Follow the Money: Why Some Advertisers Successfully Use Emerging Media and Why Others Can Not - Or Will Not

Moderator: Matt Coppet, Head of Global Media Strategy, UBS
Panelists: Matt Rosenberg, Group Direcor, Organic, Inc.
Mikael Blido, VP of Marketing, Sony Ericsson
Frances You, Senior Manager, Telecom Media Technology, Deloitte Consulting

This was a provocative session looking at the big question of ad dollars moving online, a topic near and dear to many Ad:Tech attendees, I'm sure.

It's an interesting time now with the writer's strike. The central issue of contention is how to compensate writers for distribution of content on new media platforms. Writers feel so strongly about this that they are willing to shut down an industry worth billions of dollars in the near term to protect the long term. This is tangible evidence that the decline of TV is happening and new media are emerging, changing the playing field.

From an advertiser's perspective, emerging = unproven. Advertisers "do emerging media" when they have a bucket of dollars left over, and don't put a lot of emphasis on it otherwise. In digital media we have an ecosystem: banner advertising, campaign sites, search, all those different things. It all relates back to a channel where 90% of people who buy a phone will use a website. It's not as clear with Video On Demand (VOD). For experimental purposes yes, otherwise no.

Tales from the Bleeding Edge

Well, this session was pretty "out there" and often had little to do with the web. One of the demos failed miserably (I guess Steve Jobs wasn't running rehearsals), and one was a real stretch as far as technology was concerned. But I must confess, it was fascinating and engaging, certainly entertaining. Six panelists presented some cool stuff.

Brand Nation: Leading Marketers Share their Vision

Moderator: Louise Story, New York Times
Panelists:
Daina Middleton, Global interactive Director (Printing & Imaging), HP
Joe Epstein, VP WW Digital Marketing Strategy, Columbia Tri-star
Mark Fogelberg, ANA

Brand nation is about marketers to get loyal customers to be citizens of their brand nation regardless of global boundaries. This was a huge "show and tell", illustrating how these companies are doing it.

HP and Columbia seem to "get it". They've taken their marketing out of the silos and have put together some impressive campaigns, integrated across all media and using multiple consumer touchpoints effectively.

Route CGA: Put the Prize Money Down!

"The folks who are truly amateurs are creating some remarkably relevant work..." - Moderator Neil Perry, XLNTads.com, in The Golden Rule of CGA - Know Thy Ad Creator.

For those who ain't hip to the jive, Perry describes CGA thus: Creative produced by the general public.

For me, the star of this panel was probably Kevin Nalty - better known as Nalts of YouTube fame.

A marketing director at a pharma firm by day, Nalts has taken to producing YouTube videos (oops - I mean CGA) by night. By now, he's produced over 500. Some have graced the top of YouTube's annals of fame; others have crashed and burned. At some point you ought to check out his half-entertainment, half-video-strategy-oriented site, Will video for food.

I first saw Nalts in a collaboration video with fellow YouTuber HappySlip, where he sneaks into her house and steals her stapler.

"It went on eBay for, like, $800!" he divulged to me later.

Such is the power of CGA love.

eCommerce Marketing: The Art of Customer Acquisition

Pity the session that takes place after lunch on the last day of ad:tech. People are exhausted after a long coupla days of parties, expo booths, buzzwords and PowerPoint. Attendace at these final sessions can be sparse and attention can waver.

Attendance wasn't too sparse to start at this session, but got more so as the session went along. Maybe people had planes to catch, or maybe it was the fact that a session about customer acquisition had relatively little to say about customer acquisition.

Extending Your Reach: Leveraging Mobile Content to Drive Your Brand Message

Two years ago, I blogged an ad:tech session called, "Mobile Marketing Gaining Success." The upshot of the session: Mobile marketing on cell phones will happen in a big way, but It's early yet.

Last year, I blogged an ad:tech session called, "Mobile Marketing 101." The upshot of the session: Mobile marketing on cell phones will happen in a big way, but It's early yet.

This year, I'm blogging an ad:tech session called, "Extending Your Reach: Leveraging Mobile Content to Drive Your Brand Message." The upshot of the session: Mobile marketing on cell phones will happen in a big way, but It's early yet.

The Online Female Consumer

What makes women online different from men? First of all, there's more of them: 97 million females vs. 91 million males, and distaff dominance will continue till at least 2011, reported Kate Thorp of Real Girls Media Network.

A few more stats: 66 percent of females are online vs. 64 percent of males, and the percentage of women 18-34 who blogged at least once a week rose from 25 to 30 percent in the last year. "The Internet is now the most vital medum in women's lives," Thorp reported, trailing only work, sleep, and family time.

Unfortunately, though, this handful of relatively common and certainly Google-able data points amounted to most of the meat and potatoes in a session that was otherwise lean on food for thought.

Defensive Branding 101: Troubleshooting Your Brand in the Age of Consumer Control

Holy crap!

It's an ugly world out there ...

If you came into this session depressed about what the online audience might be saying about your brand or about the enormity of the task of managing conversations about your brand online, there was no virtual Lexapro to be had.

The number-one word associated with "advertising" is "false" . . . there's a huge amount of cynicism and negativity out there that needs to be overcome . . . dissatisfaction is viral. And on and on. It's enough to make a brand manager weep.

Pete Blackshaw, Executive Vice President, Nielsen Online Strategic Services, to the rescue with a virtual tissue.

Britney Spears: the Social Media Gift that Keeps on Giving

While The Consumer Experience in a Multi-Platform World session was not so "multi-platform," the panelists did serve up two solid case studies on how an offline medium forged its way online.

In case study number one, Karin Gilford, VP and General Manager of Yahoo! Entertainment walked the audience through the launch of omg!, an image-rich celebrity gossip destination. What struck me most was that this offering was born out of very solid data that Yahoo! gathered via search queries. For example, 50% of images searches conducted by 12-30 year olds on Yahoo! were for celebrities, and more than half of the top fifty searches were entertainment-related. And as we all know, Britney Spears has been the number one search for five years running.

Thank goodness for Britney.

Multi-Platform Advertising: An Out-of-Body Experience?

First ad:tech session of the week: Media & Entertainment: Programming, Distribution and Advertising in a Multi-Platform World.

Moderator Ira Rubenstein kicked things off by cutting to the chase. Observing that the "old media model" revolved around scarcity, he asked how panelists make media buying and planning decisions for a show like Heroes when you can watch it on NBC, Hulu and Joost.

What followed were a bunch of really good-sounding quotes if you're a fan of the collected works of Seth Godin. Understand your audience! Follow the good content! What is your consumer looking for?

But then the wind changed. And the boys ran with it!

Global Perspectives on the Digital Revolution

Well, it's my first session at Ad:Tech NY 2007. Let's see what's cooking.

This panel was about "What's new? What's coming?" -- supposedly an overview of "the future." The four panelists talked about Asia a lot, some about Europe, Latin America and the Hispanic market. There's been a dramatic uptake in Asia, 30% of the spend is in digital. Asia is not homogenous. Korea is the hottest country with the government heavily supporting broadband. Most of digital in Asia is focused on mobile, not PCs. Surprisingly, China is missing out on 3G penetration. In the Philippines, there's a low internet adoption in PCs but mobile is extremely advanced -- including the fact that they can do micropayments through SMS.

Panelists:
Peter Blacker, SVP Digital Media, NBC Universal/Telemnundo
Adam Good, Exec Dir Digital Innovation, Clemenger Communication Ltd.
Ole Obermann, VP international Business Development, Sony BMG
Marc Landsberg, President, Arc Worldwide

Experts Explain How to Tap CGM For Advertising

If you're sick of hearing about consumer generated advertising and think it's just a fad, be sure to stop by the ad:tech panel on Thursday entitled The Golden Rule of Consumer-Generated Advertising - Know Thy Ad Creator where you will be proved wrong by such experts as Will Video For Food Kevin Nalts and XLNTads CEo Neil Perry.

Unless you've been living under a rock, consumer generated media and consumer generated advertising are hot, have been hot and will continue to be hot as tools, channels and control continue to shift from traditional content creators to the dude next door who creates videos in his bathrobe and rakes in millions in ad revenue by doing so.

Arianna Huffington and the IAB to Give Industry Update

If you're an Arianna Huffington fan, you can catch her on the ad:tech panel Keynote Roundtable: The State of the Industry. She'll be joined by IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg, Fox Interactive Media EVP Michael Barret, Tribal DDB CEO Matt Freeman and YouTube Head of Ad Sales Suzie Reider. The panel wil discuss consumer generated content, social networking, online video, ad networks, engagement, mobile marketing and, of course, the death of TV as we know it. For an informative update on the industry from some true know it alls, give this session a visit.