KevinRyan

Ad:Tech is coming back to New York next week and its gotten quite the facelift this year to help celebrate the 20th year of the event. First, there are a couple big changes at the top. Ad:Tech made a sharp strategic placement with industry living legend John Durham at the helm. Another smart leader in place is Daniel Elder as Global Chief Digital Officer.

Ad:Tech is maturing with our industry, and having spent well in excess of a decade as a member of its advisory board, spoken at events in the U.S., China, Japan, Australia, United Kingdom (and a few others I have forgotten) I have a special attachment to this living industry event. Also, I feel old as hell. This year, Ad:Tech has a completely new floor plan that will focus on immersive programming and take a much more focused approach to showcasing innovation.

The show has changed many times over the years and I’ve gotten to know some amazing people while working in and around it. From the early leadership of Susan Bratton who helped launch and make a name for the event to now, Ad:Tech really has evolved with the industry. It was Susan who put my 20 something know it all self on the board when I offered some unsolicited criticisms of the early events. Later on down the line came folks like Drew Ianni and Brad Berens, both of whom have gone on to great success elsewhere in the business and contributed greatly to the event’s tremendous reputation over the years. Indeed one of key reasons to attend Ad:Tech are the relationships you can forge just by attending and actively participating.

Of course, there have been many other folks who helped structure the event and make it what it is today. Many of the speakers and advisors are innovators that helped shape the industry as well. Keynotes are my personal favorite at the event and generally set the tone for the session content. I’ve personally shared the stage with folks like Satya Nadella, Marissa Mayer, Moon Frye, P. Diddy, Diddy, Puff Daddy, John Battelle, John Battelle’s persona, John Battelle’s book and many Battellisms. This year you’ll see Rishad Tobaccowala, Chief Strategist from Publicis Groupe, Guy Primus, Co-founder and CEO of The Virtual Reality Company, and Laura Henderson, head of Global Content & Media Monetization at Mondelez International. There are a lot of personalities and experts at the event but you’ll only get out what you put in — so make the most of your time.

It’d be impossible for me to highlight all the changes and updates to the show, suffice it to say, I’m expecting a great deal from the event and the people running it from top to bottom.

I’ll be in and around the Ad:Tech event Wednesday and Thursday next week, so drop me a line if a morning or afternoon beverage is something you might find interesting.

 

This post was originally published on LinkedIn.com

Back in September 2011, the most important senate judiciary hearings of our time were held to facilitate a determination that Google was either friend or foe to the American People.

Almost 5 years to the date, the conversation has leapfrogged past who’s evil and who isn’t in search results. We’ve skipped right to, “Is it OK to sell the information we’ve collected about a woman’s moon phase — from the $200 fitness device we sold her — to anyone who wants to sell her yoga pants, chocolate, feminine care products or anything else?”

Think I am exaggerating? A major retail brand selling devices sent me their ad sales deck 6 months ago laying out targeting just as you see it above. It got worse as I read through it and the targeting potential went off the rails fast. Women of a certain BMI like <insert product here>. When I asked about disclosure, the room went dark.

People are buying devices, uploading all kinds of information and the brands they trust are exploiting them, Matrix-style. If you need help with a visual, that fitness tracker you’re wearing makes you Neo to the Matrix prior to being unplugged.

I read the information fiduciary piece in The Atlantic and the follow up in AdExchanger(two publications on a very short list that I consider trustworthy) shortly thereafter and wondered if this debate will get passed over just like the last one, back 2011.

In the 2011 “interviews,” senators had 7 minutes to ask questions then 2 minutes to close. The 2 Senators from Minnesota had this awesome good cop bad cop routine that worked. Senator Chuck Schumer simply used the time to throw down a “mine is bigger” themed advert for NY Technology and Hudson Valley real estate.

Those testifying included Google, one of Google’s lawyers, a lawyer from the other side and 2 guys who compete with Google. I parodied the whole interaction (spoiler: Google wiped the floor with our elected officials) in a crude comic format (like the one you see above) so people could easily understand how they were just sold down (or is it up the Hudson Valley) the river.

Here we are in 2016 and I wonder, will the conversation once again trail off while we work on even bigger ways to erode trust?

