Several professionals have pitched in to provide some insight into what these figures mean and why it may be perceived that the future of web advertising really is, or is not, in the UK’s hands. The supposed domination of the Web by Britain, and the differences that may attribute to any type of U.S. and U.K. online advertising comparative, must be taken into consideration when analyzing both countries’ online marketing efforts.

No doubt, there are differences between the U.S. and the U.K. online advertising methods, but it may also be a bit premature to call Britain a leader in online advertising just yet. Yes, the NYT article quoted Yahoo chief Terry S. Semel as saying “the US is so behind…it’s certainly lagging the UK by at least a year or two.” But whether that is true is up for questioning and with two industry leaders from the UK and the US, informed comments on who is leading the market and by what standards can possibly be formulated.

Surprisingly, all interviewees were in somewhat of an agreement to disagree with the findings, including Dave Smith, Managing Director for London-based agency New Media Maze, who couldn’t see how the UK could lead the world in online advertising but embraced the possibility. Former head of the IAB, Greg Stuart, couldn’t continue our interview without solid proof and Ian Schafer of Deep Focus, an interactive agency that services the business and entertainment areas, had trouble agreeing with this as well. So what is the difference between the UK and the US within online advertising practices and why do some professionals believe that the US can learn a lesson or two from Britain?

Let’s begin by comparing the ongoing trends in the UK and the US. According to Dave Smith, “The main trend is towards a greater degree of interaction. Ad units are getting a lot cleverer and a little heavier as well. So that’s the main trend, that you’re able to do more within an ad unit.” On the U.S end, Ian Schafer points out that the trend within the United States is veering towards the social media area. “Everyone’s become smitten and for good reason with social media, you know the whole ‘Web 2.0′ cliché. It’s led to sharing, to linking and even in some cases, shows just how visible the spread of a creation can happen.”

As the United States consumes itself with social networking, Britain is focused on a different type of medium and that is mobile marketing. According to Dave Smith, “it’s huge” in the U.K., as is the use of Skype, while Americans continue with traditional cellular service and have only begun to see the mobile expansion with phones that have online/interactive capabilities. But mobile marketing strides alone couldn’t make the U.K. a leader in online advertising. As Greg Stuart bluntly stated, “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” which is why our interview stopped there, and potentially for good reason.

While it serves a consistent platter of successful programs, HBO hasn’t always replicated the commercial triumphs of shows like The Sopranos. Case in point, “The Wire”, arguably the most critically-adored series ever entrenched in the cable network’s roster (Slate.com, for one, has christened it “the greatest show ever”). But throughout its four previous seasons, the complex show’s media adulation hasn’t necessarily translated into mainstream acceptance.

But interactive agency Deep Focus, which has successfully implemented extensive online promotions for HBO hits like Entourage, is helping the network change all that. “It’s been a strong performer for HBO, but hasn’t necessarily been the big crossover hit that Sex and the City, the Sopranos or Entourage became,” Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer tells ADOTAS. “It’s very complicated.”

An intense police procedural drama that gives viewers the hero and villain perspective while blurring the lines between both, The Wire takes place each season in a different social environment in and around Baltimore.

The fifth season, which debuted on September 10th, is no different. “This season focuses primarily on the education system,” Schafer explains. “If you do watch this series, you will notice that many of the characters that you’re used to seeing in every episode are not in these episodes. As a matter of fact, there are very few characters that make the leap from the previous seasons into this one. But because this is about education, education and education reform tend to be an issue that polarizes a lot of people, where that people feel very strongly and passionate about.”

Deep Focus in turn is taking this hot-button issue of education to the streets, literally. Beginning last Friday, the agency began soliciting slam poets, hip-hop and freestyle artists across the country to speak out about how they were educated by submitting videos of their artistic expression—effectively parlaying user-generated content into a savvy urban campaign. “One of the reasons why spoken word performance has really taken off over the last few years in America is because it’s the poetry of the streets,” says Schafer. “People write this poetry because they want to express themselves and they’re expressing themselves about topics that are very personal to them.”

He continues, “Because the fact that people do feel passionate about [education], we wanted to capture that passion and galvanize audiences around this particular issue and let them sound off about it. It’s something that typically hits close to home for a lot of people. Everyone for the most part has been through the education system here in America. But not everyone has been through the inner-city educational system, which is different because they’re not usually given all the same resources or chances for success that suburban educational systems have.”

