Tag Archives: ad-tech
My take on Ad-Tech San Francisco 2011
Guy Kawasaki signing my copy of his latest book: Enchantment
So, now that I’m back behind my desk at the office, it is that time of reflection during which I try to remember what I learnt at the event.
As usual, (this is my 4th Ad-Tech) I try to remember what really stood out as overall themes without looking at my notes. Yes, I do take notes of every session and I attended 17 in total.
The point of not looking at my notes is of course to recall what really stood out and you don’t need notes for that.
With speakers such as Guy Kawasaki, Arianna Huffington, Brian Solis ( Altimeter Group), Geoff Ramsay ( CEO of eMarketer) the CIO of VISA (Antonio Lucio) , Hatan Eriksson, (CTO of Erikkson) the global digital head of Pepsi (Bonin Bough), a Zynga ( think Farmville) director and the CFO of LivingSocial, there was no shortage of excellent content.
Having attended 17 sessions and trying to summarise it in three words is of course no easy task. Though each speaker dwells on their own topic within their area of expertise, for me, there were in fact 3 key issues emerging from the sessions I attended.
Sure, I did not attend any email marketing or display ad sessions. No sinister reason though. There were 6 streams running at the same time and that means I will loose out on 5 sessions for every one, I attend.
So, my three key learnings in one word each ( with some comments):
- Social gaming: 250 million people actively play Zynga games ( farmville, cityville, etc)
- HTML 5: the answer to all your tablet browsing issues
- Social buying: the whole world seems to be getting into the group buying discount thing.
So, it may sound a bit trite to condense 3 days of conferencing ( after 2 days of traveliing to get there) into 3 key learning, but that’s what I plan to focus on in the next 3 – 6 months.
Advertising 3.0 : Thriving in the Age of Chaos
The keynote address here at ad:tech Chicago was by Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO of Denuo and Chief Innovation Officer at Publicis Groupe Media. It took the form of an interview by Drew Ianni of ad:tech. Rishad offered some outstanding advice and comments and below is my take / synopsis of his various comments and statements:
The top 3 aspects of digital Rishad considers worth noting:
- social
- mobility
- search
The issue with social is that it is relatively easy to scale the audience, but difficult to scale the marketing.
Both agency structure and client structures are not built for the future of marketing and needs to be changed.
One of Rishad’s biggest issues is that it is not about advertising but about marketing.
He referenced a recent study in terms of which all the various marketing and advertising channels were surveyed to measure its efficiency. Out of a scale of 100, TV scored 112. According to Rashid TV still works. Word of Mouth however scored 132. This is where social media comes in and where it can be utilized to market a company’s products and services.
He also believes that the single greatest thing a company can do to sell more is not advertising or marketing, but rather to have a superior product or service or a niche market. This will get people talking and do more for your business than any marketing or advertising. He cited Google and Apple as good examples of companies that get people talking.
One of the major benefits of social media is the way it allows a brand to LISTEN to its clients and detractors. Focus on those detractors and their influence and not just on your fans.
Drew Iani and Rishad Tobaccowala
