Sneak Peek into the ad:tech Press Room
Here’s a wee throwaway video I took in the ad:tech press room, which is where we hole up from morning ‘til the first party of the night.
Featuring Brent Terrazas, Steve Hall and Really Loud Guy Who Asks for Business Cards and Puts You On Annoying Mailing Lists.
Seriously. He doesn’t even ask for your name. It’s just “Miss, got a business card? I HAVE A NEWSLETTER.”
read more...Email 3.0: Smiling Into HAL’s Eye
While ”The Role of Email in a Web 3.0 World” was mostly theory, I liked its feel-good flow. Moderator Christopher Marriott of Acxiom Digital got panelists comfortable without making viewers feel like they were sitting on the outside of an inside joke. It’s a rare and beautiful skill.
Marriott acknowledged it was late in the day and told us up-front that the panelists were debriefed on his questions beforehand. As a result, he said, they came laden with slides to answer three major questions:
1. How might the nature of email change as it goes more completely cross-platform?
2. Can email coexist with the semantic web (web 3.0) ... or co-opt it?
3. What role will The Consumer play in creating web 3.0 email?
Before we get too deep down the rabbit hole, let’s define web 3.0.
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Conversational Marketing: Four Truths And One Lie
Moderated by Nielsen Online EVP of Digital Strategic Services Pete Blackshaw, the Keynote Panel Conversational Branding: Are You Listening? examined the notion of conversation as it applies to marketers engaging with consumers. On the panel were Dell Social Media/Blog Outreach Senior Manager Rhichard Binhammer, Nestle Head of Digital Marketing Michael Moore, Edelman Digital President Rick Murray, BlohGer Co-Founder Jory Des Jardins and COmcasts Corporate Communications VP Jennifer Khoury. Out of the panel came four truths and one not so true bit of information. Can you guess the not so truthful approach to conversational marketing?
1. You need to really focus on reaching your customers with authentic conversation through all touch points. Jennifer Khoury, VP, Corporate Communications at Comcast Corporation emphasizes this point—if you’ve come up with a great strategy for authentic conversation make sure that it’s not just a one-off strategy. Customers calling your 1-800 line should be getting the same honest chat as people using Twitter.
read more...Mobile Marketing Jumps the Shark—In A Good Way
Mobile Marketing is about to jump the shark—sorry, nuke the fridge—in a very good way. Yes, a lot of new marketing strategies sit on the cusp of mainstream popularity, but mobile marketing seems to be different. Why? In today’s Making Mobile Work: Real World Examples ad:tech Chicago panel, not one audience member asked, “How can I get my company to agree to invest marketing dollars in mobile?” This is perhaps a happy indicator the medium is on its way to mass acceptance.
So what was there to learn about mobile marketing in the real world?
read more...How Hasbro Lost the Fight for Scrabble’s Soul
Tuesday night at ad:tech Chicago wrapped up with a keynote by author Clay Shirky, ”Here Comes Every Customer: The Former Audience is Talking Around You.”
The Big Idea, if intro speaker Drew Ianni is any authority: “The internet is the most important thing to happen to the human species.”
That’s a pretty high and mighty manifesto. Upon taking the stage, Shirky tried conveying the same idea with more precision—and a much higher word count.
read more...Search Marketing - Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Talking about the current state of Search Marketing and what lies ahead in a panel called “The State of Search - A Maturing Marketplace or Poised for More Growth?” was Jon Diorio, Group Product Marketing Manager for Google, James Colborn - Director for Microsoft; John Anagnost, Global Director for Ogilvy; and Rob Murray, President of iProspect. This panel gave all in attendance the opportunity to learn more about how the industry is changing, in both tactics and marketplace perception. Above all, each panelist all agreed on one important observation - Search Marketing is changing.
The shift in SEM is not seen in just one or two categories, but across the board. We’re witnessing a transition from directory and keyword-based search to use of rich semantics and a focus on user experience.
