SCOTSDALE, Arizona: The media-buying divisions of Publicis Groupe's Starcom MediaVest Worldwide wants online media to be included in upfront buys and its CEO Jack Klues has called for more use of digital ad strategies. Klues gave this clarion call while addressing an audience of 500 online media buyers and sellers at the iMedia Summit being held in Arizona.

Starcom associates is broadening their upfront services this year to enable marketers to repurpose their TV advertising on the Internet, according to Klues. The owner of the world's largest media-buying company mentioned that it was time to use online as a way to deliver television commercials for the clients.

Klues urged those who owned the most powerful pathway to consumers, that the industry has ever seen, to quantify it. He also urged online media owners to package their data and give media buyers a selling point they couldn't refuse.

Traditional media strategists must work collaboratively with their online counterparts or risk being left behind as changes in the media landscape accelerate around them, was the warning given by Klues. He, however, conceded that many traditional and interactive media players consider TV to be a dinosaur which eats into budgets available for other traditional and new media.

Starcom CEO also admitted that offline might get more eyeballs but online gets the right eyeballs plus more immediate and measurable results.

Backing up his comments, Klues mentioned that research conducted by Starcom showed that young people view online news with better credibility as compared to that from offline sources. Starcom handles clients Nintendo and the US Army which rely heavily on online marketing programmes.