Ad:Tech NYC 2007 – Opening keynote on Brands by Nick Brien, CEO of Universal McCann

The presentations started this afternoon at Ad:Tech NYC with opening remarks by Drew Ianni the chairman of AdTech Expositions. After his remarks, he introduced Nick Brien, the worldwide CEO of Universal McCann.

A few highlights from the opening remarks. Over 13,000 pre-registrations this year for Ad:Tech NYC (most I imagine though the breakdown was not mentioned were expo only). Over 350 exhibitors. All sessions will be made available as podcasts from Ad:Tech. From starting with one event in 1996, Ad:Tech has now grown to a global series of events, most recently adding Sydney to the roster of cities where they hold events.

In Drew’s view the direction of the ad agency industry will be shifting yet again, away from the unbundled model of the past decade and slowly back to a more bundled model, though with many new players – such as PR firms, CAA, and McKinsey Corporation also entering the industry.

A side note, one of many small signs that though technical the ad industry is not entirely up to speed with the tech industry, in Drew’s slides he used the term "opensource" as a single, compound word. More accurate is the phrase "open source".

The formal title of Nick Brien’s talk was "The New Media Universe: Forging a Model of Interdependence"

Nick starts seated on a stool with a video clip, black and white, featuring the very old school, traditional view of advertising from the perspective of a client, selling soap, by way of ongoing, irritating repetition of the product name.

After the clip Nick polled the audience, 10-15 people in the audience were from agencies. The image he showed was an analog example, the above the line world of advertising. He describes the current state as being across the board above the line, below the line, online and offline.

Among a series of other slides he shows one labeled convergence. On it he shows the iPhone, but in another example of how the ad world at times is a bit behind the tech industry, his slide used the pre-release image, not the current version (missed the YouTube and the iTunes icons).

In rapid fire succession a few of my notes from his slides:

consoumers interlocked with brands and agencies.

Not new media – "new marketing".

The marketing model has fundamentally changed.

Brands are one of the most exciting part of the industry today. Every product faces overcapacity – thus brands matter even more. Brands are facing major change in the media landscape.

He then showed a great video which I have requested a copy of to embed here and link to – it shows on a global scale just how much has already changed in the media and digital landscape, here even I found these numbers and stats compelling and useful to think more deeply about.

Slide about ad avoidance showing love examples using digital branded ad games etc.

Reporting on research from Tivo on ad avoidance. Best is 30 times more likely to be watched than the worst and the worst is 5.5 times more likely to be fast forwarded.

Nick is on the board of Tivo btw.

Showed the Shakira example (so about 6-9 months old but at least still from this year online).

My mental prediction, he is now going to move to Dove.

Yup, he moved there about their campaign for beauty. However in a note that would be repeated in a later panel which also cited the Dove campaign he showed the "lardo" parody video instead of Dove’s original and highly viral video.

A brand is a promise – but not ownable by a corporation anymore.  !!!

Cited the Forrester "complexity lies at the center of the marketing funnel" image which breaks with the traditional ad agency view of a relatively simple funnel through which consumers act and replaces it with a many-to-many maze with many forces entering and a complex web in the middle where some inputs can contradict each other and pull a consumer in many directions.

(a note here, many people I deeply respect object to the term "consumer" and I do as well, but here I am reporting on the language which Nick used in his presentation, he referred to people as consumers. A strong argument can be made that in today’s world "consumption" is not the best way to term the relationship between individuals and how and what they spend money & time on – for one we now may be creating as much or more than we "consume". But this is a discussion perhaps best for another day or at least a separate blog post)

Nick closed with a series of & statements describing what agencies have to deliver for Brands today:

Persuasion & influence.

Big Ideas & exceptional experiences.

Communication and conversation.

Innovation and integration. (which he notes takes risks)

Unfortunately though Nick was generous with his time after the keynote, so much so that the group of us talking with him had to be asked to move aside so they could finish resetting the space for the next panels, he did not have time to take questions from the audience.

If he had I had a few different questions which I pose here for the readers to consider – over the course of the next few days I hope to also continue to explore these questions with other speakers and attendees at Ad:Tech NYC 2007.

1. Beyond one time "stunts" (such as the LynxJet multi-media campaign Nick discussed in his keynote) what can brands do on an ongoing basis to build, reinforce, and expand their brand’s reach and value?

2. While the US Internet market remains large and has very strong advertising spending already, the rest of the globe is rapidly catching up to (and by many aspects surpassing) the US. What does taking a global focus mean?

3. What are the right metrics for tracking branding focused efforts online? For example what time frames are the best to use (and why)?

Later today (Wednesday Nov 7th) among the many panels scheduled for today are a few which cover brands, I hope to make all of these and will write up my thoughts from each.

Shannon Clark is a founding partner at Nearness Function, a new ad network for the publishers of dynamic content which will launch in a few months. He is the organizer of MeshForum – an annual conference on the study of networks and the one day MeshWalk series of walking conferences. He has been blogging for many years at Searching for the Moon where he covers technology, economics, food, and the life of an entrepreneur. His first server on the Internet was in 1991, he started his first company in 2000 after many years working as a technology consultant.