As the year draws to a close, I always make sure I take some time to reflect usually on a plane or train travelling from one city to another on Microsofts achievements both globally and here in Europe. This year, following Frank Hollands post a couple of weeks ago , I thought Id put pen to paper and share my thoughts on 2011 on the Microsoft Advertising blog with our great community of contributors and followers.

Over the past week, TV show The X Factor produced by TV mogul Simon Cowell has prompted a flurry of thought-provoking stories on both sides of the Atlantic from some of the ad industrys leading commentators. Whats captured their attention is the seemingly inseparable tie between the TV show itself and the online chatter, debate and argument it generates on Twitter using the hashtag #xfactor .

Weve just come to the end of the fifth IAB Interact Congress in Barcelona and its been a very interesting and rewarding couple of days. Interact brought 400 delegates from the online advertising industry together to discuss thoughts, plans and hopes for the industry going forward and featured great speakers from across the media space. Microsoft Advertising was represented by a number of speakers including Marc Bresseel , who keynoted on Mastering the new digital,

Im excited to be heading to sunny Barcelona this week for the fifth IAB Interact Congress , an annual event where European online advertising industry players gather to discuss the latest industry developments. This years congress will be held on June 8-9 th and will take the theme of Together Forever? Online + traditional media in perfect harmony .

On Tuesday 10 th May at The Festival of Media Global 2011 , I had the pleasure of hosting the first in a series of discussions under the banner of the Microsoft Advertising Ad Vision Series . Navigating the digital possibilities the theme of the session is a challenging subject that the advertising industry is currently facing. I was delighted to be joined by Ian James, Chief Digital Officer for EMEA at Starcom MediaVest, Steve Parker,

On Tuesday 10 th May at The Festival of Media Global 2011 , I had the pleasure of hosting the first in a series of discussions under the banner of the Microsoft Advertising Ad Vision Series . Navigating the digital possibilities the theme of the session is a challenging subject that the advertising industry is currently facing. I was delighted to be joined by Ian James, Chief Digital Officer for EMEA at Starcom MediaVest, Steve Parker,

Heading to Switzerland this weekend we're looking forward to celebrating the best in creative media thinking and strategy together with exploring emerging media opportunities at the The Festival of Media this Sunday 8 th May to Tuesday 10 th May. The event originally starting as The Venice Festival of Media in 2006 is moving this year from Valencia to Montreux.

Digital advertising offers a rich environment for advertisers to direct relevant content towards consumers through the many data and technology driven targeting capabilities available. For a marketer this is digitals biggest differentiator; the ability to precisely target the right message to the right user at the right time based on that users online behavior and profile.

Yesterday M&M Global published an article I wrote entitled Dont Miss the Target Online about the growing importance of online targeting as the global media landscape becomes ever more complex and fragmented. In the article, I compared an offline example of how the changing demographics of an area could impact billboards in the vicinity, with a similar challenge facing digital advertisers. However, despite the similarities,

Traditionally advertisers place significant resource and emphasis on their pre-purchase marketing strategy, but in a recent study released by Microsoft Advertising entitled New Shopper Journeys compelling new evidence came to light about the importance of having - in addition to a strong and integrated paid advertising campaign - a robust post-purchase plan in place to support the ongoing dynamic sales cycle feeding back into the pre-purchase discovery journey.

Traditionally advertisers place significant resource and emphasis on their pre-purchase marketing strategy, but in a recent study released by Microsoft Advertising entitled New Shopper Journeys compelling new evidence came to light about the importance of having - in addition to a strong and integrated paid advertising campaign - a robust post-purchase plan in place to support the ongoing dynamic sales cycle feeding back into the pre-purchase discovery journey.