Ad:Tech 2012: New Insights, Facts, and Cool Ad Technologies
Interviews and observations on the state of mobile and digital marketing from ad:tech.
Interviews and observations on the state of mobile and digital marketing from ad:tech.
Ad:tech New York had a bit of an uphill battle this year, sandwiched between a hurricane and a Nor’easter, and I too fell victim, deciding to forgo my annual pilgrimage to the confab. This year, I took a different approach than in years past – instead of attending in person, I attempted to curate useful nuggets for you fine readers from afar using a variety of resources: phone interviews, monitoring Twitter hashtags, reviewing speaker presentations, watching posted videos, and reading other columnists’ articles. Let’s see how you think I fared.
I started my process as I normally would: reviewing the conference agenda, narrowing down the list to the topics that most interested me. What attracts me most is either something cool, new, and truly useful, or where I see trends developing.
First, some of my casual observations:
Speaking of converging technologies and unusual names, I interviewed the director of product management for Idomoo, a pretty cool personalized video-plus-email technology that I think has good potential. And another way-cool new ad technology is the “Chevy Sonic Claw” offering from Pearl Media:
No Denying Mobile
We used to sit through “This will be the year of mobile” presentations, but no more. Mobile is here and gaining ground – predictions have mobile surpassing desktop use as early as 2014…and do any of us doubt that? No fewer than 15 of the 48 ad:tech presentations touched on or featured mobile subject matter.
I spoke to “Location-Based Advertising” panelist Marcus Startzel, general manager, North America of mobile ad platform Millennial Media, who pointed out that “relevancy is being redefined by mobile.” With mobile, the marketer can now literally define and serve ads not only by geography, but specifically by location. It flips the emphasis from content to the context of the user.
Some other compelling mobile stats shared by panel moderator Brian Lipman, digital media manager for Coors Light and Miller Lite:
Insights From Attribution
Given all the convergence of digital marketing, I think the topic of attribution – determining what ad medium deserves credit for a conversion – merits a mention here too. Sometimes the attraction of new technology gets in the way of more effective media planning and buying, but attribution analysis can help.
In their Next-Gen Ad Attribution presentation, Steve Latham of Encore Media Metrics and Brad May of KSL Media reviewed a case study that showed in a multi-tactical campaign:
Lastly, here’s a link in case you want to view videos of the keynote presentations.
New Technologies image on home page via Shutterstock.