PASADENA, Calif — The recession-fueled advertising downturn underlines the urgency of using the Web to glean data and target consumers directly, rather than blasting them with a barrage of TV-style ads, media executives say. At the Fortune Brainstorm: TECH conference in Pasadena this week, Walt Disney Co Chief Executive Robert Iger opened a discussion about new ways to market to consumers, when he described himself as, ‘pretty bullish about what technology is going to allow in terms of behavioral tracking.’ Executives from AOL, a division of Time Warner Inc, News Corp and IAC/InterActiveCorp echoed similar hopes about the potential to reach consumers online. As advertising dollars grow ever more scarce, companies have been forced to rethink how they reach consumers and have moved away from the traditional 30-second spot to the kinds of targeted, Internet-driven marketing campaigns that have been talked about for years. Internet advertising in the United States — a $23.4 billion market in 2008 — was down 5 percent in the first quarter of this year and Iger and other executives say the sector may not return to the historic growth trajectory seen before the recession. Jonathan Miller, head of News Corp’s […]