Gary Arlen, a periodic and welcome contributor to IP Democracy, is a old-timer in New Media; his research and analysis firm, Arlen Communications Inc., has monitored the migration of electronic media since the 1970s. Reach him via GaryArlen@engineer.com.
As I ambled through the aisles at the Ad:Tech conference and exposition in San Francisco last week, I pondered what attendees at two other conventions would make of this show. The previous week I was at the National Association of Broadcasters’ convention and next week, I’m heading to the National Cable and Telecommunications Association event - both of which bring together old media moguls, trying to keep up with the times.
Ad:Tech was totally up-to-date, and many of its Net-centric tools and attitudes would bewilder the linear-media minds at the NAB and NCTA shows in Las Vegas. At the same time, the aggressive naivete of many attendees demonstrated both a zest for what interactive media can deliver, and a stark disconnect with existing business realities.
Significantly, one thread running through all of the events is mobility. But where the communications/media conferences approach it largely as a technology, the Ad:Tech crowd deals with mobility as a revenue-generating application, whether it’s ringtones or video ads. Several sessions also focused on the role of integrated content and the multiplatform world, integrating conventional media with online delivery.
Of course, the attitude of this overwhelmingly young Ad:Tech crowd is likely to shape the Web’s commercial direction. (One pal of mine groused about the title of a panel on which he was speaking: “Old Warriors Don’t Die.” Just because he was involved in the online business in the hoary 1990s, he didn’t believe that at age 45 he was already an aging war horse ready to be put out to pasture. To be fair, the vast majority of the 14,000 attendees looked to be under 40 years old.)
Actually, Ad:Tech reminded me of a digital version of the Direct Marketing Association conventions that I attended in the 1990s at the birth of e-commerce. But here in San Francisco (actually in the same Moscone Center halls as some DMA conventions of that era), there were no envelope fabricators and mailing-list purveyors, holding on to their aging businesses. Rather, here were hundreds of high-tech promoters of ad-targeting systems, sophisticated monitoring and measurement systems (some of which may actually work) and integrated video delivery ventures.
The exhibits and conference sessions offered intense visions of how interactive marketing and media usage will shape up - at least during the coming months and years, if not long-term…
Not surprisingly, several conference tracks focused on social networking and revenue models for the evolving online marketing world. There was endless talk about behavioral targeting, which the latest tools for DoubleClick and other vendors have refined. Roy DeSouza, CEO of Zedo Inc., described four-or-five-fold boosts in ad performance through effective use of such targeting tools.
The future of social networks also emerged, with references to the datapoint that half of today’s teenagers use social networking sites at least once per day. That comment generated a discussion of whether web businesses can survive without a social networking component, which raised further discussion - but no definitive answers - about corporate-designed social sites. The panel’s consensus (for now) is that no company has successfully built its own social networking site, but that there have been excellent results from buying presence on existing sites.
Among the thoughts gleaned during other conference sessions:
—On a panel entitled “Content is King (Again?),” Suzie Reider, head of advertising sales at YouTube.com, unveiled her company’s plans to start running ads this summer, probably including a pre-roll commercial before the video clip and a longer ad afterwards. Few details are yet available.
—After a thoughtful and lively hour dealing with measurement and metrics - one that identified many problems, but few solid solutions - John Squire, senior VP-product strategy for CoreMetrics, declared that “something is wrong with the sites and people [who] are not measuring conversions correctly.” His follow panelists had agreed that differing standards are confusing companies about how click-throughs should be counted as viable customers…
—Bob Moore, the chief creative officer of Publicis USA, the ad agency, said that his firm “doesn’t hire anyone without ‘digital’ in his or her portfolio of skills.” Publicis is now trying to integrate traditional and digital services, but is often frustrated that creatives are often the “slowest to absorb” new options, Moor added.
—A session called “TV 3.0” brought together new media managers from old media companies to discuss “digital extensions” of their existing brands.
“Ubiquity is the new exclusivity,” intoned Geoffrey Darby, president-interactive programming at Oxygen Media. He said that he tells advertisers that it is “better to be ubiquitous.” Darby said, “We want to expand our brand beyond video.”
Peter Naylor, NBC-Universal senior VP-digital media sales, added that, “Every ad agency is “trying to build creative web destinations, everyone is everyone else’s ally and potential threat.”
“We’re making money today because we’re crating passionate audiences.”
—Jeff Meyer, senior VP-interactive sales of Scripps Networks Interactive, pointed out that “just because you want to put your material [online] doesn’t mean that people want to see it.”
He also defended the importance of working with existing video production companies - while digging at the newspaper publishing roots of his parent firm.
“I’d put my money on a company that has 15 year of video experience rather than 100 years of print.”
Meyer also recognized that TV Buyers will focus on “TV 1.0”…they’re ratings driven. But he added that, “You come to a point where TV shows will cap at 55 million viewers, which means broadband has a greater reach than traditional broadcasting.”
In my official role at Ad:Tech, as moderator and speaker on a panel called “Dispatch from DC,” we looked at legal/regulatory issues that will affect the online marketing business. With Christine Varney, a partner at the Hogan and Hartson law firm (and a former FTC Commissioner during the Clinton administration) and Alan Chapell, a New York lawyer and head of Chapell & Associates, a strategic consulting firm which works with interactive advertising and mobile media groups, we reviewed the checklist of issues affecting digital media. They ranged from e-commerce to spectrum allocation.
Varney focused on privacy and deceptive advertising practices, predicting a stronger federal review of profiling and targeting techniques that are part of the digital marketing climate. She joked that some people will “sell their mother’s entire life history for 10 cents off a Big Mac.” Chapell jumped on concerns about trademark infringements - noting the state-by-state efforts (especially in Utah) to help local companies bypass federal restraints.
Although the Ad:Tech crowd did not seem to be particularly focused on Network Neutrality, there were a few concerned voices from the audience about the control that large companies will have over the future operations of the Internet.
For that hour, however, many of the 100 people in the “DC” session seemed more interested in the simultaneous session in the next room. (In fact, some of our audience was clearly with us because they couldn’t get into the other hall.) Next door, an overflow crowd heard about viral marketing and word-of-mouth tactics.
That’s the future of ‘net marketing.’ Along with all the other tools and business structures that are evolving. The conventional media - broadcasting, cable and print - which are trying to figure out how to operate in the net-centric environment would learn a lot from Ad:Tech. And they’d still be confused about what will actually succeed.
Gary Arlen at 12:04 PM|Comments(0)
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