Media Week

Well it’s 3 days in and I’m about to hit some cocktails. Not so hard they fall over, but hard enough so they carry me through tomorrow.

Covering Cannes was a walk in the park compare to here. There are 3 conferences going on at the same time and we have people scattered around 5 or 6 locations around the city.

All our coverage is on our AdWeek NY site, and it ain’t all about Microsoft you’ll be glad to hear, as will Steve Barrett no doubt as I wouldn’t want to hijack this blog for that!

Among them are my thoughts on Ashton Kutcher’s appearance at IAB MIXX which includes some piccys too and an interview with Mark Cuban, the outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks.

Like Cannes, the buzz is all about digital. This time, a few months on though, when it comes to social media, it’s about how can we measure it’s impact more effectively because it’s here to stay!

We launched a new proof-of-concept social media monitoring tool at the show, part of many ideas our teams are thrashing around. It’s codenamed LookingGlass.

People genuinely thought it was exciting because the idea is to enable advertisers and agencies to layer other forms of data on top of it API-wise.

I must stress it’s not even in beta yet, we’re just thrashing through the ideas - more here.

Other than that, I can tell you advertising folks over here in NY are much better dressed than we are in London. Better dressed as in they wear suits all the time. No open collars. You can tell a creative when he walks in because he’s got jeans on! 

But the money guys, well they must spend a lot of time & moola on 5th Avenue put it that way!

The European Interactive Advertising Association's latest survey is out and seeing as it covers so many sectors like automotive, consumer electronics, entertainment, finance, FMCG, telecommunications, travel and retail it could be useful for all of us!

"With talk of ‘green shoots’ and the recession easing, the Marketers’ Internet Ad Barometer survey will provide the most current look at how the promise of an upturn is affecting the online advertising industry. Respondents receive a pre-launch copy of the report, due for release in November."

It just takes 20 minutes and is in multiple languages so pass it onto any EU cousins you might have!

Well my attempt to write at least two posts a week have gone a bit to pot recently!

It’s mainly because of the hectic run up to AdWeek in NY where we’re sponsoring, blogging, Tweeting and video interviewing the advertising world and his wife.

Yesterday I was speaking about social media at an internal meeting and was lucky enough to hear para-olympian Giles Long talk about his triumph over adversity and win at the Olympic Games and subsequent fainting fit at Buckningham Palace when he met the Queen. It was the heat he said....:-)

Last night was the IAB UK search debate. I was debating with Andrew Girdwood from Bigmouthmedia that “universal” search results, i.e. videos, images, news, shopping reviews. We technically lost as most folks thought (short-sightedly in my opinion) that “regular” search results or the 10 blue links were more important because that’s what they were optimising for right now.

Jack Wallington from the IAB did agree that there was a little confusion around the actual scope of the debate but it was all very good humoured and great fun!

Now I’m packing for a week in the Big Apple. Do keep an eye on our coverage, tweets and wotnot as I try to keep an eye on my waistline!

I mentioned last week I was going to blog live from Advertising Week in New York from the 21st September.

Well we've just launched our Advertising Week 2009 social media hub which will bring the conferences news, views and opinions to the masses in the form of videos, a Twitter feed, blog posts and a photo gallery.

If you can't make it to the event then do check back to this resource every now and again to see what's going on in the Big Apple!

I'll be blogging here on Media Week too...

I'm just as fascinated by offline imagery as I am digital language, icons and graphics.

This sign was spotted on the shuttle at Seattle airport. Pretty obvious really, it's just saying no food.

But why junk food? Is it the easily identifiable packaging that does the trick? Or the fact that burgers or fast food are the most likely perishables to be consumed at an airport.

How would we have got the point across before the "happy meal" was created?

We're working on some icons for stuff here at Microsoft and you'd be surprised how divided opinion is to what works and what resonates across oceans too...

I got caught short at christening in Cambridge on the bank holiday so stumbled into a pub to do my business and have a swift half by way of replenishment!

 
In the loo was a very cool advertising vehicle I'd never seen before. A mirror which flashed up different ads as you washed your hands.

It kept me rapt for more time than I'd usually spend in a gent's toilet believe me.

 
Trouble was, I couldn't figure out what company owns the technology. Someone had nicked the sticker off it with the web address! :-(

I'll be with Microsoft Advertising at Advertising Week 2009 in a few weeks and will be blogging and Tweeting both here on Media Week and my personal blog.

Anyone else coming? Up for a hot dog and a foamy beer?

Details to come on exactly how we'll be bringing the event to life!

Just back from my Hawaiian honeymoon, mai-tai-addled and catching up on the mail blocking my entry to my flat, I tripped over 4 copies of Media Week to spot Rob Taylor’s Best of the Blogs post – Do you have a feeds director? It was hula music to my ears!

Talking about Bing and Farecast in the US, he gives a mini-master class on what it means to provide easily accessible information to search engines and suggests, “We could see this becoming increasingly important in site development briefs and maybe as its own stand alone ‘feeds' channel within a marketing department.”

Well crack open a pineapple, fill it with Malibu and stick a garish mini-umbrella in it by way of celebration because I’ve been saying this for years!

Marketing departments should be using smart technology to provide search engines with tidy and timely information will help them make the right decision about what products and services they should display to a particular user.

In other words, marketers need to get smart about the technology available to optimize their content and distribute it where it’ll have the most benefit for the end user.

I’ve never understood the reticence of some folk in our industry to even try and get the concept of SEO, XML or APIs.

“But I’m not technical!” is usually the cry but it’s really not difficult to get your head around and it’s vital as we progress and innovate towards a totally digital media world.

Building a website from the ground up, making sure the navigation and data accessibility is sweet for both the user and 3rd party digital channels is crucial to success.

I remember once helping a client understand the basics of the purchase funnel, persuading him that a 7 page application process might be a feat of engineering for his internal reporting needs but that he was losing customers and revenue hand-over-fist, and the search engines were losing the will to live trying to interpret what each page was about.

We live in an age where easy access to data and a streamlined flow of inventory equals success in a fast-moving online market. Making sure the marketing departments and technical teams understand each other’s remits and work together towards the common good can only help us build a better and more relevant web!