If I close and my eyes and think of the most powerful message that came out of Ad Tech Paris 2008 it has to be targeted advertising. Never before have advertising companies, media companies, agencies, designers and everyone else involved in the world of media paid so much attention to the wishes of the consumer.

Somewhere along the way these advertising companies, who would spend millions of dollars on showing their messages to all and sundry, are now carefully going after the people who actually might be interested in their products.

The fact that vertical advertising networks can charge such high CPM (cost per thousand impressions) is proof that this is working. If not, they just wouldn’t be spending the money and the ad network would have to lower their prices.

Another message delivered in Paris is online ad spend. Unlike the year 2000 when everyone was mislead into thinking that 2001 would be the end of all traditional means of advertising and online ads would take their place, now this is actually happening. The reason for this phenomena is quite simply the growth of the Internet and the fact that many people prefer to sit at home in the evening surfing the web than watching television.

Could this also be the time for mobile? The answer is pretty soon, but not now. Everything is education that has to grow with a new generation. Tomorrow’s advertising audience of mobile users are today’s 16-24 year olds. Blyk have figured this out.

Over the coming week I will be posting all of my findings, reports and video interviews from Ad Tech, so stay tuned.

Pictured above is Michael Kleindl.