Online Marketing Blog

Note from Editor: TopRank Account Manager, Jolina Pettice recently attended the ad:tech conference in Chicago. Along with her formidable knowledge gathering and networking duties, Jolina is sharing notes and observations on a few of the sessions. Enjoy!

The second keynote speech at ad tech Chicago included a panel of leading marketing folks discussing how to build great brands in the digital age.

The panelists, including those below, shared their insight on building brands such as YouTube.com, Ponitac Sunfire, McDonalds and its recent collaboration with Shrek and the like:
Marc Landsberg, President, Arc Worldwide
Suzie Reider, Head of Advertising Sales, YouTube.com
Tor Myhren, Executive Creative Director, Executive VP, Leo Burnett Detroit
Robert Leverone, VP, Television, Dow Jones

An overarching theme of ad:tech this week was how to engage prospects and consumer in conversation with company and/or client brands.

Note from Editor: This week, TopRank Account Manager, Jolina Pettice is attending the ad:tech conference in Chicago. Along with her formidable knowledge gathering and networking duties, Jolina is also providing blog coverage of several sessions. Enjoy!

This morning I attended an absolutely fantastic session entitled: Aha! How to Ignite a Creative Spark at your Next Brainstorming Session presented by Jordan Ayan, CEO & Founder of SubscriberMail, LLC.

Creativity and the ability to be creative is a topic we have been discussing at TopRank quite a bit lately in order to provide the most effective campaigns and tactics for our clients.

However, we all run into creative roadblocks now and again. A common roadblock to creativity is what Ayan refers to as “Mental Models” and “Patterned Thinking”.

Note from Editor: This week, TopRank Account Manager, Jolina Pettice is attending the ad:tech conference in Chicago. Along with her formidable knowledge gathering and networking duties, Jolina is also providing blog coverage of several sessions. Enjoy!

Ad:Tech Chicago kicked off this morning with a key note speech from Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine and author of The Long Tail.

A great session, Chris highlighted the shift in the marketplace away from the “One Size Fits All” mentality of decades past. According to Chris, the age of the blockbuster album, movie or product just might be over.

Day two of ad:tech Chicago rounded up with a sigh. With all the parties Monday night, I think some of the attendees were looking forward to the end of the day. Lots of good sessions and a few duds, but that’s the way it goes with most conferences. Luckily, the two sessions I covered went pretty well. There were quite a few folks covering the conference so I’ve assembled a list of all search marketing and related posts below:

Coverage by the ad:tech blog:

This session, “Waiting for Your Cat to Bark – Persuasion Architecture – Persuading Customers When they Ignore Marketing” with Bryan Eisenberg of Future Now is titled after the book of the same name. Basically this session was about marketers getting poor results because they are using old Pavolovian rules of marketing and that consumers buy differently than in the past. Customers are less like compliant dogs and more like finicky cats. Hence the title.

Marketers are concerned customers ignore marketing. Mass market media are under performing. Marketing execs are burning out. Not getting results. They’re using outdated formulas. Current marketing models are simply not working.

ad:tech Chicago is coming along nicely. Coverage of the conference by Online Marketing Blog as well as DMNews and iMedia Connection is keeping those who were not able to attend well informed. Here’s the next installement of our coverage:
Any discussion about social media and social networking is going to involve MySpace. This session did exactly that with some aspect of MySpace being included in just about every speaker’s contribution to the session.

Rather than a presentation format, moderator David Carlick of Vantage Point Venture Partners introduces “Social Media: The Dynamics of the Genre and the Opportunities for Marketers” as a Q and A session.

Carlick starts things out talking about MySpace as a way to explain social media and social networking. He shows a MySpace news clip: MySpace most popular site over Yahoo and Google. The challenge with MySpace is how to leverage advertising.

The first day here at ad:tech Chicago was pretty good. I covered 3 sessions over at Online Marketing Blog and at the ad:tech blog.

