Report from ad:tech

Realized I never posted this, so sorry it's late. These are my notes from the keynote session I attended during the recent ad:tech NY conference.

I'm at the Innovate or Die! presentation and looking forward to hearing what they think about the future. One thing that's interesting is looking at how this industry views interactivity. Now, I do have a vested interested in a wider definition, this industry needs to look beyond the internet when looking at interactivity. That's one of the reasons that we were asked to speak last month at Heineken, to help broaden the definition of interactivity.

In addition to Jon Fine, media columnist for BusinessWeek, the panelists are:

Jason Hirschorn, Sling Media

Paul Woolmington, Naked

Brad Jakeman, former VP of Marketing, Macy's

The conversation started with what disruption is and the difference between how big companies deal with vs. how smaller companies view disruption. Larger companies view disruption as a threat, not an opportunity. Paul said the you move through the process, you're a disrupter, then you become the status quo then you become disrupted.

Brad made an interesting point about disruption not just being about new technology. He pointed to campaigns likes Doves evolution as disrupting the advertising business.

Paul took a chance by suggesting that there's a conspiracy between big media and big holding companies that holds down the value of emerging media. Brad suggested that people respond to the idea, not to the platform. Nobodies focused on getting the ideas out there, more interested in getting content on all of the new formats.

Paul also talked about brand utility and examples like the Nike/Apple partnership.

Jason talked about the Dexter viral program where you could put someone into a news story about being the next victim of a serial killer. He made a number of good points throughout the program.

Brad -- ROI means removal of imagination. Entire marketing industry looking backwards for asnwers going forward. Nobody's cracked the ROI measurements yet.

Paul talked about the lack of R&D in the marketing services industry. Yes Paul, that's why we created the Brand Experience Lab!

Brad -- innovating on the front end of the airline industry is the real challenge. How do you look at the same problem differently?

Overall, I thought that it was a good session that covered a lot of ground. While many agencies -- and clients -- are giving lip service to the innovation discussion, we'll see if 2008 is the year that we start to see significant movement in how the agency world approaches the changes they're facing.