seeing a shift of ad dollars to baby boomers because they are online more hours each week and spend more money online than the Gen Y.