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.
read more...‘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.
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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.
read more...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.
read more...“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.
read more...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…
read more...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.
read more...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.
read more...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.
read more...The Geoff Ramsey Brand Promise
Depending upon your perspective, Geoff Ramsey either phones in his presentations by doing essentially the same presentation every time while swapping out stats, or (and this is more likely) he has carefully crafted his personal brand to the degree that Ad-Tech sees fit to call his session “the Geoff Ramsey Experience”.
From my experience, the Geoff Ramsey Experience entails:
- Before beginning the statistics stream, he starts by pointing out that data can be used to make almost any case you like.
- He tests the limits of PowerPoint’s ability to layer big stars, text boxes, clip art and low rez web photos together. Designers in the audience are light-headed by the end.
- Throws in a good sprinkling of jokes. About half are good, the audience is too sleepy, hungry or confused to catch the rest.
- Then a good mix of “So and so said this”, followed by illustrative stat, followed by “don’t believe me, look at these guys (show other market researchers numbers), followed by pointing out that one of the other researchers might be smoking crack.
All told, this comes together to form one of the sessions I always plan to attend.
Now, if you really want to get all the stats from his presentation, I suggest you contact eMarketer and ask for a copy—I’m sure they will help you. Despite the fact that Ramsey specifically said not to take notes, I risked his wrath in order to provide you the stats I know you want.
read more...“Leading Marketers Share Their Vision” What Vision?
After wrapping up the “Consumer Insights: Leading Marketers Share Their Vision” session on Wednesday, I decided that my lunch at the Utah Hotel was probably more enlightening than this panel.
The premise of the session, as put forth by moderator Kevin Delaney of The Wall Street Journal, was that consumers are acting differently than they used to, so how do we as marketers reach them? Read: the digital lives of consumers is changing the way they behave and interact with media and therefore creating a challenge for marketers.
On panel to tackle this question were Mel Clements, Advertising and Digital Manager of Nike Basketball, Daina Middleton, Global Advertising and Interactive Marketing Director for HP, Mark Fogelberg ANA Director of Communications and Content, and Zdenek Kratky, Brand Manager of Consumer Lifestyle for Philips DAP.
read more...The Modern Agency: We’re Still Trying to Find One
Mark Kingdon, from Organic, kicked off the session with an overview of the challenges facing agencies today. From questions of the recession to the increasing reshuffling of the agency constellation between digital, creative and traditional agencies and their clients. Mark is an appropriate pick as a moderator, as he’s been writing on the modern agency since 2006. And considering we’re still having a panel on the topic, we’re obviously not there yet.
The agencies on the panel were fairly diverse set of older and new agencies: Organic, R/GA, Neo@Ogilvy, AKQA, and Carat. What would of been interesting is the inclusion of agencies that are very clearly digital marketers rather than creative and small, boutique agencies that, while small, are more nimble to new advertising opportunities.
read more...Finally, A Panel to Sink Your Teeth Into: Two Case Studies
The Exchange Series IV: The Consumer Experience in a Multi-Platform World was one of the last panels of a very long Wednesday here at ad:tech, and since vaguery seems to be a common theme this year, my expectations for this panel going into it were admittedly low. However, I stumbled upon what was perhaps the most informative, energetic session I’ve attended as actual case studies of innovative, integrated, collaborative campaigns for T-Mobile/MTV and Nim’s Island/Stardoll were shared. If you were looking for concrete examples of actual campaigns and their specifics, this was the panel for you.
On panel to discuss their campaigns were Pooja Midha, VP, Business Development for MTV Networks, Dan Fietsam, Executive VP/Executive Creative Director for Publicis in the West, and Vijay Rao, VP, Associate Director of Communications Planning at Optimedia comprised the T-Mobile/MTV team. Matt Griswold, Director of Interactive Marketing for Fox Walden and Glen Ginsburg, Senior VP of Sales for Stardoll were on hand to discuss their Nim’s Island/Stardoll collaboration. Unlike a traditional panel with a moderator, this session was truly a show and tell of successful, experimental campaigns. To get right down to it, lets go through each case study. First up, T-Mobile and MTV....
read more...Mobile & Local Get Down To Business
Wednesday’s performance marketing session, Tactical Search : Local & Mobile Search, promised an update on the mobile and local landscape, along with practical advice on current best practices. And, the session did deliver on both counts.
The panel was composed of Zach Anderson, VP of Marketing at TicketCity, Sean Cummings, Marketing Director of Ask.com, Erika Moersch, Manager of Paid Serach at Outrider, and Ian White, CEO of Urban Mapping and moderated by industry veteran Dana Todd currently CMO of Newsforce (and SEMPO board member).
Zack Anderson took the stage first and provided an outline of their efforts as an online tickets vendor to reach local and mobile customers. It is a pet peeve of mine (and I know I’m not alone in this) when speakers agree to come to an event, but then hold back the specifics of their experience for fear of giving away their trade secrets. Zack did not do that.
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