To enter the contest, competitors log on to Blastro and upload a video of their performance. Judges will select five finalists based on originality, creativity, and appropriateness to the education topic. Blastro.com users will review the finalist videos and cast votes online to select the grand prize winner which will be featured on HBO On Demand.

“Blastro.com, The Wire and the spoken word community share a common interest in urban politics,” said Sabrina Caluori, Account Director at Deep Focus. “This contest provides a forum for audiences to address The Wire’s central themes and issues through the use of conscious user-generated content.”

Ben Davis, Co-Founder of Blastro.com, added, “‘The Wire Spoken Word Battle’ asks real people to tell their story. We’re looking for honest entries that represent the spirit of The Wire, HBO and Blastro.”

In just two seasons, HBO’s “Entourage” has given its audience an unfiltered, hilarious insider’s view of young Hollywood. As a result, any fan of this increasingly popular series would likely drop their daily routines in a hot second to roll with blossoming movie star Vincent Chase and his hangers-on.

Thankfully, those of us suffering withdrawal as a result of “Entourage’s” yearlong hiatus (including yours truly) will be glad to know the boys are back on June 11th for an all-new season. And just like last year, HBO has tapped New York-based interactive agency Deep Focus to design and execute the entire online campaign to whet our appetites.

But while rollover video campaigns and the sort constituted season 2′s online push, Deep Focus is going multi-dimensional for season 3 with a marketing blitz, launched just this week, that also co-opts the social networking and gaming worlds. “HBO challenged us to put together a campaign that really took not only the series to the next level, but also the aspects of online marketing that we wanted involved to the next level,” Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer tells ADOTAS. “They gave us unprecedented access to talent. With all that ammunition at our disposal, we pretty much kicked ass on developing what amounts to a three-pronged campaign for them.”

The first “prong” is essentially comprised of a takeover/contest on MySpace (above), arguably the most fertile soil to sell “Entourage” to both current and potential viewers. “We essentially created a layer on top of MySpace called MyEntourage,” Schafer explains. “Basically, what we do is encourage people to form groups on MySpace of best friends, your entourage. Then, you borrow the skills of the guys in the cast: network, publicize, schmooze, harass, out-pretty every other group in order to get the most friends. So basically, we’re exposing MySpace for what some people feel it is, a popularity contest, and [creating incentives for] it.” Besides the ego boost, the incentives Schafer mentions aren’t too shabby either. “We’re giving away Chryslers to each member of the winning entourage, we’re giving away free trips to LA, cell phones, Xbox 360s, DVDs,” he says. It’s a pretty great prize package.”

So far, so good on the MySpace front. The MyEntourage profile has already nabbed 17,000 friends, and Schafer notes that while the sweepstakes is short-term, the MySpace site itself and Entourage will run continually through the show’s lifetime.

The first “official” YouTube film trailer was launched 72 hours ago for Dimension Films’ upcoming “Scary Movie 4.” Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer tells ADOTAS, “It’s really simple. It’s us officially sanctioning the trailer on YouTube.”

While it’s not the first content promotion deal on YouTube, it might already be its most successful. In just three days’ time, Schafer says that the trailer’s reached 500,000 views, with 2300 people rating it at 4 ½ stars, and over 800 overwhelming comments. Considering that YouTube had approximately nine million unique visitors in February according to figures published by Nielsen//NetRatings this week, Schafer says that YouTube is an ideal platform to promote official product. “It’s great positive buzz. The ability to share and empower audiences to push it to other people is what separates seeing it on YouTube.”

“We knew that we were cast with catching people up, effectively, because the show hasn’t been on for two years,” says Schafer from his Big Apple headquarters. “In our mind, everyone knows that the series is based in New Jersey, and they’re familiar with the locations in the series because they keep on popping up. People all over the country, whether you’re familiar with New York or not, are familiar with Shea in some way, or there’s a scene under the Brooklyn Bridge, you recognize the Brooklyn Bridge. The problem is, you don’t really get the perspective on proximity for all these locations. One of the things that we decided to bring was the world of fiction—which was set in a real place—further into reality, [allowing] people to see where all this stuff happened.”

