ad:tech University is an intensive course designed to provide content and networking opportunities for those who are new to digital media & marketing. In just one day you will traverse the most important topics in the digital space, upskilling and enhancing your capabilities in the market. We’re very pleased to welcome our first guest speakers to the program, industry practitioners who are experts in their space:

Search Marketing

Kate Conroy, Ads Product Specialist, Google Australia
Kate specialises in SEM strategy particularly with assisting small and medium sized businesses on how to make the most of a limited advertising budget using Search Advertising. Kate was the highest rated Guest Speaker from ad:tech University in 2010 and her session promises to be very hands-on as she takes you through how Search fits into the overall strategy and how it integrates with other media & advertising channels.

Social Media

Peter Applebaum, Managing Director, Tick Yes
Peter has worked with and for more than 90 companies across 35 industries helping to market and sell $100,000,000s of his client’s products and services. In his session Peter will explain how to make social media work for you from better understanding your consumers’ behaviour to the different actions that you can execute through social media channels and the KPIs that you can expect to meet.
You can follow Tick yes on Twitter: @TickYes

ad:tech University will be held 3 June (8.30am-5.45pm) at Vibe Hotel, Sydney. You can see full details on the website www.ad-tech.com/uni including further information about the course topics, course leader Patty Keegan, more about who the event is for and what you can expect from the day.

Last year’s event SOLD OUT so don’t delay in booking places for you and your team. The early bird pricing also expires next Monday 16 May.

We look forward to seeing you there.

A last minute announcement from ad:tech San Francisco this week that the Keynote Presentations and some additional conference sessions would be live streamed on YouTube.
You can see the videos here.

Keynote speakers at ad:tech San Francisco have included:

Arianna Huffington, President and Editor-in-Chief, The Huffington Post Media Group
Antonio Lucio, CMO, Visa
Jeffrey Cole, Director, USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future
Guy Kawasaki, Co-Founder & Founding Partner, Alltop & Garage Technology Ventures
Bonin Bough, Global Director, Digital and Social Media, PepsiCo
Manny Anekal, Director, Brand Advertising, Zynga
John Bax, CFO, LivingSocial

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

The Data & Analytics 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:

Resource / Resourcing
• What is best practice on resourcing data and analytics management?
• Strategy and execution of data techniques / management should be separated so that there’s a better focus
• How to define data and where it sits with clients / agencies
• Data is a form of intellectual property so should it therefore leveraged / managed in house or is outsourcing ok? But the lack of skills, resource, innovation in house means that the data won’t get managed as well as possible.
• There aren’t agencies that can deliver a data service; there’s a lack of specialist agencies
• There is a huge knowledge gap in what people think they know about data (and everything to do with it) and what they actually know.
• Clients need to define what they want and they need to drive the program and the results

Investment
• Ideally clients would look at spending on data at the start of a campaign in order to target, then the middle of the campaign in order to change / adjust the direction of the campaign, then at the end of the campaign to understand the results.
• Agencies (or someone) need to tell clients what to spend on what and how much

Theft / Fraud
• Data theft is prevalent. Trade or theft of email addresses is prevalent; lots of value is attributed to these things
• There isn’t a lot of ‘policing’ of data theft / fraud / management
• Regulators are concerned with breaches and infringements of data management and this in turn leads to over zealousness in use of legal teams and how to service consumers
• Advertisers / brands / marketers need to know how to work with regulatory authorities and still be able to do their job

Data Visualisation
• Visualisation piece is interesting – how to make the data mean something
• How do marketing actually use data?
• What are the interesting ways of using data?
• What are the real new ways of using data?
• How is data processed by people?
• What different tools are used for visualisation?
• It’s really important to look past just the part about making data pretty and also consider what is the data based on, what was the field research? Visualisation tools are good but where does data come from?

Trust / Mistrust of Data
• Data isn’t trusted. Where did the mistrust come from?
• What data can you trust?
• Who do you trust to come up with the numbers? Can you trust what comes off / out of your own site?
• We’re collecting heaps of data – how do we clean the rubbish?

Use of Data
• What does the future look like? If marketers use data really well then people will be prepared to pay for it

Comparisons / Benchmarking
• IAB standard and certification will lead to comparison from one business to another as opposed to just doing the best you can, and this is possibly not the best approach for business. Measuring against each other can be irrelevant.
• Benchmarking is better than standards
• Marketers need to ‘watch out’ for data that is used in particular ways – comparisons, headline statistics that are not representative, drawing one set of conclusions compared to another
• Insights are lost because companies don’t standardise their metrics internally (they compare differently year on year for example)
• Benchmarking and knowledge transfer are gaps / poorly managed and so a lot of potential intel is lost in organisations
• There needs to be clarity on the different aspects of the campaign, what’s important about those aspects (ROI, revenue, other return or value)

‘Return’
• Time spent on site is misunderstood as a form of measurement
• Different forms of measurement mean different things to different businesses

Tools & Their Capabilities
• Reality check chart of data management platforms
• Understanding the technology, innovations and explanations (of them) in the market. What are the opportunities for marketers and how they affect consumers?
• Platforms, technologies, systems are seen as ‘rubbish’ but is that because nothing else exists?

