The Unwired 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:

Trends
• What’s coming, what’s used, what’s under-used, changes in user statistics
• How is the scene shifting?
• Where are the eyeballs?
• What will the impact be? Do consumers, clients, agencies need education?
• What happens with rights, copyrights, negotiation / renegotiation when technology changes

Apps
• Strategy around apps and which technology do you plan to build for
• To app or not to app
• How many versions of one thing do i need to build?

Carriers
• What impact are carriers having on market?
• Carriers affect the market a lot because they take % of revenue stream
• Carriers affect business models
• Monetisation is therefore far from optimum and customer experience is not optimum
• How do the incumbents adapt, change, adopt?

Strategy
• Companies (agencies and clients) need a mobile strategy
• Where does responsibility for mobile sit?
• Brands outsource a lot – they think it is something they ‘don’t do’ themselves but really they need to take responsibility
• Currently mobile strategies don’t take into account the size of audience that mobile delivers
• Mobile is currently the ‘tack-on’ channel and agencies have responsibility in creative stage to plan for mobile
• Mobile is a device for consumer engagement: social, local, personal, global
• How do you approach the different mobile environments: POS, home, mobile (literally moving around)
• Indoor and outdoor unwired; ‘the unwiring of our interfaces’, consumer input and access to devices
• Primary display is going to internet, what are the analytics on this?
• How and where do you spend money on mobile for effective advertising?
• Clients don’t currently have budget and plan for mobile
• Focused mobile strategy: why do it, what is end result?
• Can you improve your customer service through mobile

Consumer experience
• How is technology changing the customer service experience?
• How is technology changing business models?
• How does mobile affect the customer experience of all products and services including unexpected / non technology products and services, e.g. mining, auto, pharmaceutical, health etc
• User experience is different between platforms and devices
• What does this mean for the customer, how do they perceive this?
• What’s in the way of how consumers use / consumer media?
• Consumers don’t care where they are, they don’t want to make decisions, they just want accessibility.
• There are opportunities for business but also a lot of threats
• The removal of technology is as important as the development of it
• Transformations are happening in business because of paradigm shifts in mobile usage and will be further impacted by battery life improvement
• Mobile allows you to be part of the product and there’s more opportunity around crowd
• Experiential changes, consumers are being taken to a product not a store. NFC and other technology will impact online retail.

Gaming
• Immersive mobile game playing experiences should be used by brands
• Story telling engages consumer in experience, mobile allows consumer to participate in story
• How do you measure engagement and results?
• Cost of this experience – you don’t know actual ROI
o WOM
o Branding
o Position as innovative and creative
o Influencers / advocates
o The value of this was higher than actual money

Privacy
• All issues around privacy inc. Facebook
• ACMA guidelines on location and ‘check in’ are like the Spam Act. The Spam Act is now well understood so, how can we educated on privacy in the same way?
• There will be an explosion of concern at some point
• Where will /does all your data go?

NBN
• People don’t realise how important it is or will be.
• CSIRO have worked on a level of progression on wireless that’s four times faster than what currently exists. So NBN may not mean anything by the time it comes around.
• What does NBN mean for all businesses and industries
• NBN has / will unleash creativity and freedom for products, businesses, marketing, communication
• Although we’ll get NBN, moving data around the house is still a challenge. So, what’s coming for in home for the consumer?

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
Creative & Brand
Entertainment & Experience
Core Digital Media

Who’s on the other advisory councils:

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