ad:tech Chicago Exhibit Hall Full of Activity

Chicago ad:tech is, by far, a smaller show than either new York or San Francisco. THough that doesn't stop vendors and attendees from mingling en mass in the exhibit hall.

more »

Ad:tech Chicago Kicks Off With the Age of Performance Branding

Adrants contributor Krista Neher of Photrade attended the opening ad:tech Chicago keynote and submitted this article:

Ad:tech kicked off with a great start! ad:tech Chair Dew Ianni introduced the keynote speaker and shared some key info on the state of the industry. A few key pieces of information:

- Online Advertising is growing - from $25B to $50B in 2012
- IAB reported $6.8B in Q1 with growth of 18% (not bad for a slowing economy)
- Key Trend - Consolidation: 300 "networks" to a few dozen by 2010
- $$ still flowing to innovators: Apps/Widgets, Social, Mobile, Niche
- With the state of the economy, ad budgets are tightening, however digital and online continue to show growth

The stage was set with an optimistic outlook for digital marketing, and keynote speaker Google Industry Development Director Kevin Kells kicked it off by asking the audience: "What comes to mind when you think of performance and brand building?" After a short silence (probably because the coffee hasn't kicked in yet), the audience threw out some suggestions:

- Search
- ROI
- Increased Sales
- Growth

According to Kevin, growth comes largely from being more relevant to the marketplace. There are two things that are really driving this: 1) Gathering and using better insights from the people that matter to you the most and 2) Telling more stories more often to people who matter to you.

more »

Holiday Inn's Meat is Missing

Newsforce's Dana Todd isn't a fan of the Holiday Inn Meat you Maker banner campiagn currently running on Slate. He writes:

"Ok, I'm frustrated with this. See attached ad, running on Slate right now. Note the potential misspelling "Meat your maker". Hmm, puzzling. Mousing over to expand the rich ad got me no more info about meat or what it had to do w/this professor guy. Clicked the link, sat through ridiculous talking head, still no meat."

Todd goes on, writing, "Can they just not spell, or is there some mystery being unfolded regarding meat or mastery or anything of any consequence? Driving me nuts. I'll probably have to take a valium tonight ;-)"

Yes, after watching, we might need a Valium as well. But, we're still a fan of Philip Baker Hall.

I Want Me Some of That User-Generated Content Thingamabobber

Before we get into this story, let's make sure everyone is on the same page regarding User-Generated Content. Thanks to Brickfish, which just launched a User-Generated Content campaign for Family Circle and eBay, we have this handy explanation.

"The campaign relies on User-Generated Content [get that??? USER-GENERATED CONTENT!] to reach women across the Web. Brickfish campaigns are designed to spark the creation of brand-focused UGC [that's USER-GENERATED CONTENT, by the way] such as blogs, images, video and audio. Brickfish's content sharing tools enable anyone to view and review submissions, vote on their favorites, and share them with friends and peers using email, Instant Message and postings on hundreds of social networking sites including Facebook, MySpace and many more [get that" MANY MORE!!!]. Brickfish campaigns become extremely viral [that's VIRAL, people! VIRAL! VIRAL is cool!] using a peer-to-peer marketing approach."

Isn't USER-GENERATED CONTENT cool? Neat, huh?

more »

Lacking A Viral Concept? No Worries. Just Use Cats

Aren't YouTube viral wannabees great? Why spend a lot of money or try to be overly creative when you don't have to? Just slap up some cheesy images of cats (everyone loves cats, right?), cobble them together with a few amateurish slide transitions and finish it off with an image of Hellboy holding a cat.

If the link to this so-bad-it-just-might-be-good video hadn't come from Fallon digital unit Hyper, there would have been no indication it's a promotion for Hellboy 2. But...isn't that sort of the point anyway? Aim for the amateurish so as to appear un-ad-like, don't mention who made it then cross your fingers and hope it spreads. Simple, right?