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

Who’s on the other advisory councils:

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

The e-Commerce / Online Retail 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:

The role of international retailers
• US players want to know how to get into Australia because consumers will now purchase overseas, UK retailers are also getting in to the market
• Consumers are realising there’s little risk in buying from overseas, they are more comfortable now, they are actively seeking international retailers and suppliers to buy from
• There are other changes that are fuelling consumers’ choice to buy from overseas:
o changes to shipping policies
o the range of products is better overseas than in Australia
o there may be regulatory changes, drops in GST limit
o there is more cross border transparency, comparison shopping and better information for consumers
• This is increasing threat to online suppliers in Australia but also bricks & mortar retailers in Australia

Customer service
• Customer service standards are ‘set’ in US and UK – standards around returns (being able to return offline is important) are an especially big deal.
• Customer service standards (by bricks and mortar retailers) have always been set in US and now the online service standards are being set there too.
• What are Australian consumer expectations around service? And what is the impact on retailers coming in to the market?
• Now that there are more international retailers in the market it ‘ups’ the competition
• Online customer experience – how do we service a multi channel consumer?

Retailer value proposition
• If prices are the same by aggregators as direct supply then why do or should consumers choose to go direct? What’s the differentiator?
• Retailers need to work on their value proposition – they can’t compete on price
• The advisory, information piece is still missing.
• Where do consumers look for information: retailers / manufacturers?
• Retailers should play the information role, helping people to choose, being experts
• How do you bring other people in for advice, through social media for example.
• Price is still a key driver for people but customer service can be a differentiator
• Security can be a value add / differentiator. Peace of mind is a value Australian retailers can push more. What should or could the ‘peace of mind’ experience be? In terms of service and information?

Mobile
• Mobile is an opportunity, what do retailers do about it?
• The question is whether to do an app or have mobile web presence?
• Product vertical influences the mobile strategy
• Businesses that have repeatable, frequent purchases are ideal for apps
• eBay, have the biggest app for retail in Australia
• What are the technical / technological developments and what do they mean? HTML 5 will change what’s available

Pricing
• The amount that consumers are prepared to spend on mobile is shifting quickly
• For eBay the average price spent on mobile is now higher than on the site, and they can compare consumer behaviour mobile to site
• Eventually payments on mobile will be easier
• What about the virtual wallet and swipe pay?

Screens
• When consumers are using PC / laptop etc they tend to skip between sites – have many screens open
• When they’re on mobile / tablet they tend to stay on one site inc. aggregator sites
• Does tablet vs. mobile matter? eBay have stats on this that show that behaviour is the same but volumes are different. The interface of the technology is important and has impact on online retail behaviour
• It is not the device that’s important or that makes a difference to behaviour but where you are accessing (on the move, at home, in bedroom / living room etc)

Location marketing
• What should your response be when you know your consumers’ location? In US, there’s a retailer who give free coffee to people who’s location they know
• How do you respond to ‘check in’ and proximity?
• It is loyalty points (or versions of that) that drive people to share their location

Behavioural targeting
• When will behavioural targeting hit the market? eBay do behavioural targeting, and are looking at tailoring the whole site.
• Recognising individuals and targeting one to one

Social Media
• Shopping comparison and social media – how do they work together. Facebook connect helps recommendations. And how can recommendations be higher up on the site. It’s important to accept that consumers want to ask their friends for input. Social media can drive up conversion rates
• In this space tactics are confused as strategies
• How do you insert yourself (marketing / brand) in a conversation as opposed to ‘we have to be on a platform’. Advertisers need change to join conversations without selling.
• Public search on Twitter means you can interrupt conversation and insert your sales piece. But it can’t be scaled and it’s spam like
• Can you sell through social media or is it just there to service and advise? Don’t sell stuff; just be helpful; listen, don’t push.
• Sending content and information through social media is successful; sales is not. But it also depends on what you’re trying to achieve, and the market and demographic.
• Social shopping is a new trend. Apparel comparison that links to retailers and suppliers

The ‘group’ model
• At the moment there’s a lot of players in the ‘coupon’ space, the best one will win eventually
• ‘coupons’ links to the Foursquare model – check in and mobilising crowds
• The model means there is a loss on the first transaction in order to get repeat business; loss leading for the life time value benefit of the customers. This used to be an offline practice and now it is online

Franchises
• The franchise model can hinder online performance / capability; it is hard to push online sales when up against franchise marketing as well
• Brand loyalty and story loyalty is a particular challenge for the franchise model

Security
• The check out / paying experience of some retailers is terrible
• PayPal are cutting down the process and making experience better
• There is still a lot of concern about fraud. There are still a lot of stories on security.

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
Monetising Digital
Unwired Media
Creative & Brand
Entertainment & Experience
Core Digital Media

Who’s on the other advisory councils:

Social Media Strategy
Data & Analytics
Digital Strategy
Creative & Brand advisory
Monetising Digital
Unwired Media
Core Digital Media
Entertainment & Experience
ad:tech Sydney advisory council groups named

Once again we have an ad:tech advisory council for e-Commerce / Online Retail. This is a rapidly growing industry segment and is increasingly important to digital marketers and advertisers. The ‘usual’ barriers of security, payment challenges, fulfillment and customer service are being addressed and there are more & more local success stories.

