Marketing

In constant pursuit of marketing industry developments and trends, Mark and Leslie have traveled across the pond to London, a notorious hotbed for advertising, to attend Ad:tech Conference 2009.

As the digitization of media continually redefines the business of marketing, the conference provides brand advertisers and agencies with a forum that supports the exchange of ideas, experiences, new practices, emerging models and expert opinion. [...]

I have redefined my perception of meaningful advertising to include ideas that not only entertain me, but also engage me to start a conversation about a brand. Recently inspired by Emanuel Ronson’s book The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited I’ve come to realize it’s not so much what is being sold, rather the way it is perceived through its advertising. This concept is most apparent to me in drug stores, when I am standing in front of a wall of shampoos that are probably all the same, only to end up choosing based on the latest ad I can remember on TV. Oh, how easily swayed I can be. [...]

As the media landscape continues to shift dramatically beneath our feet, it can be tougher and tougher to keep standing. “Advertising”, as we’re content to still call it, is living more and more in the online world, because people, consumers, are living more and more in the online world. So everyone, in every ad agency/branding shop/media company in the world is finding themselves in the position of needing to rethink everything they think they know about the business. The bottom line is, our clients need to harness the power of the online tools at our disposal, so the collective “we” need to understand them enough to be able to offer them solutions that work. [...]

A new year represents an opportunity for a fresh start. And this year more than ever.

With a growing lack of confidence in the economy and fears of recession, how can you make this year better than the last, while keeping marketing costs down? [...]