The fuzzy middle

Scott Karp writes:

As advertising dollars continue their inexorable march from offline to online, the battle for control of those dollars will be fought over the fuzzy middle ground between branding and direct response. I can’t count how many times at the OMMA conference I heard someone say it “depends on the advertiser’s objectives.” The problem with allocating online ad dollars to branding vs. direct response is that many advertisers, especially those with the big bucks, want to have it both ways.