The ad:tech 2011 CONFERENCE program will feature presentations on e-Commerce / Online Retail and we’re delighted to be working with this group of local industry executives to shape and guide the content:

Adam Canter, Country Manager, Shopping.com Australia
Tim Hughes, Vice President, Commercial, HotelClub.com, Orbitz Worldwide
Ross McDonald, Head of Retail & Consumer Goods, Google Australia
Hamish Stone, Head of Marketing, eBay Australia & New Zealand

Have your say on the ad:tech program. Use the comments box to suggest topics and speakers that you think would add value to the program. We look forward to hearing from you.

Read about the other advisory councils:

Social Media Strategy
Monetising Digital
Unwired Media
Digital Strategy
Data & Analytics
Brand & Creative
Core Digital Media
Entertainment & Experience
ad:tech Sydney advisory council groups named

I don’t know about you but I can’t go for a cup of coffee without someone talking to me about data and analytics. Maybe I need a new coffee shop… And it’s not just in digital media and marketing, the Economist has run two feature sections on information & data this year, it’s pervading all industries. The key is not just in acquiring the data, it’s in transforming that data to something readable, usable, actionable. Those who can achieve that in digital media & marketing are likely to be the ones who win the big budgets and the big wins going forwards.

The ad:tech 2011 CONFERENCE program will feature presentations on Data & Analytics and we’re delighted to be working with this group of local industry executives to shape and guide the content:

Andrew Eckford, Industry Analyst, Retail, Google
Christian Bartens, Managing Director, Datalicious
David Whittle, Managing Director, Mark
Jason Adessky, Head of Retail Partnerships, Qantas Frequent Flyer
Jennifer Reddington, General Manager, UsabilityOne

Have your say on the ad:tech program. Use the comments box to suggest topics and speakers that you think would add value to the program. We look forward to hearing from you.

Read about the other advisory councils:

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

We spent some time thinking about this council and what we should name it. Last year we had the ‘Mobile’ council but since the iPad’s launch, the expectation of other tablets in the market and the morphing of many devices to a mobile environment it made sense that we made the group more ‘universal’ in its appeal.

We know we could host a two day conference on mobile technology, the changes, the opportunities, the impact on products, businesses, marketing and advertising. What we’ll be trying to do is synthesise everything down to the most pertinent issues for you. There’s lots that’s happening in this space but we want to program the topics that matter most to the digital media and marketing community so we’re delighted to be working with this group of local industry executives to shape and guide the content on Unwired Media:

Justin Baird, Senior Product Specialist, Google
Hanno Blankenstein, Director, S&C
Darren Burden, Director of News & Platforms, Fairfax Digital
John Treloar, Managing Director, ANZ, Oolaya
Oliver Weidlich, Director – Design & Innovation, Mobile Experience
Jennifer Wilson, Director, The Project Factory

Have your say on the ad:tech program. Use the comments box to suggest topics and speakers that you think would add value to the program. We look forward to hearing from you.

Read about the other advisory councils:

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

All Guest Speakers on the first ad:tech University program have now been named. Course leader Patty Keegan (Director, Digital Chameleon) will be joined by five Guest Speakers, each experts in their respective fields:

Mark Henning, Director, Digital Solutions, Dynamic Logic speaking on the Your Campaign Objectives and Strategy module.
Nic Chamberlain, Head of Digital, 303 speaking on the Display Advertising module.
Claudia Sagripanti, Principal, VentureOne speaking on the Mobile module.
Tiphereth Gloria, Social Media Strategist, George Patterson Y&R Australia speaking on the Social Media module.
Kate Conroy, Ads Product Specialist, Google Australia speaking on the Search module.

ad:tech University is an intensive, one day course designed specifically for those who want to quickly advance their knowledge and practical abilities in digital media & marketing.

Accelerate your digital media awareness and skills through a carefully crafted program of content, exercises and networking. All packaged into a learning experience that includes a highly interactive & practical onsite program and is supported by e-learning modules to truly cement your digital awareness and increase the value that you bring to your role and organisation.

For all details please see www.ad-tech.com/uni
And you can book your place immediately by clicking here.

ad:tech, the world’s leading series of digital marketing & media events, is delighted to officially announce that the inaugural ad:tech Melbourne event will take place on 30-31 March, 2011.

The long awaited announcement follows 4 years of requests from the Victorian digital marketing community to bring ad:tech to Melbourne. Leveraging an international network of keynote speakers, delegates and sponsors, ad:tech Melbourne is set to be a must-attend event for any marketer. A highly influential advisory board comprising executives from organisations including, Mediacom, Suncorp, Target, Foxtel , Google, The Age and Sensis is currently being formed to ensure that the event is closely aligned to the wants and needs of the local market.

ad:tech Melbourne will feature over 60 speakers through a two stream, two day conference with a supporting Networking Pavilion. Additionally the international Keynote Presentations will be free to attend.