Guest Article: 61 takeaways from Ad-Tech Singapore 2010

It is always a pleasure speaking at the Ad-Tech, my first talk at the Ad-Tech was in April 2006 at the Moscone Centre, San Francisco. The number of pre-registered delegates at the event was 9,000. The experience of being with this number of digital marketing professionals and engaging with the best digital marketing speakers in the world was electrifying, an unforgettable experience.

The recently concluded Ad-Tech at Singapore 2010 seemed to herald the end to recession in digital advertising; every keynote had more than 700-plus people in the room with 20-plus people standing at the end.

Every Ad-Tech conference features a balanced blend of:

Keynote speakers sharing frontline experiences and an executive level perspective

Panel discussions focusing on best practices and economic opportunities

Hands-on workshops delivering immediate, take-away value

Aggregated under one roof, here are the Top Takeaways from Ad-Tech Singapore:

June 3, 2010

Keynote: Future of Brands on Internet – Alex Hunter

1. Get involved in conversations that you don't control. Being open is powerful!

2. Brands need to care enough to risk their reputation. They need to connect as humans.

3. 80% of content is sourced not from the original site. 5 billion pcs of content is shared in Facebook per day.

4. Don't focus on return traffic. Focus on platform growth. Experiment and Learn!

5. Market share is generated by love

6. Consistency is not dogma

7. Word of mouth has changed, one can reach millions instead of a few hundred earlier, leverage the same.

Digital Marketing in Southeast Asia- Market Observations Vietnam Indonesia and Philippines

8. Social media is best learnt via what goes wrong – Ken Mandel

9. Paid Media and Earned Media are both necessary – Ken Mandel

June 4, 2010

Setting a goal of truly effective Digital marketing. Are we missing the point?

10. Marketing is not about advertising anymore, it’s about creating playlists - Francesco Lagutaine

Driving Marketing Excellence Through Digital - The Kraft Foods Asia-Pacific Journey – Shawn Warren

11. Consumer insight and aligned brand objectives are the key to success

12. The only way to remove conflicts between different agency partners is that everyone should be clear about the brand insights and objectives. Don't think Me, but We, and continue to experiment and learn

13. Leverage consumer insight, build experiences, seamless across all media, creativity & collaboration, revenue & growth

Other Takeaways From Ad-Tech

Value Creation

14. Create content, and content that creates value and utility to engage

15. Don't hold on to your content. Allow consumers to spread it and create more

16. Define a clear role for each media touchpoint. Direct response is not awareness! Goals must be set. Be relevant and innovate

17. Focus on Adaption, Platform Growth, and not Ad Spend.

Digital Media, Internet & Analytics

18. Digital Media is only the platform. It cannot replace human element (emotion and love)

19. Digital Marketing a must: Insightful, build experience, seamless across media, creative + collaborate, drive (sales+profit) growth

20. Digital isn't a standalone, but integrated in the Total Brand campaign - it'll Amplify or be the Anchor

21. Technology will become redundant. Innovation will displace it, but people will remain. Think people!

22. Before getting into what analytics you need for digital, be clear about your media-agnostic business KPIs

23. Blogging has been a very strong media to lead communications in China

24. Internet display advertising represents less than 1 per cent of total ad spend in SE Asia

25. On the Internet, being first is not always an indicator of ultimate success, however, starting early allows one to learn at a low cost.

Customer Focus

26. Consumer centric and channel agnostic is the key to success

27. Campaign solves only one piece of the puzzle of managing the complex customers, Digital is much more than marketing campaigns.

28. What people like more than anything else: stories, human stories

29. How can key customers become brand custodians? Be relevant and you'll have that type of customers

30. Follow where the customers are, stay more online. Especially acute in times of downturn.

31. Think of your business as customer experience, you can only succeed by leading, yet often you follow

32. People haven't moved to Foursquare, they added a layer. In the end, think about people not technology

33. Don't monopolise the conversation. Listen to the users.

34. Loyalty is about consumers engaged over time through multiple platforms

Brand

35. Collaboration was also a keyword often shared. Not only brands and agencies, but also customers and with each other

36. Identify the brand influencer: try to build a dialogue with the right influencers

37. Enhance Brand metrics tracked to include Brand Engagement and you'll see a shift

38. Integrated marketing - TVC, microsites (contests, games), roadshows, social networks - united by one theme. ROI = sales

39. ‘American Idol’ was successful because of engagement. As brand custodians, we need to learn and adapt

40. There are three different types of metrics: brand awareness, brand engagement, ROI. Create evolving models to measure each.

41. Relevancy is in the eye of the beholder. Being next to a pizza place doesn't mean that pizza ad is relevant to me

42. Think 'we' not 'me'. It's about celebrating collective success as a team. Experiment and learn

Social Media

43. Social media is not about doing a campaign, it’s about presence and strategy

44. Social media is being leveraged for awareness, customer service, research/ product development, channel monetisation

45. Managing social media includes managing of the social community. It's not only about content

46. Level of engagement in SE Asia: 3. Google 2. Yahoo! 1. Facebook (almost 3x higher)

47. Forget about next Facebook or Twitter. Think people, not platforms. Be relevant

48. ‘Viral Marketing’ doesn't mean a lot. Trying to be viral will mostly fail. Try narratives instead

49. A very small percentage of users are ready to make a purchase while they're browsing Facebook

50. How to promote your brand in social networks [Ad-Tech keynote video http://bit.ly/bQylmo]

51. Social media isn’t a 'campaign', 'program', or 'channel'. Requires fundamental organisational change and a new way of doing business

Interesting Statistics & Case Studies

52. Indonesia is the fastest growing online marketing in SE Asia. It recorded a jump from 22 per cent (2009) to 48 per cent (10 per cent) - Yahoo! Net Index

53. Interesting Stat- Every second, four babies are born and 37 mobile phones are sold

54. 97 per cent of visitors to your site will not convert - This would really depend on what the conversion metric was

55. Microsoft has shifted 50 per cent of its budget to Digital Advertising as all its customers are online – what percentage of your customers are online and what is the budget for Digital?

56. In Vietnam, mobile Internet access doubled from 10 per cent (2008) to 19 per cent (2009). Popular activities: search & music - Yahoo! Net Index Study

57. If MacDonalds can put millions on platform that didn't exist eight months ago, it's a good sign

58. Lufthansa ‘Stop Thinking’ campaign start thinking 'long term relationship'; 'community' not 'audience'. Experience + engagement

59. Oreo uses gaming and AR to engage millions of moms and kid

60. Kraft moved from 'I think' this campaign will work to 'I know' - importance of analytics

61. Summary of the Kraft Presentation as my Twitpic - http://twitpic.com/1tpuv9

References:

www.ad-tech.com

www.twitter.com

My presence at the Ad-tech and illegibly scribbled notes.

(Vivek Bhargava is the Founder and Managing Director of Communicate2, which has evolved into one of the largest search and social media specialist organisations in India.)