Display council elects Patel and unveils Display Guidance Pack
Rina Patel, Group Account Director at Yahoo!, has been elected as chair of the IAB's Display Council for the next 12 months. The council has enlisted Patel to lead efforts in providing guidance to brands and making it easier to plan and buy campaigns. The Council has also launched a 'Display Guidance Pack' featuring new online display standards for 2010, which includes a new half-page ad unit (300 x 600) already adopted by brands such as Unilever, Vodafone, John Lewis and L'Oreal. The new format is part of the '2010 online display ad standards' and has been designed to embrace current trends such as online video.

Social media council looking for framework feedback
Led by Richard Pentin of TMW, the IAB social media council has put together a framework to help advertisers and agencies better understand the complexities of social media measurement. This is an evolving model and in the true spirit of social media we need your feedback. Head over to www.iabuksocial.co.uk to check it out and provide comments. All are welcome!

Engage for Mobile fast approaching
Engage for Mobile - our biggest mobile event to date - is in just two weeks time, with over 100 advertisers attending and speakers including the MD of Google UK Matt Britton and CDO of Orange Gerry McQuade. Places are running out quickly so make sure you book your place quickly.

New mobile manager Alex Kozloff
Alex Kozloff has recently joined us to support our efforts to grow mobile. She is focusing on mobile research and has already kicked off two projects on mobile commerce and messaging. Alex will also provide support to IAB members on mobile so feel free to get in touch alex@iabuk.net

UK mobile ad market grows 32 per cent
We've now published our second ever adspend study dedicated to mobile which showed £37.6m was spent on mobile advertising in 2009 an increase of 32% in the worst year on record for advertising.

Customer Conversion Journey Results – Travel
The results for the Customer Conversion Journey project are now available for members to download from the IAB site. They show the way that online customers interact with online display, paid for and natural search, emails and affiliates on the journey to purchase. The results suggest that the traditional way of assessing display advertising online (the click-through rate) may not be adequate in assessing its effectiveness. We're currently working on the second set of results for the customer conversion journey results – focusing on the mobile industry – and hope to have these published in the next two months.

IAB / PwC Online Adspend 2010
The IAB is currently working with PwC to review the way that we collect and use information for the ad spend project, if you have any suggestions in this area please email tim@iabuk.net.

UKOM reveals how Britons spend time online
The new UKOM user interface is live and Nielsen is currently offering training on the new system to UKOM customers. UKOM figures from April show that one in every four and a half UK minutes online are accounted for by social networks and blogs – more details about this and a visual representation of how UK internet users spend their time online can be found at the IAB website.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has published its market study into online targeted advertising and prices. The IAB and many members engaged with the OFT team throughout its process. The market study recognises that behavioural advertising has the potential to "dramatically increase the effectiveness of advertising spend" and that "self-regulation can offer benefits for consumer protection and add real value to the functioning of efficient markets." It concludes that "...based upon our consumer research, it is proportionate to focus on improving and supporting self-regulation" and that "the IAB's Principles do appear to go some way to addressing consumer concerns, although they are barely a year old and still evolving." The OFT highlighted areas that needed improving user transparency, many of which are being addressed at an EU level. You can see the IAB's response here including a short Q&A.

Here is a selection of some of the media coverage:

- The Guardian
- The Independent

- Out-Law.com

- NMA

- The Register

For further information and/or an IAB analysis of the OFT market study please contact Nick Stringer at nick@iabuk.net

Digital Brand Building (2 days)
16 and 23rd June

Run over two days this course will give delegates a comprehensive guide to the key digital marketing disciplines which when deployed as part of a considered strategy can be used to enhance online brand awareness even in the most competitive of markets.

Project Management Beginner (1 day)
30th June

This course delivers the real and practical knowledge needed to understand the steps and processes involved in managing digital projects and therefore avoid the pitfalls, communicate effectively and manage internal and external requirements and expectations.

B2B Toolkit
The B2B Council has just launched the first in a series of educational Toolkits for the B2B sector. The first toolkit tackles the challenging topic of Search. This toolkit offer insights, top tips and case studies to deliver a handy guide which demonstrates the strategic importance of search in B2B. You can download the toolkit here.

New handbooks to be unveiled 
The Online Lead Generation Buyer Guide aims to provide readers with information on how to better plan lead generation campaigns and give guidance on some of the issues you might encounter whilst doing so. The handbook will be going out to all members soon and will be on our website next week. We're also just about to release the Brand Building in Search book with Tamar...watch this space.