ad:tech Miami Speaker Line Up Continues to Gel

The speakers are lining up for ad:tech Miami. Already, we have keynotes from SMG Multicultural CEO Monica Gadsby and Mercadol.com Co-Founder and CEO Marcos Galperin. Now, from the brand side, we have MsDonald's Ethnic Brands Senior Director Pricilla Jamison, Proctor & Gamble Interactive Innovations Director Ted McConnell and Best Buy Hispanic Initiatives Director Jeff Weness.

From the agency side, we have Vidal Partnership Managing Partner Alberto Ferrer, BBDO Argentina Creative Director Fernando Barbella, Batanga Chairman and CEO Rafael Urbina-Quintero and Terra Networks COO Mark Lopez.

If you haven't yet registered, you can do it here right now.

ad:tech Heads to Miami for Some Hot Marketing Goodness

So ad:tech San Francisco has come to a close and sights are now set on Miami which will be the location of the next ad:tech conference June 3-4. The conference will be held at the Miami Beach Convention Center with keynotes from SMG Multicultural CEO Monica Gadsby and Mercadol.com Co-Founder and CEO Marcos Galperin.
The conference will be separated into three tracks: US Hispanic which will focus on U.S. Hispanic marketers, Latin America which will focus on top trends in Mexico and South America and Universal which will cover the broad spectrum on online marketing topics, trends and tactics.

While conference will be presented in English, every session will be translated live to Spanish and Portuguese.

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Adteractive Party Publishes Pictorial

Pictures from the Adteractive party which took place Wednesday, April 16 during ad:tech San Francisco are in and the hotness of the party was definitely captured. Check them all out here.

On-Demand Panel: An Introduction to Video-On Demand and TiVo

When one thinks interactive media, one often thinks about mobile, widgets, online videos and gaming systems like Xbox360. The evolution of TV with video-on-demand and TiVo-capable TV system is often overlooked. And that is what the panel exactly like, with Mitchell Oscar (CaratDigital), Christopher Curtin (Disney), Barry Frey (Cablevision), and Karen Bressner (TiVo).

The sessions promised to be a lively panel although slightly incestuousness, as the panelists from Carat Digital, Disney and Cablevision all worked together. And Karen Bressner of TiVo seemed the awkward person out. She made pains to describe TiVo as "Digital Video Retriever" not a "Digital Video Recorder" and reminded attendees throughout the panel that TiVo is not just a DVR.

Despite any potential faults, I found the panel very illuminating and informative as an introductory course on video-on-demand as an advertising platform.. Although, I'm sure it's not geared towards those experienced with TiVo or VoD advertising.

Click below, to see the whole story.

Photos from ad:tech's SF '08 Exhibit Hall

This year I got to visit the exhibit hall at ad:tech. Come share my experience, starting with this winning number from the AKQA /Search booth.

I am hipster. Witness the sulk-age against bleak existential black, and my awful white chairs.

Tactical SEO: Welcome to the Google Show

The most informative session I attended at ad:tech was the Tactical SEO Workshop -- which isn't really saying much.

Panel stars included Bruce Clay, the most talkative moderator I've ever seen, and Aaron D'Souza of Google -- who, Clay anxiously pointed out, was also on this panel last year. There were two other people on board -- but as Aaron Batte snippily Twittered, it was pretty much The Aaron D'Souza Show.

To kick things off, here's something you probably didn't know: Of all sites that commit the icky mistake of using it to point to a URL, Adobe ranks highest for the phrase "Click here."

Do yourself (and whomever else you link to) a favor. When linking, use relevant anchor text instead of the generic sort.

'Internet Superstars' Take Stage at Best ad:tech Session Ever

ad:tech very much needed the so-called Internet Superstars, four "internet famous" types who were the center of the closing keynote at this year's San Francisco conference. The name, a bit cheesy for a panel (buy, hey, it's the name of the Revision3 show), was apt for the ad:tech crowd, a very different crowd than the SXSW crowd to whom, internet stardom is the norm.

Mobile Advertising: Does Adidas Show it's Already Here?

"This year is the year of mobile marketing." That statement always raises chuckles among advertisers, but the "Exchange Series V: What Can Mobile Do For You?" shows that in the US Market, mobile advertising has been done with success. And yes, with actual case studies to boot not the "vagueness" that Alisa has described as being the theme of other ad:tech sessions.