The Google Maps “mashup” on the The Sopranos’ official HBO website (below) features clickable locations of characters, famous show venues like the Bada Bing and prominent events from past seasons. Regardless of its novelty, the promotion is an important step forward for interactive advertising, as innovations like these in entertainment branding are about as scant as a dancer’s ensemble at the Bing. But thankfully, Ian Schafer lives, breathes and more importantly, knows online entertainment marketing, a medium that’s been his muse since he left school and found a job in early ’97 at a burgeoning (now Agency.com-owned) boutique called iTraffic.

“It was under a year old, but it was supposedly revolutionizing the online advertising landscape,” Schafer says. “They offered me a job on the spot as an account coordinator. I was the twelfth employee that company ever had. So it was really early on in the stages of that company, especially considering it was started by four people.”

One of the big draws for the novice online media lad was the chance to work with one of the world’s most recognizable brands. “One of the reasons I took that job actually—aside from the generous stock options—was really because I was going to be working on the Disney account there, basically doing media reconciliations until about 2:00 every night.”

But Schafer’s practice of burning the midnight oil paid off, his steady rise in the iTraffic echelons mirrored the growth of the online space itself. “As time moved on, I accelerated through the ranks of the agency rather quickly—which was part hard work, part dedication, and part good timing. And then within I would say about 6 months I was a media planner. And within 6 months after that I was a senior account executive. And after a year I was the number two guy on the account.”

Schafer’s new second-in-command post — which called for the overseeing of all the online Disney entertainment properties, including Disney.com, Touchstone Pictures, Disney Pictures, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, ESPN and ABC — did not go unnoticed. Another (at the time) Disney-owned property, Miramax, was looking to inject new blood into its nascent interactive division. Appropriately enough, Schafer’s name was brought up in the conversation, expectedly leading to a career at the Weinstein Bros’ studio.

“I wound up at Miramax for four years,” he says, “where by the time I was through there I was vice-president of the media, in charge of all of the advertising for all of their films and television properties.” Schafer’s legacy at Miramax and its subsidiary Dimension is cemented by the interactive executions he managed for films such as Scream 3. But after four lauded years at the studio, high turnover rates and agency outsourcing left Schafer both frazzled and enlightened. “We went through about four CFOs in my four years at Miramax,” he says. “At that time, they were still Disney owned, so they were being held to a pretty tight bottom line. So I was forced to let go of most of the department. So the attention turned to outsourcing.”

He continues, “We were looking for the right agency to work with us to handle a lot of the media buying and help us execute on our strategy efficiently and effectively. The problem is—and we brought every agency under the sun and every local NY agency that we could find to meet about this stuff—no one really understood how to market entertainment properties. They were used to building year-long campaigns to launch some consumer brands. But they did not understand the tight timelines necessary—or how to manage assets—when launching a film. Because you’ve literally got three weeks to make an impact with your audience until the film hits the box office. Needless to say, we had agencies coming in that didn’t even look at our release schedule, which was public information. They didn’t understand half the terminology that we were using. It was getting very frustrating. And after I was frustrated for about a month, that’s when the light bulb went on, saying “Why don’t I just start an agency that does this?”

But not only will visitors get to cast their vote for the best Super Bowl ads past and present, they’ll get an exclusive trailer for the sixth season of The Sopranos, which (finally) begins March 12th.

“What we saw with HBO is the opportunity to promote their content, and get the core messages that the Sopranos is coming and more importantly, watch an exclusive trailer,” AOL Director of Sales Development Jaan Janes tells ADOTAS. “[In broadband], it’s a high-touch audience that’s already engaging in broadband. [So] it’s a unique point in time where we can leverage a piece of content for an ad partner.”

The Sopranos video tie-in, which was created by agency Deep Focus, features Tony Sirico aka Paulie Walnuts appearing in a pre-roll ad and introducing viewers to the Super Bowl ad gallery as well as the Sopranos trailer.

According to Janes, broadband is “a cultural phenomenon” where “marketers have to put their best foot forward.” Streaming the Super Bowl ads online also gives the consumer more control over content, according to Janes. “Most online consumption is not from a live event,” he says, “It’s everything that’s already happened where the user can control the event, get video content at their own pace and their own demand.”

AOL is planning to keep the ads and Sopranos trailer up throughout the week following the Super Bowl.

In related news, Break.com, a user-generated video sharing site, will provide links to all Super Bowl TV ads and will allow users to review the ads and post comments within the Break.com network. Users will also be able to share ads with users outside the network.