Postscript, I never published the cartoon series, so if you want a copy of it, drop me a line. It’s HYSTERICAL.

 

This post was originally published on LinkedIn.com

eMarketer just released another sharp snapshot illustrating the rapid growth of digital ad spending. Among the many points demanding your attention is that 2016 will be the year digital placements will outpace TV commercials. While spending isn’t necessarily an indication of the importance of particular format, reading the numbers this way does give us a good idea of how technologies are shaping how budgets are formed and dollars are being spent. For example, Email spending is still a rounding error at .4% yet this remains one of the most important formats for maintaining relationships with our audiences. On the other hand (and I’ve been saying this for some time) spending on display ads has started to outshine search and that is an indication that advertisers are placing greater emphasis this format’s effectiveness. The explosive growth of programmatic buying technologies and enhanced data integration are playing a big role in this surge. While programmatic does have it’s foibles, it’s only going to get better over time. Indeed many of the buying disciplines that apply to search are now being applied to programmatic and plenty of companies are discovering that skill sets for these two disciplines dovetail exceedingly well.

Get yourself a copy of the report, watch the super fun video of my talk on programmatic from the recent iMedia Brand Summit and drop me a line if you want to chat about any of this media goodness.

 

This post was originally published on LinkedIn.com

The trust relationship we have with our beloved brands is being expressed mailed to hell. Yesterday, before boarding my transcontinental flight back to New York I got the announcement that the FAA would prefer it if I left my Samsung Galaxy on the ground in the seated, locked and off position. I’d ship it back to myself but I wouldn’t want to bear the guilt of inadvertently causing an explosion in the shipper’s vehicle.

Speaking of vehicles, upon my arrival home, I popped open the 3rd letter (in as many weeks) I got from Subaru with yet another safety recall. Here’s the short version: the hood might fly up while driving and the passenger airbags (don’t get me started on Takata) have a tendency to explode sending shrapnel through the cabin. Nice. Even better than that news is the notification that no parts are available. So you can’t fix it. So you shouldn’t drive with a passenger until — and we don’t know when that will be — it’s fixed. Also, you should have full confidence that you’re not going to get another letter next week with a similar warning about the driver’s side airbag. You can’t make this stuff up folks, see for yourself:

 

But wait, there’s more. The letter is dated July 2016 and I got this note YESTERDAY. Thanks, Subaru. I’ve been driving around with this ticking time bomb with the family in tow for 2 months and you knew.

I drive Subarus because they are solid no-nonsense vehicles. No frills, solid all-wheel drive and a big (optional) motor. There are 2 of them in my 2 car garage. I love the ad spots featuring dogs, puppies, and babies. They pull on my heartstrings. Love really is what makes a Subaru a Subaru. At least that’s what the ads say.

I’m not feeling the love. Subaru has my email, they can contact me. Subaru has my phone number, they can call me. Subaru knows I have been driving this car for the better part of a decade.

Quite literally overnight, I have 0% confidence in a brand I once adored. What could Subaru do differently? For starters, use the trust relationship I exhibited by giving you my personally identifiable information. Instead of blaming the supply chain, you can direct paid ads and drive social awareness of a well-worded apology and point your people to accurate information. You can reach into existing social channels and engage your influencers to help get the word out. You pay for all of this by re-allocating budget and resources. You can put the time in. If autodialers can figure out how to apply the resource to faking IRS calls on a biblical scale, a brand like Subaru can invest the time.

Folks, if your product is literally (and I know, I hate the overuse of “literally” in the modern conversation too) blowing up, maybe it’s time to tap the brakes, spend less time on the trust narrative and more time working to build trust. Literally. Have a look at a screen grab from one of my favorite Subaru spots entitled “Proud to Earn Your Trust.” What a tragic case of irony.

As for me, I now have a 4,000-pound paperweight in my garage with a resale price that’s taking a nose dive. I have 0% confidence that the other airbags are safe. I expected more from a brand that spends so much time talking about love and trust. I think I’ll go check my mailbox.

 

This post was originally published on Linkedin.com

@KevinMRyan's dissection of the formulaic self-interest of the #lumascape at #iMediaSummit is hilarious.

— Adam Kleinberg (@adamkleinberg) September 13, 2016