The cost of digital media will go up - 20 to 30 percent a year for several years - driven by fragmentation and consumer control, according to Rishad Tobaccowala, chief innovation officer at Publicis Groupe Media and president of SMG Next, ClickZ reports. "At some stage it becomes more expensive to buy Google than to buy network television," he said, referring to pay-per-click and the cost of aggregating audiences once reached via a single network TV buy.

Tobaccowala, speaking Monday about the challenges facing media buyers at online advertising conference OMMA West, in San Francisco, also predicted that media buyers will have to pay more to capture people's attention in an increasingly consumer-controlled culture: "The cost of getting someone's attention is going to go up much, much more," he said.

Tobaccowala also outlined six issues that could collapse the online ad industry if not addressed, iMedia reports - and summarizes.

Topping the list of challenges is "Inner Dinosaur Disease," the fear of change. Because change can be painful, he said, we resist it - or agencies and clients chase after change in meaningless or unsuitable increments. Second is "optimizing the wrong thongs," he said, focusing on inputs rather than outputs. Third is "data wars," or paying more attention to deriving metrics instead of determining which are relevant. Fourth is the arrogance of success, he said, which leads to a lack of cooperation and productive partnering. Fifth is "creative conflagration," or balancing numbers with creative, without which numbers don't turn into anything interesting. Finally, the sixth issue, he said, is a dearth of talent.