This session was about trouble shooting your brand in the age of Consumer Control and was chaired by Pete Blackshaw of Nielsen Online.
Some of the keypoints he mentioned were:
* the consumers are in control…but not totally
* media is fragmented
* trust is eroding
* marketing investments are shifting to online.
* search is the new entry to the rules of branding and is redefining brand equity
* use your corporate blog for quick updates and changes rather than waiting to update a page on your corporate web site
* we live in the age of co-creation and participation
* conumer affairs and marketing are beginning to morph into new rules
* online we have seekers and speakers

What is defensive branding?
* protecting you brand
* putting as much energy into defending negative buzz as you do creating postive buzz
* employing listening tools

This session was all about viral marketing and how one cant really create a viral campaign but rather create something that peolpe can talk about and that will make it viral.
It was moderated by the VP for interactive marketing and Ogilvy PR worldwide and had 3 panelists, all of whom are involved in various forms of viral marketing.
The moderator posed various questions to the panel and also allowed for audience participation.
One of the questions: is their a science to viral?
Answers included:
* get a conversation started first
* follow up with brand message in subsequent conversations ( emails, videos, etc)
* don’t be overtly branded
* people need a reason to pass on the message

Some applications that work best in viral:
* entertainment
* informative or useful tool ( weather app, etc)
* viral has to be relevant
* try for cool and emotional
* shocking works

Chaired by Jon Fine of Business Week, this panel consited of three guys. They represented Naked Communications, Sling Media and a past marketing director of both Macy’s and Citibank.
The chair tried to get an understanding from these guys about how disruptive marketing and business models can change the face of business and how we market products and services to clients in the new media age.
Can companies disrupt their tried and tested ( and staid )models to be innovative?
It was mentioned that 2 industries in which disruption has take place is music and airlines. The early Napster was the first in disrupting the music business model. The music indutry however was very slow to catch on and in fact still resists the online models adopted by the likes of iTunes.
Consumers respond to an idea and really don’t care about the platform or production issues relating to that idea and the way they can access information/content.
Marketers need to be bolder and take more risk and not do the same thing over and over. Too often now, ROI is believed to stand for Removal Of Imagination and this is obvious in the short tenure of the US Chief Marketing Officer; belived to be between 14 and 23 months.
Companies spend a lot of money when it comes to R&D for new products, yet marketing spends nothing on R&D for new marketing methods.
Embracing new technology and being willing to experiment with new ideas and channels will only succeed if it comes from the top management.

This panel discussion was chaired by Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
On the panel were people from Tribal DDB, YouTube and Fox/MySpace.
One of the major concerns raised was the US government’s discussions relating the regulation of online advertising and how the US Gov. is pushing for “opt-in” for advertising online.
What came out was how platforms are replacing portals and whether this is merely a change of terminology or whether a change of direction.
One thing that was mentioned was the new hybrid of new and old media and how the lines between the 2 are blurring. Once again, the sharing of content was discussed and how important it is to not be too possessive of your own content and the media it is being distributed on.
A lot of discussion centred on online video and what the future of video advertising holds. The general consensus was that although pre-roll advertising is still the norm, it is really disruptive and annoying to consumers. In-vide advertising is a possibility, so is product placement and content owned or generated by the advertiser.
What was clear to me is that there is still a lot of confusion about what online advertising in general holds for the future and what models will work in the long run.

This panel was chaired by Stuart Elliott of the New York Times. It was great seeing and hearing the guy whose email newsletter I get.
The panel consisted of 3 powerful women in the industry:
* Sunan Whiting: Executive VP of the Nielsen Company ( the research guys/girls)
* Beth Comstock: President of integrated media at NBC Universal
* Carla Hendra, Co-CEO of Ogilvy North America

So, it was about conversation in the digital era and where it is going. Once again, seeing that it was sort of an interview session ala talk show style between Stuart and the 3 ladies, it was about various issues around the conversation model in digital.
Some of the points that got my attention were:
* agencies are used to talking but should start listening to their clients
* brands have to learn to give up control
* make it worth people’s while to give up personal information

Most exciting developments according to these three super women:
* mobile
* video
* same content available across all 3 screens: TV, PC, cellphone

This was a panel discussion chaired by Paul Maidment, the editor of Frobes.com.
The 4 panelists represented NBC Universal, Clemenger Communications, Arc Worldwide ( part of Leo Burnett ) and Sony BMG.
The discussion revolved around global digital development and what the trends and happenings are.
Some of the “take home” points for me were:
• To be aware of cultural differences when promoting social network applications. In certain cultures, people either share more or less of their personal lives and just because something can work very well in one country / culture, does not mean that it would do so in another. This means that one should be careful to use one global campaign across all markets.
• Having said this, there are numerous applications that appeal to a worldwide audience within a certain market segment. This includes gaming, ipods, chat, etc
• The future of global digital marketing according to the panel is in mobile and local
• There is still a lot of scope for taking online communities offline and taking traditional communities online
• Three things to keep in mind when planning any campaign: determine what it is that matters to the market segment, determine what data is already available to accomplish that, keep in mind the privacy regulations
• What is big worldwide: music, social networking, shopping via mobile
• Future prediction re music: people will pay a monthly flat fee for access to music across all platforms.

I just attended the first session of Ad:tech, the digital marketing conference. The keynote address was presented by Nick Brien, the Worldwide CEO of Universal McCann, the ad agency group.
After sharing with us all the latest stats in terms of online, mobile and digital uptake in the world, Nick spoke about the traditional agency model and how it is not going to work in today’s business.
He used some of the most common traditional aspects of advertising and added his own perspective of where it’s heading.
One of the statements he made is that the above the line/below the line, online/ offline terminology is redundant and that it is about consumer, brand and agencies, (who believes are businesses rather than “agencies”)
All the issues of user generated content, interactivity, mobile was also mentioned.
According to him it is now all about marketing and not just advertising.
Although we’ve all heard about content, it is nothing without contact and useless without being in CONTEXT. Timing is everything!
5 ideas he left us with:
1. Persuasion is still important but not without INFLUENCE
2. Big ideas are still relevant but must make way for EXCEPTIONAL EXPERIENCE
3. Communication has always been important but not without CONVERSATION
4. Innovation has to go with INTEGRATION
5. Creativity takes COURAGE

Google Mobile
The papers here are full of news and articles relating to the internet and mobile.
The biggest news of the day in terms of online was Google’s announcement to enter the mobile business in a big way. I first heard the news early this morning on Fox News and then got the details on page 5B in the USA Today.
Google announced yesterday that is is keen to work with outside developers on its Google Open Handset Alliance. This group of 34 companies aim to bring better internet browsers to the wireless phone market.
It will also bring out new internet capable phones next year.
Segey Brin on Monday said that phones today are more advanced than the computers we used 10 years ago!
Sprint and T-mobile, 2 major cellphone networks here are part of the alliance, as is Motorola and Samsung.

US internet usage
On the TV this morning, it was announced that a recent survey found that 80% of Americans are now regular online users and that the average is 11 hours per week.

TV Online
The battle is still on for TV networks to have their content available online, rather than users getting such content from Youtube, etc.
The latest site, Hulu.com is a NBC and NewsCorp initiative. It has episodes from more than 90 different TV series.
The episodes are free and feature TV type ads, can be shared, posted on MySpace and emailed to a friend.
Joost.com, from the founder of Skype, has 15000 shows from CBS, MTV, Turner, Comedy Central as well as Paramount and Sony.