Judging from the length of the line, as shown in the video below, the online advertising industry must be out of the recession and ready for major growth. Either that or there was no plan for how to handle that most conference attendees would want to, you know, actually enter the conference. Now that I think about it and listening to people on the line, it is definitely the latter. There are actually two lines like the one in the video below. As of Noon today, the line appeared to be at least 75 minutes long. Lots of people seemed pissed that they paid anywhere from $35-$1,800 and had to wait for their badge. I assume by this afternoon they will have this registration issue resolved. Let’s hope that the Web 2.0 check-in process will be smoother later this month.

If you decide to watch the video, please note that there is a lot of camera shake.

Last year they spoke about Piczo, now they are working with corporate clients including Nokia, Coke and ESPN along with social networking provider Bebo. I caught up with Corporate Marketing Director Shannon Titus at ad:tech NY for an update.

As noted by GM’s Jaime de Valle, the old advertising adage "Fish where the fish are" has been flipped 180 degrees. Consumers are now the fishers, casting hooks to find the products, services, and brands they need, when and where they need them.

It is the marketer’s prerogative to swim where consumers are fishing, to be present and relevant at every touch point and tipping point in the decision-making process.

This is where the multiplatform approach becomes necessary.

In a world replete with marketing messages, the most competitive brands must use traditional media to place themselves before consumers before the decision becomes a priority. They must be present and relevant when research begins online. They must provide channels for response, interaction, and dialogue through nascent but omnipresent platforms such as mobile and social media. And they must send a consistent, persuasive message all the way to the point of sale.

Ok, I really only chose to cover the multiplatform sessions because I knew there’d be some talk of mobile, my one true love.

And talk there was. Carnival’s Jordan Corredera (with Susan Kidwell of Avenue A | Razorfish) and GM opened up the conversation Wednesday afternoon, echoing the industry-wide sentiment that mobile testing (WAP sites, search, etc.) is important but that the U.S. is too far behind other territories and right now is not the time for venturing beyond SMS text marketing. The good thing is, they’re testing.

Carnival’s case study on their Avenue A | Razorfish-created Funship Island campaign highlighted the mobile downloads they offered, including wallpaper and ringtones. GM’s mobile concentration seemed to revolve more around search.

Mobile, because of its everywhere-all-the-time nature, is the best medium for achieving the goal of any multiplatform campaign, as stated by de Valle: Being everywhere, all the time, at every tipping point for consumers in the decision-making process. Increasingly, he said, that process is being conducted almost entirely online, particularly for the automotive vertical.

Mobile aside, Carnival’s highly (read: insanely, borderline overwhelmingly) interactive microsite allowed users to virtually romp around an SL-like cruise ship. Their goal was to dispel common myths held to be true by cruise skeptics. Highly lauded by the digital ad community and cruise enthusiast community alike, the site was a hit.

Not only did they achieve critical success; by tracking user behavior on the site, they were able to optimize their other marketing channels. For example, they found that the section at which users spent the greatest amount of time was the stateroom page. As a result, they beefed up their coverage of stateroom features/benefits on the main Carnival page.

Most impressively, Carnival displayed a deep understanding of their brand ambassadors and partners using existing online communities. They used their advocates on cruise-related social nets to promote the new microsite, and they created a special subsection for travel agents to make sharing the Carnival Fun Ship experience easier.

They clearly understood that these days, consumers begin and end their buying decision on the Internet.

GM’s Andreas Huettner made that statement very clearly when he said that consumers are buying cars online.

He clarified that by the time consumers walk into a dealership, they, inmost cases, already know the exact make and model of the car they want, the price they want to pay, the kind of financing they expect and probably even the kind of warranty and insurance coverage they want. All the decisions have been preordained through hours of intense online work; they truly come to dealers to sign the papers and pick up the keys.

And although Internet is topping every other purchase-influencing medium, including word-of-mouth, the growth of mobile usage outstrips the growth of Internet usage. Hence, multiplatform advertisers need to very quickly figure out how to increase their presence and relevance in that medium.

A couple hours after the Carnival/GM awesomeness, Latin American portal Terra took the stage to talk about their approach to online marketing of music. Their presentation left me tweeting, "Where is the English-language version of Terra Musica?!?"

With artist sites constructed with building blocks of videos, blog feeds, UCG, photos, and every imaginable kind of social-media-friendly content acting as portals to more content and interactivity than was previously imaginable, one pities the technologically impoverished musicians stuck with MySpace Music.

Realizing that the best distribution is wide distribution, the folks at Terra have made most of the widgets portable across most social networks. They’ve also allowed for a great deal of user interaction and even submission to artists’ content.

And they understand that the best part of a content-rich site is incredible SEO, which is very likely where the user experience and direct artist-consumer interaction begin.

All these factors are what forward-thinking U.S. musicians have been struggling to define and realize. All in all, if there’s one thing I wanted to take away from ad:tech Miami and the world of Hispanic and Latin American marketing, it was to find one standout use of technology that marketers were getting right and from which the rest of us could learn and benefit.

Terra Musica may or may not get it entirely right, but it gives us some amazing clues as to the direction we should take for using rich, social media to market music directly to consumers.

Jolie O’Dell blogs, vlogs, tweets, and runs RAMPAGE, a new media ad agency.  Jolie covered ad:tech Miami and you can read all of her conference posts on the ad:tech blog.

So a few suggestions and a local, foodies, guide to SOMA near the Moscone Center.

Spots for Coffee or Tea (not Starbucks)

Samovar Tea – located above the Moscone North is a spot most convention attendees miss. Somovar is a serious tea shop offering a peaceful (if slow – in a good way) alternative to Starbucks. A great place to meet someone for a light, flavorful lunch or an afternoon meeting over tea. The foods and teas are first rate. Food and a pot of tea will run you about $20 a person and is well worth it.

Blue Bottle Cafe – my personal vote for quite possibly the best coffee in the country, not just in San Francisco. Located at 66 Mint St which is just two blocks from the Moscone West, Blue Bottle Cafe offers more than six different ways to have coffee, all amazing and flavorful. From some of the best espresso drinks anywhere (including single origin coffee) to an imported from Japan Siphon Bar the coffee, all of which they roast themselves in Oakland, are prepared with great care and attention to detail. To compliment the coffee they serve a small selection of great foods and desserts and also have a small selection of fine wines and beers. They close relatively early in the evening, but for coffee either in the morning or the afternoon they can’t be beat. I suggest that everyone in town for Web 2.0 Expo get at least one coffee from Blue Bottle while they are here, walk over with a new business contact and impress them with your local knowledge (and if they are not a coffee drinker they have many great alternatives to choose from). One note, taste you drinks before you assume you need either milk or sugar in them – the coffee here is not like anything you have likely had before, the cappuccinos and lattes in particular don’t need anything)

Great places for working dinners

Canton Seafood and Dim Sum – located at the corner of Folsom and Hawthorne, just a few blocks from the Moscone, Canton is one of my favorite Chinese restaurants in San Francisco. I had a great dinner there last night in fact, and while there another group of Web 2.0 Expo attendees came in and following my advice had a fantastic 7+ course feast for $22.50 a person complete with salt & pepper crab, Peking Duck and many other dishes. This is Chinese food prepared with great care and attention, with friendly service and great flavors. As usefully for conference attendees Canton is a venue where any size group (and I do mean any size – up to a few hundred though I’d call ahead in that case) can be handled with aplomb and ease. For any group larger than 5 I would suggest getting a fixed price meal which would result in likely more food than you need for a price anyone’s budget (even a bootstrapping entrepreneur) can handle.

Tara – located on 2nd St just below Market Tara is the less well known Thai restaurant on the same block as the more well known Osha (which is also a good option but likely crowded and for San Francisco tech folks a place we end up eating at a bit too often). The food at Tara is good and most of the time it is a bit less crowded and less noisy than the more well known Osha just down the street. If you want to do Osha I suggest their second downtown location on the Embarcadero (4 Embarcadero Center) which is a bit longer of a walk from the Moscone Center but I think offers a slightly nicer space and slightly better food than their 2nd street location.

Straits – and more broadly the restaurants of the Westfield Center. Straits is located on the 4th floor of the Westfield center and is part of the "restaurant collection". The food at Straits is Singaporan which is one of the great, if not well known cuisines of the world. A combination of Asian flavors it has similarities and dishes in common with Indian, Indonesian, Thai, Chinese and many other cuisines of the Asian region. Straits is not a discount restaurant, expect to spend around $20-25 a person for lunch here and more for dinner, but the food is worth it and they can accommodate a large party with ease. For a fast meal, I suggest Out the Door in the basement of the Westfield center which offers Vietnamese food from the same folks who run the world famous Slanted Door restaurant (which I highly recommend but can have a many week wait for a reservation – though worth calling and checking especially for their private room if you have a group). For lunch or dinner however Out the Door offers a great alternative with great food served quickly. The other options at the food court in the basement of the Westfield Center are also great, not typical food court options in the least.

Last minute tech supplies

Apple Store – the San Francisco Apple store is just blocks from the Moscone Center at the corner of Stockton and Market. If you need a power adapter or your Macbook stops working this is where to go.

Central Computer – located at 837 Howard St, just down the block from the Moscone West Central Computer is a great place to know about for the non-Mac attendees. Not the cheapest spot, but if you need a last minute PC part they are just down the street and can solve nearly any PC related computer need.

Hope these help guide you to a few of my favorites in San Francisco. Please add your own suggestions in the comments. There are hundreds of other great options throughout San Francisco and nearby, if you see me at the show feel free to ask for additional suggestions. And watch for my twittered spur of the moment dinners or lunches and feel free to join me!

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.

1. Consider whether you really need a booth at all? Many leading firms in the ad industry did not have booths at ad:tech, instead they would send a large number of senior employees to the conference and proactively set up many meetings for their sales and business development staff. The cost of full conference badges, a meeting room or two (either from the conference or at a nearby hotel) and perhaps a small, private party, is likely in many cases less than the cost of a trade show booth and very likely the business value is as high or likely higher. However there may be other value from a booth, PR value for example.
2. Know your message and target audience(s) cold. Everyone at your booth (whether an employee or hired for the occasion, though try to avoid that if possible) should know not just your key messages but who you are seeking to reach and for each type of person or business what you are hoping to leave them with. Have a clear message and goal for engaging with the press (perhaps further defined by the audience of a given press outlet). Know who your potential customers are. Know who you are looking for as partners. Know who else you hope to meet with and engage with over the course of the show. I think fewer than 10% (far fewer in fact) of the probably 100+ companies exhibiting at ad:tech San Francisco (or New York) presented a clear message about who they were hoping to meet while at the show. i.e. had a simple, clear answer to WHY they were exhibiting.
3. Rotate your staff through the booth frequently. Ideally no one employee should be manning the trade show booth for more than four hours at a time (and even that may be a bit much). And yes, if you are a small company this may be very hard, may in fact suggest you should think twice about exhibiting. A booth without anyone in it gets very little traffic or value for your company. A booth with one staffer who can barely stay on her or his feet isn’t much better (may be worse in fact in many cases). Working a trade show booth is exhausting, but it can also be very beneficial, in a few hours you can have more conversations with people than in weeks of meetings. And all it takes is the right key conversations to justify the cost of the booth, from a training standpoint the direct feedback from customers (if they are among the attendees), partners, clients, and the press can be invaluable. But as an attendee I can tell when someone has been working the booth for 16 hours and no longer cares. Avoid that at all costs.
4. Have great signage and displays but minimal yet thoughtful giveaways. The right balance here is tricky and is different for everyone. Personally I find glossy handouts or bulky brochures if I even take them more times than not end up recycled having never been looked at even once. Only about 1 in 100 pieces of schwag I receive do I keep and use on any regular basis, and it is the rare piece indeed that I both keep and remember or note the company from whom I got it. Typically when I do the item is very smartly linked to the company’s products (I got a flickr lens cleaning cloth I carried around with me for years for example). One exception here being high quality t-shirts which, when from brands I actually use and would endorse, I do indeed occasionally wear (brands I don’t endorse I might use as rags, for housecleaning, or donate).
5. Be smart about how you capture leads while at the show. Sure, the temptation is to scan everyone’s badge with the bribe of a beer. But better, most likely, is a more filtered cause to capture information. But wherever possible do leverage the electronic tools provided by the conference. I was frankly shocked by how rarely (almost never) someone asked to scan my badge. Ideally at good conferences scanning a badge should generate all the information you need (however badge sharing, fake information for "free" expo passes and the like do lower the utility of scanning badges).
6. Follow up almost immediately. At a multiday show you should try to even process the first day’s leads and send out some follow ups that evening. Done well you could take a lead and transform it into a meeting later that very week, instead of weeks later. A simple, short but relevent follow up email – such as "would you like to meet with our sales person at our private meeting space on …" could do wonders.

Trade shows are tricky things. At conferences which I organize I have avoided having any exhibit hall at all in most cases but my events are usually single track and focused on networking opportunities. As an entrepreneur while I anticipate needing to have select trade show booths in the future, I am also planning on putting off that day as long as possible, instead I plan on concentrating on supporting events in other ways and focusing my sales people’s time and efforts. The exception would be for a conference which was highly vetted where nearly every attendee was a real prospect and where the schedule was such that all the attendees would be spending a lot of time in the exhibit hall (a show with no competing sessions for example and with a membership or other fairly strong requirement on attendance. I could also see a trade show booth at a show geared more towards recruiting employees than on selling.

Which leaves me with the final point always keep in mind your business goals for your booth and make sure that all aspects of your presence at the show support that. And yes, there is often a temptation to have many, competing goals (recruiting, sales, business development, investor relations, press outreach etc) but often you can achieve more of your goals by presenting a clearly focused message and having a clear (but not always part of your booth design) plan for engaging with the rare other lead. For example, have a booth at ad:tech entirely focused on selling, if a potential business partner, investor, or member of the press stops by get that person’s information and set up a meeting with the appropriate person who is at the show (ideally).

But please, think long and hard before considering using booth babes.

Here’s a brief video I took showing the ad:tech expo floor:

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.

However I think in all cases the use of booth babes hurt the companies who used them more than it helped. Certainly in one high profile case at ad:tech I found the company’s use of booth babes (who were wearing very skimpy and quite tight fitting white dresses) to lower, considerably, my opinion of the company. A company, I should note, who launched their product and company at ad:tech and are taking on some very large, established companies with a product that could add value to the marketplace (but how well they can compete remains to be seen).

Now I am a straight, single, mid-30’s man. Certainly an attractive woman is not unpleasing to the eyes. But in a business context while "sex" does draw people it, it doesn’t add value, if anything it lowers it (unless you are, in fact, a company selling sex but that’s a different show than ad:tech – at least the public facing sides of the companies at ad:tech). I’m sure there are more than a few of the companies exhibiting at ad:tech who have portions (I’ve heard in a few cases the primarily profitable portions) of their business focused on "adult" products.

Here are my objections to the use of Booth Babes and related tactics on trade show floors. And more broadly to another all too common trend especially with any company with a larger booth.

1. The need for booth babes or for that matter cash giveaways, expensive raffle prizes or high value tzotchkes demonstrates a lack in confidence about the interest in the product and company. Using sex combined with greed to attract people to your booth does very little to focus who views your product or takes the time to meet with your staff at the booth (see related points below) and if the takeaway is "was that woman wearing a bra?" many people are not likely to retain much about your company or product.
2. At ad:tech San Francisco this year I counted multiple companies giving away a MacBook Air (2 or 3 on the floor, at least one at an afterparty), countless companies giving away some form of an iPod, one company giving away skateboard decks, another giving away $5 Starbucks cards for a survey, and at least one company literally giving away cash. I should note that even people who got the skateboard deck which was indeed really, really cool with an image of the San Francisco skyline, couldn’t tell me the name of the company giving the decks away – and I asked someone just hours after having won the deck. All of these draw people but rarely real prospects.
3. In many cases to handle larger crowds non-employees are hired to man the booth. From people in latex gloves making cotton candy, to bartenders, to raffle entry takers, filling your booth with non-employees decreases the chance of identifying a real prospect when one walks past and stops. In my engagements with various companies I saw a very deep difference when I talked with a long time employee (or in a few great cases a founder) versus when I was talking with a hired temporary staffer simply manning the booth, or food giveaways.
4. It is hard, perhaps nearly impossible, but to maximize the value of a trade show booth you should have staff who are as engaged and outgoing in the last hour as they were in the first. On Tuesday, the first day of ad:tech as I walked the trade show floor I was greeted by people at most booths, PR representatives and company employees in fact sought me out away from their booth and asked me to stop by their booth (noting that I was press and in many cases knowing about CenterNetworks). In contrast on Wednesday as I walked the exhibit hall in the late afternoon, a few hours before it was closing I was rarely, if ever, engaged with. Even when, in many cases, I stopped to take a further look at a given booth. My press badge was still easily visible, but in many cases it was very clear the people manning the booths were exhausted (and I think overwhelmed from various promotions/giveaways they had been running).

Stop back tomorrow for advice on what to consider with regards to purchasing a booth slot at a trade show.

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.

ad:tech San Francisco

But scattered amongst the affiliate networks, pay-per-click networks, SEO/SEM firms, and many others there are a few interesting companies and organizations here – and there is also most definitely a lot of networking occurring (indeed I overheard two women talking to each other about how great the networking was as they were apparently debating about heading back to their offices earlier this afternoon, I think decided to stay).

A few broad observations, in later posts I’ll go into greater depth.

1. The ad:tech crowd is not a purely Silicon Valley crowd. Far, far from it. A few of us here in jeans, but far more people in suits (and yes even ties). In general the men and women are in business professional dress unless they are booth babes, of which there are many (more than I expected). From the use of Twitter and some people who I know who are here, there is definitely a few of us here who are deeply technical, but for the most part though held in San Francisco, this is a not a Silicon Valley/Web 2.0 crowd.
2. The level of booths ranges dramatically. From a few booths which are truly among the most impressive I’ve seen in a very long time, to many others that even as I got very close to them left me deeply puzzled (not to mention at least two firms or organizations that had a booth but didn’t show up at all. Among the most impressive, a booth done over as diner, complete with Jones’ sodas, pies, and coffee and "booth babes" in 1950’s dinner garb. In contrast, there were booths with only signage.
3. Many of the bloggers and press (and audience) are more connected than the speakers. I have been tracking variations of the term "ad:tech" via Twitter tracking, the commentary of the active twitters is pointing out how basic many of the presentations have been. Others have been pointing out that there should be other perspectives on many of the presentations. I’m also finding a wide range of opinions about the crowd and event – some loving it, others finding it boring or basic.
4. There are too many _______. Too many ad networks, too many SEO firms, too many mobile platforms, too many too similar of nearly everything exhibiting here at the show. I’ve heard this from attendees directly, I’ve seen this sentiment via many people’s twitters (especially about "ad networks". [Full disclosure here, I am, myself, building a new ad network - though what we are doing and our focus is rather different, or at least I'd like to think that]

Now back to walking the trade show floor, avoiding booth babes and eager salespeople pitching affiliate networks and popunders.

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.

Allen’s note: A big thank you to Shannon Clark for covering FOWD. Awesome coverage of the event!

All ad:tech NYC posts:

• Wednesday Morning Keynotes
• Walking the Halls, Lobby Lurking or the Best Meals are the Most Random
• Opening keynote on Brands by Nick Brien, CEO of Universal McCann
• first impressions three floors, 300+ exhibitors
• Ad:Tech NYC Overview

AdTech NYC was a great event for me, in four busy days I had the opportunity to get a good sense of the current state of the online, digital advertising industry. The combination of the overly packed exhibit halls, the standing room only lobbies, and after Monday they almost always full keynotes and panel discussions offered a great mix of opportunities to hear from both small, newly launched firms and some of the leaders of the largest digital agencies and advertising firms.

As I learned from talking with people over the course of the event in addition to the discussions in the public spaces of the sessions, exhibition hall, and lobbies, countless other meetings took place over the past week. In fact most of the CEO’s and senior salespeople I spoke with talked of having 6 or more meetings every day while at the show. Little time for much else besides meetings which would start with early breakfast and end late into the evening.

Official numbers will likely be available early next week but here are a few early numbers from the last conversations I had with the AdTech staff:

• pre-registrations (mostly for free expo pass) – ~13,800+ people
• full conference registrations – ~1300 people
• media – more than expected, likely over 100 press passes issued
• speakers – over 100 different speakers during the course of the conference
• actual attendees vs. registrations – estimated between 9000-10,000 for exhibition days (Mon & Tues) and about 1500 (including media, speakers and event staff) for the full conference
• as many as 10 or more parties on any given night, with at least 4-6 parties most evenings

Stories from AdTech NYC 2007 made the NY Times and many other major newspapers and the media coverage both old and new was extensive. One thing I have to applaud AdTech for they supported the media extremely well. The press room was conveniently located was also the speakers lounge and included beyond computers, dedicated wifi, coffee, and ample piles of press materials from exhibiting firms, free massages for speakers and the press (which after picking up materials from over 100 of the exhibiting firms was sorely needed the next day).

Combining the speakers and press rooms worked extremely well, while sitting in the press room I was often able to get a few minutes (or in some cases much more than a few minutes) conversation with speakers. The AdTech staff also arranged for speakers to be available to the press before or after some of their sessions, though I was too busy at other sessions to take full advantage of these more formal opportunities.

As I looked over the conference materials and watched many of the sessions I was struck by a few of the many differences between AdTech NYC and more "pure" tech industry conferences and shows. Unlike the majority of tech industry events, AdTech had a highly diverse group of speakers – with a large percentage of senior industry leaders who happened to also be female speaking. The diversity was not just on a male/female line. Speakers were drawn from a wide range of ages, races, countries and types of firms. I personally would have like to hear even more from speakers directly at the advertiser side of the industry but there are many from both digital technology firms and agencies – from both the technology and creative sides of the business.

It is a welcome reminder that not all industries are as myopic as the tech industry often appears if you only went by the speakers at major tech conferences.

The crowd at AdTech was relatively young, though again attendees were quite diverse and above all very actively engaged in talking with each other. I missed most of the major AdTech parties but seeing photos from some of the other media covering the conference, the parties were serious parties. In many ways the Hilton was and is a tough venue for a large, major industry show. But on the otherhand the very tightness of the venue lent itself to people connecting and talking. If you knew just a few people at the show (more than the less than a dozen I knew from before I attended) you could have easily sat in one of the two main bars in the lobby and waited as the conference flowed past you.

And while I made fun, to a degree, of some of the more outrageous ways people promoted their booths in the exhibit hall, for the most part the booths were manned by actual employees of the firms who were actively engaged in conversations with attendees on serious matters. Whenever I stopped and had a conversation I generally fell into an interesting discussion of the industry as well as that particular firm’s offerings.

I would like to thank Allen for the opportunity to report on AdTech NYC 2007. Watch for my ad network to launch in 2008!

Moderated by Randall Rothenberg president and CEO of the IAB the panel was Suzie Reider, head of advertising sales for YouTube.com; Michael Barrett, executive VP Chief Revenue Officer Fox Interactive Media; Arianna Huffington – Co founder and Editor in Chief Huffington Post; Matt Freeman CEO Tribal DDB Worldwide.

Great conversation though I entered in the middle so missed some of their introductory remarks and discussions.

In the Q&A a lot of discussion about pre-roll (and how bad it can be). Including from the CEO of Tribal DDB Worldwide. Fox brought up 24. "Pre-roll is a clumsy way to get the sponsorship money" – "Ultimately we are not serving our clients well if we are irritating consumers"

Question about cookies – "education to the masses" (hmmm very odd perspective I think but he is assuming the audience is with him). IAB has launched a campaign around the value of interactive advertising – spywares w/cookies etc. Industry is trying to inform people. (Michael on the panel is on the IAB board)

Question about minors online (seems de rigueur for these types of panels)

Part two – Innovate or Die! Thriving in the age of disruption

Moderator -Jon Fine Media Columnist BusinessWeek. Panelists -Jason Hirschhorn president Sling Media Entertainment group; Paul Woolmington Founding Partner Naked Communications; Brad Jakeman Former Executive VP Creative Strategy Macy’s Inc (now a consultant).

Starts with a useful definition of disruption – consensus on breaking current models (that you didn’t create from one panelist). "Everyone worships change, it is cool to be disruptive". Why does this stuff matter? (Microsoft is still bigger than Apple – though I would personally argue this is misleading in some ways)

A bunch of discussion, now moved onto the logical area of music. Brought up LiveNation – and now cut off this topic (tabled for the hallway afterwords)

Great comment "that speech was zero calories" on political talks (I think the guy from Sling Media)

Pinging back to the first keynote today about threat from opting out of advertising.

Morning overview and early post-lunch takeaways

The audience is much smaller now that the trade show is closed, but it is still a very large number of people. My perosnal estimate would be a bit over 1000 people who have stayed for the full conference program. It is a bit difficult to estimate as post-keynotes the talks are spread across at least four separate rooms (and multiple other conferences are being help in the small spaces throughout the Hilton meeting spaces.

All afternoon as one session let out a line formed to get into the next session, on the one hand a sign of slightly cramped spaces and challenging logistics, but also a sign that the topics have been resonating with the audience. On one panel this afternoon they asked how many people in the room were from agencies, in a room of probably 500 or so people, about 30-40 people raised their hands.

However after the keynotes this morning the sessions seem to have been diminishing in energy levels as the day has worn on. I don’t know precisely why I have this perception, some combination I suspect of spaces which are indoors and windowless, with ample white noise in the background, slightly dimmed lights, and too many speakers talking in mostly a monotone voice. There is a marked difference between the speakers who talk while standing – and the panels which so far have mostly been with speakers seated, behind a table on which they can (and sometimes do) lean down, shoulders rounding.

I am going to skip the final panel this afternoon and instead head out to a dinner here in NYC. At the dinner will be many people who are attending Ad:Tech, but also people who are in town for some of the many other conferences happening this week here in NYC. Though so far at least little news has been made here today – certainly this week will go down as an important week in the digital advertising world.

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.

Before the first keynote I arrived a bit on the late side to Ad:Tech this morning, the exhibit hall had been open for about an hour and I had yet to have any coffee. Instead I stood, waiting, in the middle of the large Hilton lobby. After a little while of standing, catching up on emails, twitters and blog posts, I sat down. Had this been San Francisco or a "web 2.0" tech industry conference, in the ten minutes or so I stood there in the lobby I would have seen and greated dozens if not hundreds of friends – people I have seen dozens of times at industry events, parties, and previous conferences.

However though Ad:Tech is a tech related event, it is a very different audience and attendee demographic than say O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 Summit or the TechCrunch 40 conference.

My meeting, however, was with two fellow tech entrepreneurs also attending the show. We ducked across the street to the Starbucks hidden under scaffolding across 6th Ave from the Hilton (much shorter lines there than at the Starbucks right in the Hilton). We then went up to the press room and talked. Unlike myself, their experience of the show has and will be very different, they have full days of meetings scheduled – indeed the CEO noted that had he not had full days of meetings scheduled but had had just a few (or no) meetings he would have canceled his reservations and stayed in SF.

We talked about my observation yesterday about who was not exhibiting – and about who was here at the show. One thing I learned most definitively is that many of the firms who did not have a major presence (or indeed any presence at all) on the exhibit hall floors are, in fact, here at the show in force. Companies such as MySpace (some 30+ people), AOL (and Ad.com etc), and I assume but haven’t fully confirmed Yahoo! where indeed here, just had chosen not to have a small, cramped booth presence to tie up people – instead they chose to focus on scheduling lots of meetings.

I also wondered how many ad agency folks were here at the show – I have been repeatedly assured that many people are here, but other than one person from an agency in South Florida, I haven’t yet personally met many (speakers excepted). Later today (Wed) the show has promised that more detailed numbers of attendees will be made available, so far the only publicly stated data point is that over 13,000 people had pre-registered – based on the number of people I have seen so far, my personal estimate is that at least 9000 probably more than 10,000 people have been at the show in at least some capacity over the past two days. I will be asking to see if more detailed breakdowns of who was at the show in attendance can be seen (and for example, who was here just for the free expo pass portion and who stays on).

On that note, I overheard in the halls today at least one woman looking forward to "when all the expo only people leave and finally people I want to talk to start seeking me out" – I didn’t catch who she is with but the sentiment I suspect is shared by many, my prediction for the next two days is that they will be a very different and much smaller crowd. I’m not yet sure what the makeup of that crowd will be, but I suspect it will be easier to find people after a given session and easier to meet new people (to a degree) – however whether everyone whom you might want to be meeting will still be here is another matter.

After the last keynote of the day I wandered down to the various hotel bars to try to get a sense of the conversations, to try to meet new people and to round up a group to have some dinner. At the last minute a few friends who were in town (some for Ad:Tech others for other conferences also happening here in NYC, all had schedule conflicts so I was left with a planned restaurant but no one to eat with). I stood and then later sat and watched the crowds ebb and flow.

As I wandered I realized that indeed the audience here is one I do not yet know. I did have a great and fairly long conversation with one good friend who was also here at the show – talking about his ideas for his new venture as well as what I am doing and where we both see the industry as a whole heading in the next few years (see my first overview post on Ad:Tech for my views).

Then I answered a question about where to possibly find great sushi with a ‘would you like to join me for great Korean’? And thus a great, but highly impromptu dinner was assembled. A group of four of us had a great meal, recorded a podcast for Ten Golden Rules where we talked about the show so far, and then after dinner ended up having drinks with other attendees at a bar in Grand Central Station.

A great reminder, yet again, that for all the value of scheduling many meetings, lunches, breakfasts and dinners, it also does pay to have flexibility, to talk to fellow attendees (but possibly strangers) and be open to group dinners and other post-conference events. These conversations, rich, long and accompanied by good food and drink are almost always the ones which get built on over time and lead to great things.

So my advice – by all means schedule meetings like crazy before the show (I know I will before my next Ad:Tech) but also leave room for some random conversations – also look for ways to be approachable and to approach others, to include not just those whom you know from years of past work together, but also new people who are also passionate enough about your industry to spend their time (and often given NYC hotel prices very real money by any measure) to be at the event.

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.

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.

Shannon Clark has been reporting on ad:tech in NYC and will continue through the balance of the week.

Rachel Clarke will be covering the Future of Web Design in NYC beginning tomorrow.

Till Klampaeckel is covering the NY Tech Meetup this evening which includes a presentation on Vimeo and Drop.io, two companies we covered in the past week.

Grab the RSS feed and be notified as soon as one of us posts new updates.

And one of the most elaborate booths is, seriously, giving away air. Microsoft Atlas has a full blown, flavored, oxygen bar.

But that is the surface layer, the pile of papers rarely viewed and the toys given away to children, nieces and nephews.

So some observations about who is here at Ad:Tech exhibiting. This is just based on impressions, on the less than 50% of the firms that made enough of an impression that I stopped, looked at their literature, learned a bit more about what they do and who they are.

I have been told that the NYC show is intended to target an audience of mostly advertising industry folks (hence the NYC location). The interesting thing is that I don’t really get a sense that there are a lot of people here who are actually in the advertising industry. Perhaps I’m stereotyping to a degree – but also looking at badges, overhearing conversations, and watching booth discussions – I haven’t met many actual media buyers or ad agency types. My guess is mostly they are downstairs, not up here in the exhibit hall.

Mostly online marketers so far, a lot of booth folks (many of whom appear to be hired, though some – generally I think the more interesting firms have actual employees working the booths).

Rough stats on company types

So far at least one law firm per floor. Apparently there is demand for lawyers in the ad industry.

About a half dozen or so companies promising solutions (or at least approaches) to deal with click fraud.

More ad networks than you can really count. But I will try to get at least an estimate. My quick count, well over 30 and counting. Four or five just in "in Text advertising" (with many claiming this is unique). Many many more promising Hispanic markets, with each also claiming to be the largest international ad network. A number of third tier search engines/search sites (and Google is here).

A virtual sea of TLA (of course that’s "Three Letter Acronyms" ) – CPC, CPA, CPM, CPV (not sure about that last). Dozens of firms focused on email marketing. Nearly ten firms focused on metrics.. This is not counting another dozen plus firms focused on affiliates and managing "CPA" leads, ad networks and the like. Three or four firms offering mobile ad networks of some form.

Over ten, perhaps many more than ten, firms focused on email list management and marketing. Including a few who are offering "guaranteed delivery", claiming to achieve this entirely legally and ethically (not at all clear how they plan on achieving it.).

About a dozen or so search engine optimization firms, not as many as I might have expected.

Very few, again so far at least, traditional media buying firms. Firms who represent a range of brands and manage their media buying and placement online – across ad formats, platforms, networks and more. From a personal perspective these are the firms I am most interested in talking with – as I’m in the midst of building an ad network and they represent the exact right group of buyers for me to talk with about our offering.

My current count is at about ten firms offering a white label ad server of some form for firms to build their own ad network (and in a few cases their own affiliates networks).

And in smaller clusters there are assorted technology firms – a number of hosting companies, a smaller number than I expected number of firms helping with rich media serving, and a few others.

Who is not here – or at least not as large a presence as might be expected

Yahoo does not have a booth of their own. They do have partners here but not a Yahoo booth.

Google has a relatively small booth (Doubleclick has another booth in the same room however).

AOL does not have a booth.

Many of the larger media buying firms (Agency.com for example) are not here. Neither are some of the largest Lead Gen firms (though there are certainly many lead gen firms here).

I do not see many of the major players in online video – no VideoEgg for example. Also missing are the major content delivery networks (which I would argue have a great deal of synergy with the requirements of a large scale ad network – i.e. serving up rich media quickly, reliably, and often in a globally optimized manner).

Tomorrow I will focus mostly on the sessions and keynotes.

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.

I attended, briefly, Ad:Tech San Francisco earlier this year. By briefly I mean I managed to get to the exhibit hall a few hours before it closed on the very last day of the exhibition time, thus I raced through the show floor talking to a few select vendors but mostly soaking in who was there, what messages they were emphasizing, and getting a sense of the show and the current tech of the advertising industry. In San Francisco the vibe and emphasis was mostly on web advertising, primarily pay-per-click networks, and very much emphasizing raw volume and mass numbers (a billion impressions here, a billion impressions there).

In NYC I expect to hear about a wider perspective on the ad industry and the transition of even more advertising dollars to the web (and beyond the web to mobile and multiple-platform plays).

At the San Francisco show I mostly talked with exhibitors about a mobile web application, NELA (for "Never Eat Lunch Alone") which my partner and I developed. I also gathered information and knowledge for the ad network which we planned on building but at the time had not started focusing on. This week when I am not reporting on sessions, exhibits and hallway discussions for CenterNetworks, I will be talking with advertisers, media buyers, software publishers and others about Nearness Function.

So full disclosure, I have a stake in and strong opinions about the ad industry and the future direction of the industry. I will try to capture what takes place at the show, but I will also share my opinions and commentary. Here though a baseline of my perspective on where the ad industry is going – both on the web as it works today and into the future.

1. Brand advertising and marketing will dramatically increase on and via the web. Brands will move online as their demographic targets continue to spend more and more of their attention online. This includes, perhaps, substituting media-via-the-web for media from radio and TV. It also includes an ever growing range of entertainment and social options. In many cases this entertainment may originate via the Internet but may be "consumed" even while offline and increasingly via non-computer devices. For example much of my personal music and talk listening is no longer via radio but via downloaded podcasts. Most of the video I view – both short and long form also comes into my home via the Internet (purchased from iTunes, downloaded from other sites, viewed in site, etc). Increasing some of these entertainment options will be affiliated with brands.
2. Brand advertising had very different requirements and timeframes than most of the types of advertising currently shown on the web. Branding is about the associations and recognition of the brand within a target audience at some future point when they start a buying process. In many cases brands need to be established a long time ahead of purchases. In many cases, brand choices are long lasting and deeply important decisions in an individual’s life. For example, the make and model of a car which will likely be part of a given owner’s identity for many years (my parents being one extreme, they have had their current cars for over a decade, and have been driving the same brand for closer to two decades). Brand advertisements have to serve many different purposes – they have to establish a brand identity, they have to remind people about the brand as an option, and over time they have to help differentiate the brand in often crowded markets. The purchase cycle in a given industry will dictate, to a degree, the speed at which a brand identity might need to change – but many of the most valuable and useful to their owners brands have had relatively consistent branding for a very long time (Coke, Mercedes-Benz, etc). In the new, hyper global, always-on, Internet powered age, brands still have a great deal of power, impact and value – but also much adapt to a new media landscape, to new patterns of purchasing and use, and to new ways of communicating and interacting. Brands can see their value destroyed almost overnight if they are not careful online (Kryptonite locks for example) but likewise, the Internet can assist new brands in establishing themselves. (new brands of LCD screens, Scion cars, the US launch of the Mini, Lenovo, etc)
3. The current ad unit models of the web (mostly CPM – cost per impression, CPC – cost per click, and CPA – cost per action i.e. "lead generation") are not sufficient going forward. New models and along with them new metrics will start to show up and be experimented with. My personal bet is on a model that builds on other media models – a fee based on active attention over a period of time (i.e. your brand in front of X people, each for up to 30 minutes while they are actively using a given application etc)
4. Search advertising is not going away and will continue to have lots of innovation alongside of other experiments in the advertising space. Search is a great way to reach people in a specific frame of mind – but it does not meet the full range of commercial message needs.
5. While today the US is the dominant market for online advertising this will not always be the case. Already many online applications see well over 50% and in many cases as much as 3/4ths of their user base being outside of the US. Both global brands and local advertisers will increasingly see a great value and return in reaching this international audience. As a result the importance of working with a global, multilingual set of ads and advertisers will only increase over time.
6. While standards are very useful, especially when selling ads in bulk, there will also be a push and pull in the industry as ways to package and sell non-standard ads and advertising opportunities will grow in importance, especially as in many cases they may be highly effective ways to distribute and spread a given message.
7. Full disclosure cannot be over emphasized. However unfortunately many advertisers, ad networks, and publishers will continue to experiment with ways of distributing commercial messages without clear and full disclosure of what is paid for commercial messaging. "Pay-per-post" is perhaps the poster boy for this problem, but there will be countless others who try variations. The current movement to mass product placement (usually without much if any disclosure) on American TV shows will, inevitably make its way onto the web. My personal hope is that on the web great disclosure can and will be delivered to the actual viewers – and as a result they can make an even more informed decision about the impact they give to a given placement. However I may be fighting this battle for years and years to come. [while we do plan on exploring ways to help companies place non-standard commercial messages, we will only do so when there are clear and deeply embedded into the medium disclosures]
8. Targeting of advertising will be a rich source of innovation for the next few years. However this needs to be tempered when it comes to brand advertising vs. immediate action ad units. If advertisers and networks are not careful, certain types of targeting may bite back. My personal prediction is that some aspects of targeting based on social network data and many forms of targeting by tracking large portions of online behavior (ISP’s monitoring clickstreams for example) may face some degree of consumer backlash as well as lead to some serious issues at some point in time. Anything from targeting which hits a bit too close to home to subpoenas being issued to an ad network for the clickstream of a given targeted individual. Perhaps in the US this might only have a civil impact – but already Yahoo! and Google have encountered deep issues around requests by governments such as China for information about users of their web services online activities – my prediction is that various ad networks which are tracking users and targeting their behavior over time may someday face related isues and requests.

Ad:Tech NYC should be a very exciting conference.

On Tuesday evening I will be, unless the conference has too many evening activities planned, organizing a dinner gathering for Korean Food in Koreantown. All readers of CenterNetworks are welcome to join me for dinner.

And if you are attending Ad:Tech NYC please feel free to stop me if you see me at the conference and introduce yourself. I hope to "never eat lunch alone" all throughout the conference – and that goes for breakfasts and coffee breaks as well. After Ad:Tech I will be in the NYC area until Tuesday Nov 13th and would welcome the opportunity to meet up with any readers then as well.

See you at the show!

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.