For publishers, the shift has went from CPC and Paid Inclusion to the arrival of Paid Engagement and Consumer Rewards. Marketers are in somewhat of a “Cooperation Phase” with great transparency, increased collaboration and an overall greater understanding of “true search contributions.” Even consumers have changed. We’re now seeing a user who is no stranger to searching for information or products on the internet. Basic searches that might have been pretty prevalent in years past, like “hotel,” have been replaced by a slightly more detailed inquiry: “London hotels.” From there an even more specific search has been noticed, leading the way to inquiries into “Cheap London hotels.”
Still savvier users invent more obscure searches than what has been typically thought of in the past, going from niche search engines and toolbars to applications to further segment their desired search results. Application toolbars for search may add convenience for the user but also changes the game as consumers are not visiting the main search website.
read more...The Current State of the Internet Economy
With Kevin Rowe, a Principal for Lake Capital, moderating a session on the current state of “The Internet Economy,” my ad:tech Chicago experience began (that is, after a five hour flight delay due to bad weather in Chicago). Participating in the discussion were Matt Moog - Founder and CEO of Viewpoints Network, Gian Fulgoni - Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of ComScore and Matt Spiegel - CEO of Omnicom Media Group Digital.
With increasing gas prices driving—no pun intended—consumers away from in-store shopping, it’s safe to say inflation is currently the biggest threat to traditional retail sales. That said, though there still has been a noticeable decrease in growth for online advertising, something that hasn’t really been seen since the mid 90’s. While online sales have continued to grow, multiple research studies show that for every one product purchased online, four to five were purchased in-store after using the web for product research. The only real exception to this rule seems to be multi-channel retail outlets like Amazon.com (which recently released its second quarter sales, more than doubling what analysts projected for 2008).
Many companies lump any dollars spent on maintaining or “upgrading” their corporate site in with the online advertising budget. The panelists agreed that this was a poor practice. Corporate websites should fall under a branding budget, rather than take away from the online media buy. Also, most brands do not leverage their corporate website as a vehicle for third party revenue. An example given was Expedia.com, which makes over $200 million per year in advertising revenue in addition to any actual sales made via the popular travel portal. If a brand isn’t using their own website as means to drive people to their retail stores or as a new source of revenue, then they are missing out on a large piece of the online pie.
read more...The Not Really Viral Panel About Branding Viral Paid More Heed to Word of Mouth
First things first: this panel had little to do with viral marketing or branding. The case studies discussed were well thought-out developed plans, put into the hands of carefully chosen influencers. All very controlled, it seemed. True viral campaigns, on the other hand, have a lot less structure and a lot more audience involvement. They’re co-created and only work when the customer has control or influence over the content and its distribution.
Rather than a razor sharp focus on viral marketing, a misnomer in itself, the “Viral Branding—Creating Brand Ambassadors” panel was about word of mouth and how to get products into the hands of targeted consumers. All but one of the speakers came from companies with member groups that have signed up to participate in product pitches. Essentially, these companies enable brands to target known populations and this strategy is almost always fail-proof. Aliza Freud, Founder and CEO of SheSpeaks, explained that you’re speaking to people that want to be targeted—they sign up for the site, give their personal information away at the outset, and have opted-in to be advertised to.
Strategic Media Planning 3.0 - Investing Still Pays Off
The Strategic Media Planning 3.0 Panel (what is 3.0 anyway?) at ad:tech focused on the value of testing and treating marketing as an investment.
One of the key themes of this session was looking at marketing as an investment where returns come over time and not necessarily all from an immediate bump in sales. There is inherent value in learning how to optimize strategies over time, and investing in the learning is important for an organization to continue to build and grow over time. Like any investment a balance must be struck between short term and long term gains. I think that marketers, agencies and vendors can all learn from this balanced approach to marketing.
Testing and learning, especially in the age of digital, is important in helping brands to build an edge by leveraging new technologies. The panel suggested that organizations have to “move from an idea of learn and do to do and learn” and change the framework of the organization. Conversational marketing really facilitates this and digital makes the test and learn process more fluid and rapid.
read more...The Long Tail – Quality vs. Quantity
One of the hottest revolutionary buzzwords leveraged in this contextual social media participatory web 3.0 panel was “Long Tail.” The panel “The Long Tail of Social Media: Analyzing the Value Proposition for Publishers and Advertisers kicked off with each of the panelists defining what the long tail actually is.
