The Core Digital Media advisory council for ad:tech Sydney 2011 met to discuss the issues that are affecting the market and the content that should be on the ad:tech programme. Here is a summary of the key areas discussed:

Skills and structure
• Who – on the client side – can write the briefs and manage and implement? One person with those skills is hard to find.
• Can’t find best of breed in ‘these’ solutions, especially integrated skills. And, when things are new how do you know what is best of breed?
• How do you get skill sets for things that aren’t even out yet? Where does the responsibility sit?
• The CTO role is growing and technology is more and more sitting in digital, and technology is being positioned at the front of business rather than the back.
• There can be a challenge between marketing and IT on the client side. IT have different rules, regulations, ideas etc on what can be done. How to align the company infrastructure – what’s outward serving, inward serving etc.
• And for multinationals you come up against what’s been built out of HQ – which is a challenge for local market like Australia
• Clients are working with a growing number of agencies / outsourcers and they are keen to see who’s integrated.
• One business (agency or outsourcer) can’t serve all requirements. Fragmentation and expansion of digital has made this a challenge, integration is absolutely key
• Everyone wants best in class digital agencies
• Inefficiencies exist (when there are too many agencies) as does not getting skills (when there are too few agencies)

Creative
• In digital creative hasn’t had the focus it’s needed or ‘meant’ to have to work. There is a challenge to creative community to raise the bar but also the briefing process is flawed because where digital fits the overall creative process isn’t clear.
• Silos kill ideas and creativity but there is a lot of protectionism, confusion over jargon and a limited talent pool in digital.
• Ideally, you’re all the team, not above / below the line and brilliant ideas should be supported regardless of channels. There should be no delineation between ideas –who cares where it came from, or how it rolls out, a great idea should be supported
• All structure and skill issues are less of a challenge for companies who have ROI that can be measured on line, for those who currently can’t measure effectively (e.g. FMCG) user attribution modelling will help with this.
• There needs to be better collaboration across the board: agencies – agencies, agencies – providers, PR – social media, all platforms need lots of disciplines
• Data visualisation can be useful to educate internally because we have tonnes of metrics and information and it’s easier to show people
• This is an opportunity to demystify the landscape, educate, remove complexity, make the organisation digitally literate
• Digital gets scrutinised because the numbers are there but the numbers aren’t compared like for like. And there won’t be like for like comparisons because digital sold itself as the great data source.
• Attribution modelling is the key moving forwards. Understanding about how consumers operate now.

Legal
• There are consistent legal implications in digital. How do they ‘fit’ with real time, dynamic, organic nature of digital? And should this be managed internally / externally?
• This will be a bigger issue as brands are evolving to be publishers
• Companies and brands are handing over more of their own assets to customers – especially through social media. But legally ownership still sits with the brand. Consumer behaviour is ahead of the law.

Privacy
• Privacy is fast tracking now
• Education piece is planned for consumers. Behavioural advertising in US now has a lot of explanation – making clear what they’ve signed up for – what’s involved.
• The government haven’t considered the positives of targeting behavioural advertising

Email
• EDM is still effective for existing consumers: repeat business / intelligence. But it’s not good for acquisition.
• You can’t personalise email enough
• How many companies are wasting their money on ineffective email
• How much transparency is there between marketing and other departments about the efficacy of emails?
• Quality of the data, strategy, execution is important; having a lot of data doesn’t mean you have a good email strategy.
• The prospect of social media is a more exciting relationship environment than email

Video
• Pre-roll is it the solution we want – is it effective. Demand issue. Are we measuring it well?
• Hulu is coming soon.
• Tivo is sitting between the two worlds, what services do they offer- do they offer value to consumers?
• Debate on providers and the impact on consumers and brands and marketing.
• Crowd sourcing – applied to TV – using principals to make real time decisions vs. search dissection. What do you base your decision on?

Have your say

This is a summary of the points that were made in the meeting. We’ll be working on this and integrating these topics and themes into the ad:tech Sydney 2011 conference programme. If you have feedback on these points or want to make suggestions about additional topics or speakers for the programme then please leave comments or get in touch with me here.

Notes from the other advisory council meetings

Social Media Strategy
Data & Analytics
Digital Strategy
e-Commerce / Online Retail advisory
Monetising Digital
Unwired Media
Creative & Brand
Entertainment & Experience

Who’s on the other advisory councils:

Social Media Strategy
Data & Analytics
Digital Strategy
e-Commerce / Online Retail advisory
Monetising Digital
Unwired Media
Creative & Brand
Entertainment & Experience
ad:tech Sydney advisory council groups named