Strategic Digital Insights and Networking for the Agency Executive & Partner

The industry's addiction to Click Through Measures (CTR) has been fueled over the years because it's fast, cheap, and easy to measure. Yet, according to Bain and the IAB's seminal work on Building Brands last year, more than 700 marketers agree that CTR should be a tiny speck on the back of brand measurement. In fact, recent research from Lotame shows that Likelihood to Recommend (LTR) is a stronger indicator of brand health than any other metric, since it is more closely correlated to improvements in awareness, favorability, ad recall and purchase intent. Likelihood to Recommend is the Net Promoter for the digital age. Dan Reich, Lotame, Director of New Business Development, and Andrew Gorenstein, Senior Executive Director, Digital Sales, Condé Nast Media Group will describe how media, creative and data assets can come into alignment to support LTR, and how your campaigns can reap the rewards.

Agencies consider media costs a commodity, evaluating publishing partners based on cost and service. Many media agencies communicate, as their unique selling proposition, the ability to get media cheaper than the competitor based on scale, special partnerships, DSP’s, etc. In 2011, we need to buy less and plan more. Currently, buyers and planners are often the same person. Is it time to go back to the old (dare we mention TV?) days when planners developed ideas and buyers bought? Planners need to work closer with all stakeholders involved in the creative campaign development: Technologists, Creative, Business and Data Analysts. A successful media department will be a socially integrated department, adding value for each stakeholder.

Uwe Hook will explore different agency models and make recommendations on the correct structure for 2011.

As ad agency holding companies continue to invest in trading desks and demand side platforms to further automate and commoditize inventory, their clients – brand marketers – are looking to publishers and aggregators for ideas, creative services, integration and more. So now that the balance of power has shifted and the marketer’s door is wide open, what’s a sales organization to do? Upstream Group CEO and iMedia Senior Analyst Doug Weaver will lead a provocative discussion about how sellers can elevate their game to meet the challenges and opportunities of today’s market, including a half dozen “plays” that sales organizations can run to extend their ideas and create unique value for brand marketers. Seating will be limited so arrive early.

The media ecology has changed so profoundly that the people formerly known as consumers are a new breed. They allocate their attention differently. They approach the product research differently. They move into a buying frame of mind differently. And they are prepared to discuss their buying experiences on a vastly different scale. These changes occur because people inhabit a variety of media spaces, depending on their circumstances and frame of mine. Their expectations about encountering brands are shaped by those media spaces and by their ability to influence the character of those spaces. Pete Blackshaw, CMO of Nielsen's NM Incite, and Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet Project, provide new national consumer data and a series of on-the-ground examples of how companies have successfully engaged the new breed of consumers.

Let’s get the collective conversation started early! By now, we’ve all see Terence Kawaja’s ubiquitous “Digital Advertising Ecosystem” chart with its mess of logos that strive to make sense of just one aspect of our business: digital display advertising. Nothing screams “Media Bermuda Triangle” louder! Today's digital advertising landscape is competitive, cluttered and confusing. Strategic repositioning among both agencies and media properties suddenly makes the two look quite similar. In the not too distant past, the relationship and business flow between brands, agencies and media properties could be represented as an equilateral triangle. Brands had products to market and sell, agencies were creative plus broker, media brands held the audiences. Now the triangulated relationship between brands, agencies and publishers is as mysterious as the Bermuda triangle. Where do you and your company find leverage in this environment?

While we’ve all seen the chart, when have we had the opportunity to dig into and make sense of it? The answer is right now. Join Terence Kawaja, Cathleen Ryan and Brendan Moorcroft for an interactive opening session where we can all collectively ask the tough questions the chart demands we explore to path a rich future for digital advertising.

Some of today's most innovative marketers are looking to make mobile bigger, bolder, and more dramatic – creating experiences that deeply engage consumers and elevate brands as never before possible. In this session we will take a peek behind the curtain on what is next for the mobile world, and how can you tactically apply those concepts to real world client situations.

John Swords will address the future vision of mobile technology and highlight the experiences of tomorrow, while Jon Schaaf will present the real life examples that are leading the way in achieving this future vision.

The storm is coming. For the past ten years, the refrain has remained the same: the online display advertising community predicts a tsunami of brand dollars moving from traditional offline channels—such as TV, print and radio— to the online display channel. You can hear the same pitch in boardrooms across the land; “We can reach the same consumers at competitive prices and add actual real time tracking! It’s perfect for you!” Well, sort of. While the storm has been gathering, it has yet to reach the beach. So far, some traction has been made, with a disproportionate percent of brand dollars still staying in the offline channels; especially when you consider the trends in increasing user engagement with the online world. In this session we will discuss some of the reasons why brand spend hasn’t followed the audience as significantly as anticipated and how the online display players should change their thinking to bring the necessary value proposition to brands. Attendees will learn what brands need to help them measure engagement of their consumers in the display channel, and how this new approach can reign in the promised paradigm shift.

Creativity is the foundation for effective brand building and generating user awareness and adoption. Today, with constant innovations in technology, we have more opportunities to push the boundaries and explore creative strategies that change the way the world markets.

In this session, we will examine the best marketing executions in the digital landscape, what makes them work, and how those principals can be applied to your own clients’ next campaign. We will showcase the cutting edge of digital advertising and branded entertainment and discuss how Yahoo! can help you in your battle for the big idea.

From Social Media to Apps to the rise of the Exchange-based ecosystem, agencies today are swimming through a sea of complexity and ever-changing data. With cost-efficiency and audience profiling taking center stage, can the premium channels of the web continue to dominate as the primary mode of reaching consumers online? Or is it time to set sail on a new course? Dean Donaldson, Global Director of Media Innovation, MediaMind shares his views on how advertisers can navigate through charted and unchartered territories with simple advertising solutions for smooth sailing.

Are you faced with the challenge of double-digit ad revenue growth next year?

The right approach to increasing top line revenue seems a mystery as media companies navigate through today’s Bermuda Triangle. The lines between brand, agencies and publishers are blurring in a free-for-all environment, so media companies are moving beyond their comfort zones and exploring new ways of doing business in order to meet clients’ increasing demand for innovation.

To kick start your day, join us for a breakthrough game where industry leading publisher contestants will compete for the top position of Ad Revenue Idol. In this session, learn how media companies are reorganizing their sales teams, leveraging new partnerships and selling integrated cross-platform campaigns to maximize revenue opportunities. Additionally, gain real insight into the buy side as agency judges openly react to publishers’ various business initiatives for next year.

To wrap up the session, learn how the buy and sell sides can work better together by establishing a solid infrastructure that brokers all the systems and processes required to package, sell, traffic, manage, optimize and collect revenue on advertising products. Without a business management system to coordinate all these activities, media companies will be challenged to effectively capture revenue opportunities and scale profitably.