Link Building
Big Brands and Podcasting
Warm and Cozy SEO

Also, Carlen Lea Lesser covered: “Managing Ultra-Complex Search Campaigns”

In the morning I had the chance to briefly meet keynote speaker, Fay Ferguson and chat a bit with fellow ad:tech blogger David Berkowitz of 360i and contributor to Media Post Search Insider. I also had a most enjoyable conversation with Mickey Alam Kahn, Senior Editor of DMNews.

Later in the day I bumped into Dr. Amanda Watlington, my partner in crime on the DMA Search Engine Marketing Council blog and fellow speaker at the DMA06 Annual conference. We’ll be presenting with Stephan Spencer of Netconcepts about blogs, RSS and podcasts.

Our next installment of ongoing ad:tech Chicago 2006 coverage provided by Online Marketing Blog focuses on link building.

This SEO related session was two thirds full, which dispells my earlier suggestion that interest in SEO might be slipping here at ad:tech. What was to be a rounded topic of on-page and off-page optimization turned out to be focused on linking as one of the presenters was not able to attend.

It was good to see different speakers on SEO here at ad:tech, but SES or Pubcon veterans would have balked at some parts of Dan Perry’s presentation as being too basic or not entirely useful. However, this is ad:tech and many aspects of SEO are still a mystery to most attendees. As a result, the information presented by Dan may have been more palatable and provoking of questions as there was a good Q/A session afterwards.

Here is the next installment of Online Marketing Blog coverage of ad:tech Chicago 2006:

With a slight delay, this standing room only session started off with Moderator Henry Copeland of blogads.com introducing the speakers which included: Michael Moore of Nestle Purina Pet Care, Robert Claypoole “Consumer and Professional Relationship Marketing” for Johnson and Johnson Vision Care division, Heather Sefcik of Henkel Consumer Adhesives (Duck Tape) and Brian Bloom of Ligget Stashower, a marketing PR firm that works with the Duck Tape brand.

Heather and Brian Bloom did a tag team presentation with Heather starting things off by offering a quick Duck Tape 101 history. Starting in WWII, Duck Tape today is a household name with a cult like following. Duck Tape has “become cool”.

As part of the ongoing coverage of ad:tech Chicago 2006 Online Marketing Blog is doing for the ad:tech blog, here is the first installment on the sessions about SEO that I was able to attend. Above is a photo of (L to R) Dana Todd, Bruce Clay and Fionn Downhill. Bruce is actually wearing a tie!
While there was no fireplace, there certainly was a good share of chatting in this session on organic search engine optimization. Introductions were handled by Fionn Downhill of Elixir Systems (I love her accent) to a room that was surprisingly 1/2 full. Perhaps search marketing is losing some of its luster with the ad:tech crowd? The need for SEO certainly hasn’t abated as Dana Todd of¬†SiteLab and Bruce Clay of BruceClay.com were able to attest in this mostly Q and A formatted session.

Well, here’s the first big announcement during ad:tech Chicago, Drew Ianni was appointed Chair, Programming.

ad:tech Executive Chair Susan Bratton, who oversaw the production of ad:tech Chicago comments: “Drew and I have been friends and colleagues for years, and I‚Äôm proud to announce him as my successor,” said Susan Bratton, CEO of Cendara, Inc. and new ad:tech advisory board Chair Emeritus. “I am excited to see him continue to grow ad:tech as a premium brand.”.

Ianni has a pretty extensive backround reaching back to 1995 with CKS and most recently with Sheridan Square Partners.

Hopefully I will get a chance to meet Drew and get his take on the future of ad:tech and interactive marketing in general.

I am sitting here in my hotel room in Chicago getting things lined up for the ad:tech conference which is to start tommorrow. As I walked through the lobby I waved hi to Bruce Clay who was chatting with Dana Todd, no doubt strategizing their session for tomorrow morning, “Organic SEO Fireside Chat with the Experts”. I am looking forward to the session and will be covering it for the ad:tech blog. Both Bruce and Dana know their stuff to say the least.

Steve Hall encouraged the bloggers covering the conference to take photos, so I brought my trusty, super slim camera for lots of candids. I haven’t used that word, “candids” since working on my high school yearbook. Hopefully the photos from ad:tech will be in focus. Sessions, crowds, tradeshow floor and maybe some after-conference photos are all in store.