Event Recap: Ad Age Digital Conference 2015, Day One

Top industry reporters and some of the biggest brand, technology, and media leaders—including the IPG Media Lab!— gathered for the annual Ad Age Digital Conference to discuss what the “post-digital” world means for advertisers. Some of the key takeaways from Day One included:

Time As The New Metric
According to an AdAge survey, over 80% of the industry is concerned about viewability, which was addressed head-on during the very first two panels. Rather than worry about pixel counting or frequency of exposure, time spent in front of an ad is emerging as the crucial metric. While CPMs have an unlimited inventory, there are only so many hours in a day, which limits inventory. This allows prices to rise, which is particularly exciting to quality-based publishers who have higher levels of engagement. As Lisa Valentino from Conde Nast pointed out, “The more value you can show, the more it should impact your pricing.”

Leverage Fan Engagement Into Story-Making
Authentic marketing requires a “relentless customer-centricity”, as Tressie Lieberman from Taco Bell called it. Tapping into the creativity of their fanbases, leading brands are shifting away from traditional storytelling models to a “story-making” approach, where they actively co-create engaging brand communications.

Brands Sneaking Into The Private Messaging Space
As Ben Huh, CEO of The Cheezburger Network, noted, brands have mostly been locked out of most chat apps—an ecosystem that today’s Millennials spent most of their time in. But with more and more messaging apps expanding into media platforms, brands now have a chance to enter that coveted space without being intrusive, as long as they adopt a “friend and explorer” mentality. In order to do so, Tami Bhaumik from Lyve recommended brands to serve content at the right time by taking the customer’s stage in the sales funnel into consideration.

4 P’s, 4 C’s
Customers have more choices than ever in terms of brands, content, and access: it’s estimated that by 2020, people will use 10 connected devices. As a result, the traditional 4 P’s of marketing—product, price, place, and promotion—have been replaced with a modified framework, the 4 C’s: choice, convenience, cross-device, and creative sequencing. 

Check back tomorrow for continuing coverage from the Ad Age Digital Conference.

 

Event Recap: Three Key Themes from AdClub’s Measurement: Now

On Thursday, the Lab attended the New York Ad Club’s Measurement: Now, a half-day event dedicated to data tracking and responding to the consumer journey. Three key themes emerged from the panels and keynote speeches:

Content and Context: Though the idea of a “consumer journey” isn’t new, brands are now acquiring the ability to target individuals in a specific context—time, physical location, device, point in the sales funnel, and so on—with an appropriate message. What this means is that marketers can develop more nuanced segmentation based on behavior and flesh out personas into real humans. This will increase brands’  relevancy, since as Audrey Hendley, Senior VP and GM, Acquisition & Prospect Engagement of American Express OPEN, noted, data must ultimately answer the question “what does our prospect want?”

Privacy and the Value Exchange: Ad technology is rapidly approaching the point where data from multiple devices (phones, television, and more) will be able to be tied to a unique, comprehensive consumer profile. While this has great potential for brands, “what thrills me as a marketer terrifies me as a citizen,” said Deborah Marquardt, SVP, Managing Director at MediaVest. In order to avoid what Kosta Skoulikaris, VP, Advertiser Solutions, Nielsen called the “icky factor,” brands must safeguard consumer data and provide value in return. 

Redefining ROI: As Aaron Fetters, Director of Insights and Analytics Solutions Center of the Kellogg Company, pointed out, marketers are increasingly accountable for budgets, making it imperative to get the “most of out of the money we spend.” But that doesn’t necessarily mean that brands should focus entirely on ROI—in fact, Shelley Zallis, CEO of Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange, suggested that ROE, or “return on engagement” may be a better metric.