VP Jeffrey Graham of Marketing, Customer Insights, the New York Times defines “the long tail” from a content perspective and specifically as the breadth of content – not the top 10 stories, but the other, lesser viewed pages.
Jennifer McLean, VP of Marketing, Director, Distribution at Technorati, said the sheer amount of content that Technorati indexes, and the growth of blogs, were primary growth stimulators for the long tail of blogging. What makes a blog interesting is that the content tends to be very niche vs. what is seen on larger sites.
read more...Widgets: The New, New Thing!
Widgets are the rage! Widgets are the new, new thing! The new, new must-have! Widgets are web 7.0! Widgets! Widgets! Widgets!
The Chicago ad:tech panel, “Widgets and Applications - The New Media Network,” covered what’s going on in the world of widgets. Panelists included Omniture Senior Director of Product marketing Chris Duskin, Slide GM Advertising Sonya Chawla, Gigya VP of Sales Ben Pashman, Avenue A Director of Emerging Media and Video Innovation Jeremy Lockhorn and Sprout Co-Founder and CEO Carnet Williams.
Lockhorn described the “old” ad world as Ad 1.0 or a world in which advertising was all about interruption and intrusion. He described the “new” ad world as Ad 2.0, a world in which people are not interrupted and that exists where the people are in an unobtrusive way. This, according to Lockhorn, is the world in which widgets live. So what are widgets?
read more...The Hunting of the Snark: Finding Value in Online Video Advertising
There are three types of ad:tech session:
- Roundtables, which look like opportunities for Socratic discussion but are actually ideal hostage scenarios for greedy salesmen.
- Polite affairs where a moderator, charged with exploring a given topic, poses questions in hopes of getting cotton-mouthed executives to divulge things they’re not supposed to.
- The kind where a moderator—contemptible creature—invites panelists to pitch the audience one by one, and the topic be damned!
”The State of Online Video: Going Beyond the Pre-Roll” was the third type.
Things kick off with Josh Chasin of comScore mumbling figures into the mic, followed by Smith Forte of Current.TV. Then Rebecca Paoletti, director of video strategy at Yahoo, takes the stage.
read more...Drinks! Dinner! Dancing! Bottle Service! Yes, It’s An Ad Conference!
Last night after the first day of the ad:tech Chicago conference ended, UnsubCentral’s John Engler organized a dinner at the Chop House for about 16 people including Powered COO Mark Drosos, Direct Response Technologies’ Matt Haag, Frontline Direct Sales Manager Barbara Stratte and Marketing Director Cari McClure, Adconion Media Group VP Kristian Wilson and Account Manager Alexis Berger, Spiderbait Strategist Dante Montverde and StoryQuest’s Tim Keelan among others.
Also enjoying some of Chicago’s finest beef were Adrants’ Co-Editor Angela Natividad and the ad:tech blogging team Paige Dzenis, Brent Terrazas and Krista Neher.
Like any dinner with 16 people across two tables in a loud restaurant, the discussion varied widely from work topics to wine selection. None of which, sadly, can be currently called to mind. The food was amazing. The wine was great and the people excellent company.
read more...The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same - CPG Roundtable
One of the themes of the discussion was “the more things change, the more they stay the same”. While interactive and digital offer exciting new platforms, the basics of marketing haven’t really changed. We often get caught up in the “web 2.0” (or now 3.0) and forget that the basics of marketing remain relatively unchanged.
Andy Markowitz, Director of Digital Marketing and Media at Kraft Foods talked about going back to basics with marketing “it highlights and accentuates the need to go back to a value proposition that consumers care about”. You still need to find the right value proposition and the right scale to have a meaningful conversation with consumers and create an ongoing dialogue. While the methods have changed the basics are the same. The internet has given us a richer way of communicating with target audiences.
The real change is HOW you do it. How do you interject yourself into conversations? One of the new opportunities is that consumers can now talk back. Kevin Doohan, Director of Interactive Marketing at ConAgra Foods used a great analogy about how the internet is reverting us back to the “corner store” mentality – people want to interact with companies who know them and who care, and the internet provides an opportunity for companies (large and small) to build actual relationships with customers.
The conversation then shifted to tips for the three key stakeholders – marketers, agencies and vendors – to work together better.
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