Adam Smith, futures director, WPP’s GroupM, opened a shared session with TNS Media at the UBS Global Media Conference in NYC today by saying he was tired of hearing that the Internet is the root of all growth and focused the early part of his presentation on the growth of emerging markets, particularly Asia. But he quickly returned to the story of the internet’s continued growth, noting that the web will become the biggest ad medium in Sweden next year. The UK and Denmark are next in line, sometime within the next two years, he said. However, in terms of national political ad spending, the Internet is not much of a factor, as campaigns mostly view it as a branding tool and and so have tended to rely on free exposure on YouTube and on blogs, which charge a small amount for advertising, said Evan Tracey, COO, TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG. Here’s some of the details from Smith’s and Tracey’s respective presentations:

—No Ceiling for search’s rise: The search portion in UK, Germany, US, Canada and France is already approaching 50 percent share of measured internet last year, Smith said. “What worries me is – okay, this is the source of the internet’s growth – how do big advertisers participate in this when 80 percent of the search business is dominated by small to mid-size businesses. How much does WPP spend with Google (NSDQ: GOOG), for instance? I’m very aware we have no divine right to participate in this internet growth.”

—Display pales in comparison: Faster broadband, cheaper production is helping display advertising make headway. “It’s not dead in the water, growing at 25 percent. Still display is lagging. But with search, it’s hard to know where the ceiling is, though it can’t get past 100 percent,” Smith said.

—The threat to online indies: As traditional publishers become better at running digital assets, they become a threat to independent publishers that have gotten fat on the net while the older media companies slept. For example, we have the relationships with the Murdochs and Viacoms and once their digital properties become more practical for our clients to use, we bring them to those deals. And that will have a substantial pricing affect on digital.

—Not many votes for new media ads: Tracey noted that the main focus in political ad spend is on undecided voters. And the internet still carries a lot of uncertainty in terms of ad placement.
“Most of the money from political ad spend that’s making its way onto the internet have been issue-oriented ads. And that’s going to the political blogs, which don’t rack up a lot of money. They are not expensive properties to buy. He mentioned a story in the NYT about a Mitt Romney banner ad that wound up on gay site. “If you’re a conservative Republican competiting in Iowa or New Hampshire, that may not be the place you want those ads to show up. And so, many are still skittish about the internet.”