On the panel included David Gale (Vibes Media), Gene Keenan (Isobar Communications) and
Chris Murphy (adidas USA). Their case studies focused around Transformers, Adidas and Verizon. Beyond the QA session provided for a pretty good best practices introduction to mobile advertising.

The Adidas case study was by far the most impressive. It demonstrated that a coordinated campaign - from TV commercials to in-store retail placement - can be all tied together with mobile tactics to create a campaign that can engage with their audience on personal level.

ad:tech San Francisco Captured Flickr-Style

Catch the second day (OK, mostly night) of ad:tech San Francisco in our Flickr albums. Here's day one. Here's day two. Oh, yes, we do love to have fun. Rubicon rocked. The Oldtimers party was exquisite. Datran did dinner and...what would an ad:tech photo album be without booth babes? Enjoy.

"Beyond the Banner" Not Quite Beyond

Ahh, the second to last session of the last day. Everyone's sticking around to check out Web 2.0 darling Kevin Rose and this mysterious "Internet Superstar" giving the closing keynote. But, before the entertaining antics of these web stars, we have the "Beyond the Banner/Beyond the Network: The Mid-Tail and the Promise of Engagement" panel. Maybe I was just tired and grumpy, but there was nothing beyond about this panel. In fact, they mostly discussed the issues of media buyers not planning well enough or not fully understanding the tools available to define and meet campaign objectives.

The Empowered Consumer: Are We Losing Control of our Brands? No! Yes!

Moderator Marc Ruxin, Senior VP/ Director of Digital Strategy and Innovation for McCann Worldgroup opened up the session declaring this would be the "best conversastion about conversations." My first thought was why the hell control-freaks Microsoft and Citi were on a panel ostensibly discussing the "empowered consumer" and the conversation we all must join (in transparent, authentic ways, of course). Seriously? Microsoft? On the whole, this was an interesting panel with some of the best funny/strange comments of the conference (minus of course the best quote of all from opening keynoter Jeffrey Hayzlett of Kodak who proclaimed resolutely "I believe in print!"). Below is a summary of topics the panel covered with only the choicest quotes from the panelists...

Where Is My Local Interactive Marketing Association?

20 odd people showed up for the panel "How Interactive Marketing Associations are Driving Growth One Market at a Time" and I think most of them were friends of those on the panel. I hate to say this, but I'm not really sure if there was anything to learn from this panel - other than that there is an association in my home city of Los Angeles that I've never heard of.

Back to the Future: Marketing with Downloadable Media

Not so much a panel discussion, the session was more of a group presentation. The moderator and panelists each had about ten minutes of charts that sometimes reached into fifteen. Not that the material was not interesting, but I was hoping for more back and forth between the panel and a moderator who guided the discussion. They did a good job of following the description for the panel, which means the audience got the fill of definitions, case studies, best practices, and more for both the marketers and the people who might want to try their hand at creating a podcast or vidcast.

Widgets, Gadgets and Apps Oh My!

One of the final session's of Ad-Tech brought together a panel to represent the whole widget ecosystem. Or rather, as it might be described here: We want to explore the synergies in the widget/social app space, with special emphasis on monetizing tweens/millenials for a potential power panel play. I keeeed, actually this was one of the more practical sessions I attended.

The session was moderated by Jerimiah Owyang from Forrester Research with a panel representing:

The Platform-
Kent Schoen, Product Marketing Manager at Facebook

Widget Development-
Hooman Radfar, CEO of Clearspring Technologies

Analysis-
Jane Felice, Senior Client Service Director, Media and Entertainment at comScore

and an end Client-
Ed Davis, VP of Product Development at ESPN Digital Media.

The best thing about this session, was that it was a genuine panel, rather than a series of short presentations. The moderator led the discussion, and each of the panelists had a chance to jump in when they could contribute.

Overheard Around the Dining Table...

Statements may or may not have been made at the table around which the people at left are sitting (so don't, like, push thumbtacks into their faces):

"A moderator's job is to make the panelists uncomfortable."

"Clearly ad:tech is not the leading edge trade show. They're the big monster ... SXSW? They're, like, bleeding bleeding edge."

"I hate those goddamn sessions. I just come here to spend time with the bloggers."

"I don't smoke and I don't dance. But I like to smoke, and I like to dance."