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If eMarketer 's projections are correct, we will see a big uptick in online ad spending this year. It could be a strong indication that the digital economy is in for a surge. We wonder what the overall economic impact will be, and whether we can look back in 12 months and see online ad spending as a reliable economic indicator. Here is a look at eMarketer's projections for online ad spending in the US over the next five years: From the report: US online ad spending will post growth well above 20% again this year to reach nearly $40 billion, eMarketer estimates, as the internet continues to prove its worth to advertisers in a tough economic climate. “Advertisers’ comfort level with integrated marketing is greater than ever, and this is helping more advertisers—and more large brands—put a greater share of dollars online,” said David Hallerman, eMarketer principal analyst. Double-digit growth is expected through 2014, when US online ad spending will reach $52.8 billion. In 2016, eMarketer expects advertisers to spend $62 billion online. Read US Online Ad Spend to Close in on $40 Billion here .

B. Bonin Bough , PepsiCo 's head of digital and social media, says digital consumption has replaced music as "the beacon of culture." At the 2011 Aspen Ideas Festival , Bough discussed the future of digital marketing with Stephen Cannon , Vice President, Marketing, Mercedes-Benz USA , and Bernardo Huberman , Director of HP's Social Computing Research Lab . And all three agree that the social media space will soon dominate the consumer-company relationship, with consumers in the driver's seat. Here is an excerpt from the discussion: Watch the full discussion at FORA.tv , here .

At PRBreakfastClub , Keith Trivitt is a bit annoyed at what the "turf wars" that have developed over advertising, marketing and public relations in social media. He says that the digital age era might require a new way of thinking about competition and collaboration within fields, and that fighting over "who owns " social media is counterproductive: Rather than trying to claim ownership of some inanimate thing, such as social media, why don’t we collaborate with our allied industry peers to increase all of our services’ value to clients? In constantly shifting business and consumer markets, can we really afford to waste our time engaging in debates that clients could care less about? I don’t mean to degrade these discussions, because there is some merit to them. But we must come to the realization that a concept that once seemed preposterous to many marketers — collaboration with competitors — is fast becoming the norm for modern PR, marketing and advertising initiatives. And that’s not a bad thing, so long as we continue to innovative and don’t allow ourselves to become complacent knowing that a competing marketer can pick up the slack for us. Competition is indeed a great thing, but so is a collaborative sense that helps build many industry’s overall value to consumers and brands. Read Stop the Silly Social Media Ownership Battles here .

Today is the day for a different sort of Monday morning quarterbacking. It is time for all the advertising experts to give their opinions on the best and worst of the television extravaganza that is the Super Bowl broadcast. After being disappointed by the work of some traditionally major Super Bowl players like Budweiser, Ken Wheaton of AdAge found himself praising the likes of Justin Bieber and Timothy Hutton for ads that seemed to receive mixed responses from viewers. He also gave Chrysler top marks for this striking spot (a very expensive spot at 2 minutes long): Here is what Wheaton had to say about this ad, which was produced by Wieden & Kennedy : Is Olivier Francois the Alexis De Toqueville of American car manufacturing? I'll say this much. I find it odd -- and encouraging -- that a Frenchman working for an Italian company has figured out a way to make car commercials that play on patriotism interesting. Maybe the Chrysler CMO has picked up the gritty fighting spirit of his new home city rather than the malaise. Because this ad? This two-minute, pod-hogging ode to Detroit? It charges you up. Sure, U.S. automakers have previously tried to convince us that "We are all Detroit" before, but not with creative this captivating. And after a few years of a battered economy, most Americans are more inclined to identify with Detroit than with, say, New York or Sin City, both of which are name-checked here. As the spot says, "We're certainly no one's Emerald City." What starts out as a down-on-our-luck tribute to a broken city morphs into a defiant, we're-back rallying cry faced by none other than Eminem, another broken thing out of Detroit who happens to be staging a massive comeback. Tea partiers and labor unions alike will cheer this one, including the tagline: "Imported from Detroit." Will it move Chrysler 200s? Who knows? Will it move viewers? Definitely. Read Wheaton's analysis for all the ads here .

It looks like 2010 has turned out to be the important year in the transition of ad dollars to online. eMarketer estimates that spending in online ads will exceed spending in newspaper ads in the US. Here's a look at their estimates: Unfortunately for newspapers, they have not been able to capture lost revenue online. In 2010, online makes up about 11.7% of all US newspaper ad spending, a proportion set to rise to 13% next year. Ad spending on newspapers is expected to continue its decline. eMarketer estimates that print newspaper spending has already been cut in half since 2006, and online has done relatively little to make up the difference. By contrast, total US online ad spending will continue double-digit growth through 2014, when it will surpass $40 billion. Read the full article here .

comScore released the latest online video rankings this week, and they included some data on video advertisements. There are no big surprises in the overall rankings--Google sites, which includes YouTube, account for nearly 40% of all online video viewership. Hulu comes in at 10th in number of unique visitors, but is second only to Google sites in minutes per user. This may explain why advertisers seem to like the Hulu model. And indeed, in terms of the sheer volume of ads, Hulu is lapping the field. The site set a record with 1.1 billion ad impressions in the month. Take a look at the breakdown: View a summary of comScore's findings here .

The two big social media outlets, Facebook and Twitter, each started a new ad format last week. Facebook launched its "mobile local deal," with Gap as the first company to try it out. Twitter had its first sponsor of a Promoted Trend: the Washington Post. Marketing Vox analyzed the success of these first efforts, while pointing out that advertisers ten to be too proud to admit failure when they try out something for the first time: With that in mind, it does appear that the initial campaigns by Washington Post and Gap went according to plan. According to the Post's executive producer and head of digital news products Katharine Zaleski, the campaign was a success, even though it didn't drive huge amounts of traffic to the paper's site. ( via the Atlantic). That is because it is defining success differently - it didn’t necessarily expect to drive traffic. Rather, Zaleski said, it wanted to be front and center in the conversation. Of all the people who clicked on the Election link from the Twitter.com homepage, 9% of them engaged with the Washington Post, according to Twitter's head of media partnerships Chloe Sladden, who added that the 9% engagement was on the "high-average" for other types of promoted trends. Gap’s use of Facebook Deals was also deemed a success by the company, although as one poster on Gap’s Facebook page noted, how hard is it to give away Gap jeans? Fast Company reported that Gap stores in high-traffic New York City areas, such as Soho, the Financial District, Midtown, ran out of give-away jeans within hours. Even more impressive was the lack of advertising for the promotion, Fast Company said. Read Under the Microscope: How did Gap, WaPo do? here .

*** Costolo replaced Evan Williams as CEO of Twitter this week. The big move comes at what might be an historic period for the social media giant. In his role as COO of Twitter, Costolo had become known for pushing the advertising potential of the company. In an interview with Ad Age 's Abbey Klaassen at the IAB Mixx conference, Costolo said he and his fellow Twitter execs believe they have "cracked the code on a new kind of advertising." And he talked about something called "promoted accounts." Through using the same algorithms that help Twitter users connect with new people to follow through the "suggestions for you" feature launched this last summer, Twitter will help brands connect to the right people in the right way, Costolo says. Here's video of the interview: