A Little Class on the Internet: Advertising Week

Sunday, October 07, 2012

Advertising Week

Last week, I volunteered at Advertising Week with some of our fellow classmates (Braxton Bragg and Dina Berrada). In exchange for volunteering, we got to check out the various tech booths that were set up and attend speaker conferences. I wanted to share a little about my experience with the class and in particular, some of the trends that I had observed this past week.

At the convention there were companies that represented all aspects of digital marketing from display advertising to mobile ads to social media. The main focus seemed to be interactive marketing. The products on display were centered around customer engagement and making it interactive with users. The reason is that if customers are engaged, they are more likely to remember the campaign, share with friends and re-visit the site. Some examples are:

Dailybreak.com - They provide online games for users. At the end of the game, there might be a coupon for Olive Garden. Loyal users visit this site frequently when they want to take a break from work. They can also share this via Facebook which touches upon the social media space.

Immersive Media - They can provide 360 degree interactive videos as an advertising campaign. The recall rate by customers is ~5x. You feel as if you're part of the video. If you're watching a shark-fishing ad from a tablet, when you spin around, so does the video.

Po-Motion - They provide a display platform where you can create floor advertisements that are interactive. For example, they did a display floor ad at a mall so when you walked along the tiles, the tiles would light up behind each step.

There were a lot more exhibits, but I wanted to highlight just a few. I also attended a speaker series where representatives from Amazon Media were presenting. Some of the points that Amazon was discussing circled back to the main theme that I noticed. Amazon is about customer-centricity. They believe in customer experience and personalization. What they're struggling with now is keeping up to speed with all the data that they're collecting on campaigns. The digital marketing tools are effective in providing real-time feedback on how customers react to the ads. However, there is a lag between taking the feedback and changing the campaign.

In any case, it will be interesting to see how digital marketing continues to evolve with the various tools available and social media channels out there.

Here are some pictures from the week: