Marketing in a Digital World 2005 Tour: San Francisco
i20Events’ Preparing for the Future in 2005
By John Bohan, President of i20Events
On January 27th and February 3rd, i20Events (i20) held conferences in Los Angeles and San Francisco that analyzed the future of advertising and marketing.
For an update on i20Events' January 27, 2005 Conference, click here.
The topic of the evening in San Francisco centered around the current state of flux in advertising and marketing including advice on how to prepare in 2005 for a landslide of inevitable change.
The evening started out with a featured interview with Nancy Friedman, Vice President of Advertising for Visa, who expressed the growing difficulty in reaching the consumer.
“If they would just sit in front of the TV, our lives would be much easier, but they don’t.”
i20 followed this comment by questioning the high percentage of dollars that are allocated to television. To which Nancy responded, “I am waiting for the revolt about television prices increasing and ratings coming down. The system is broken. That is why many marketers including ourselves are looking at other media types. About 5 years ago, we spent about 99% of our budget on television and now that number is about 70%.”
Under Nancy’s guidance, Visa is clearly diversifying its spending as evidenced by its cross media campaigns where it draws upon the advantages of numerous media vehicles while maintaining a consistent message for the brand.
For example, in the movie, National Treasure, Nicoles Cage uses Visa to protect The Declaration of Independence. As a complement to this product placement, Visa developed a National Treasure promotion which was supported by national broadcast, cable, syndicated radio, member banks, online, community programs and top retailers.
As part of her support for the Internet, Nancy said “We’ve moved far beyond the idea of just click throughs. We are using the Internet to really tell our brand story and it’s so measurable that we are a convert. It’s really how do we integrate our messages appropriately with the other mediums”
The evening continued with “The Agency Shootout” where three top ad agency executives competed to answer three questions:
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How will consumer empowerment continue to increase?
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In what way will advertising be different in 2008?
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What can we do in 2005 to help prepare for the future?
First up was Hari Abhyankar, VP, Strategy & Analytics for Modem Media/Digitas, who expressed a statement that, we believe, summarized the advice for the entire evening,
“The most empowering brands will win.”
In essence, consumers are in control and companies need to acknowledge this and adapt. There are, however, a number challenges in moving from a “push” world where companies bombard consumers with ads to a world where ads assist consumers in their daily lives.
According to Hari, these problems are particularly inherent in the make up of organizations which are often in silos and lack critical communication channels that are necessary to adapt to the changing customer relationship. As such, he said, “brands are losing loyalty.”
Toby Gabriner, President of Carat Interactive, took the stage next. Toby depicted five key ways in which the entire media landscape is changing. He said, “It is moving 
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from scheduled to ‘on demand’
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from one way to interactive
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from advertiser to consumer to customer to customer
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from push to pull and
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from broadcast to narrowcast”
Toby continued by saying that advertising needs to have a deeper communication with customers. For example, rather than judging the success of advertising via reach, frequency and exposure, we need to measure its impact via involvement and activation. Advertising needs to communicate ideas that create experiences that motivate consumer behavior. 
He supported this advice when responding to an audience query about the effectiveness of “small screen” wireless advertising. Toby sited an example of Carat’s work with Motorola where they placed a billboard in the middle of Times Square that received and displayed text messages from consumers. Some people interacted with the billboard (and Motorola’s brand) for up to twenty minutes.
The last speaker of the night was Clark Kokich , President of Avenue A | Razorfish West, who said “there is a wave of change coming that cannot be stopped….This wave of change is being driven primarily be the self interest of the cable companies who are giving us free video on demand as a means of winning against satellite.”
As a result, he continued, “Television is not going away. It will just be very, very different. By 2008, 40 MM homes will have access to free video on demand. There will be 3,000 to 4,000 hours of free programming available. You will have the ability to watch any program that was delivered probably over the last month and it will be simple and intuitive.”
How does this change TV advertising?
“In 2008,” Clark said, “television is going to look a lot like digital advertising. The line b/w TV and the internet will be broken.”
Okay, then how do we prepare today? Clark offered this advice:
“Shift your thinking: Your website will replace your television advertising as the central expression of your brand. Get digital marketing right:
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Personalize every digital interaction, whether in online advertising, on your website, or in email.
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Learn to exploit the interactive power of the medium.
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Build global ROI tools that tie both online and offline sales back to online advertising.
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Don’t wait. Experiment with new television ad formats now – learn what works before your competitor does.
Forget intrusiveness. Think relevance.”
Clark took home the gold for
the agency shootout, but each presentation offered an insightful look into the future with practical advice on how brands can become more empowering.
The question now becomes which executives, partnerships and vendors strive to develop ideas and programs that strive to empower brands rather than holding on to methodologies that remain successful in the moment...but just for the moment.
Click here for more San Francisco photographs of the i20 Event.
