Mimeo Lounge

OMMA Experience at Advertising Week 2007

Posted on September 26, 2007 at 10:50am, written by Jeff Grill, VP Marketing

On Monday I went to the OMMA conference (Online Media and Marketing Conference) as part of Advertising Week 2007 to hear the “conversation” and see if I could pick up some ideas that could be applied to Mimeo.com and our overnight printing business.  Here are some of my highlights:

- George Kiavkoff from NBC and the Hulu.com initiative are on the right track in terms of providing the consumer with multiple viewing options without barriers to access.  Their dispute with Apple is somewhat overblown and is more about Apple and their draconian price fix policy vs. NBC and their desire to charge consumers more.

- David Edelman, EVP, Leader, Strategy and Analytics Practice, Digitas and Ernest Legrand, VP of Marketing and Strategy Worldwide, IBM were the highlight of the conference.  Their case study on how IBM is managing their digital assets is a benchmark case study for other marketers.  I took more ideas away form this presentation than any other including the way they tag modularized pieces of content and the intelligence that is built into the user experience.  The use of dashboards to measure impact and the ability to tie back to ROI was something to aspire to.  It was so good I wish I had a copy of the presentation.

I also liked IBM’ use of a desktop widget for each customer that provided direct access to project implementation updates, customer service and the IBM account rep on their business (among other things).  It’s a private customized portal into IBM making the large impersonal company personal.

- David Edelman from Digitas further distinguished himself regarding comments on mobile marketing.  I like the way he articulated mobile marketing as the opportunity for advertisers to intersect with what was happening in the consumer’s life at the moment or point of mobility.  The greater the relevance of advertising to the immediate user experience, the more powerful the medium.

- Enjoyed the session moderated by Max Kalehoff, VP, marketing, Nielsen BuzzMetrics, Keith O’Brien (PR Week), Rob Key (Converseon) and David ‘Dunn (Edelman).  Good session on content although I think they understated the impact this area is going to have.  The best part of the discussion was Rob Key’s advice to anticipate the new 3D browser experience and the need to be first on “You Tube” and the photography services with your keywords.

- Eric Kessler, HBO co-President was an outstanding lunch speaker.  Their strength as a content company was demonstrated in a great introduction the power of the Sopranos and a controversial season end.  HBO Voyeur was an interesting experiment by HBO in extending the “It’s Not Television, It’s HBO” line to “It’s not the Internet, It’s HBO” Definitely worth exploring the site.

- The only session that needed work was the workshop titled “Discovering the Local Search Frontier”.  A total miss of the most exciting topic on search.  Panelists were more interested in talking about devices vs. the coming battle between eCommerce, national retailers and local proprieters.  Even with a weak session, I was surprised to learn that we could buy competing keywords on 1800FREE411 .

Overall, proves once again marketing happens outside of the office.  You need to get out once in a while.

Tags: david edelman, digitas, ernest legrand, george kiavkoff, ibm, nbc, omma