DSA Online | New Media Updates

Today, Alexander and I attended the IAB Canada Roadshow. You may remember from previous posts my dissatisfaction after having attended the past few roadshows. I’m a big fan of the IAB in Canada and rather than sitting in my office chair grumbling like an old man, I decided to contact them prior to this year’s workshop.  Specifically, I was frustrated with the lack of local content and I was annoyed that some of the advertised topics never made it into the presentation. I was immediately contacted by the IAB Canada president Paula Gignac asking me to be more specific about my concerns. She also pushed back that she believed that the conference was still very much of value and that I was too harsh. I will admit to being a little harsh on the conference as there are still people in the industry that are only interested in “online” in very general sense. At the same time, I wanted to see the conference grow; the industry has changed so much in the past 2 years with new opportunities and more dollars being spent in this medium. I also had been to the Toronto Mixx conference this year, so I saw what the big smoke was getting to see and wanted some of that pizzazz to trickle down into the local presentations. So I continued to push and received a promise that she would ask her presenters and research partners to get a little more focused this year.

I spent the first 30 minutes of the conference with a sore face I was smiling so much. The first few slides presented by ComScore made a serious attempt to get local and show province by province trends. There were so many good presentations this year and Alexander and I came away from the conference excited to talk about what we had learned and heard. I want to applaud the IAB for putting on a great presentation this year and listening to my feedback.

Presentations that popped.
The Globe & Mail talked about an integrated campaign where they allowed a client to run surveys about trading competence and then re-message based on the results. The more trading savvy they were the more specific the ad messages. The functionality was cool, but definitely a national campaign. I am sure that the tactic could be used on a smaller scale, but this presentation was pretty impressive showing just how deep they were willing to allow the advertiser to become connected to their brand.

In a sea of social media presentations that are doing more to show that “anyone can be social online” and are helping to add to the clutter and mess that are social networks, NHL.com had a great presentation with local flavour. They showcased their Scotiabank Fan Fav campaign that had a client sponsored initiative (award ceremony and all) with tie ins to their website and to personal Facebook pages. What’s more is that Vancouver favourite Luongo won as Canada’s fan favourite (ok – I’ll admit – I had to look up how to spell him name).

Sympatico proved that basic pre-roll could incorporate user engagement by presenting a campaign with Bud Light and interactive video (using their Innovid technology). It’s hard not to pay attention to stats like “8% conversion rate” (or the shiny, happy, bikini-clad beach party girls in the video).
Yahoo! brought their smart ads capability to the conference which I had been hearing about from my American contacts, but hadn’t seen much in the way of local execution. The ability to have modular messages in a local capacity spits in the face of “cool tactics are only for big budgets and national campaigns”. While I have learned that the smart ads are not for smaller budgets, they are certainly a tactic that can be used for local advertisers who want to punch up their online (and potentially offline) capabilities.

The mobile way.
Mobile was discussed in a more general way, but there were some great slides that I will be able to take from the conference and it gave me the shove I needed to start really considering mobile again. I have been off the mobile train, at least in western Canada, for the past few years after some bad case studies and sketchy local mobile marketing providers. It really felt like Vancouver (especially) wasn’t ready to get into mobile unless it was part of a national buy. Because I had had limited success with the platform and continued to see studies discounting mobile for any demo beyond A25 and under, mobile was something I could talk about in broad strokes, but with limited interest. Since viewing the IABC roadshow presentation on mobile, I have since been in contact with Vortex; the IABC’s mobile partner for the Roadshows. It’s funny because Alexander and I specifically commented upon our entering the conference that the mobile QR codes that had been set up weren’t being used. We figured it just further showed that while mobile was cool, not even the IAB was taking it seriously. We later found out that the scanner had simply been forgotten (mistakes happen) and that Vortex played a larger role in the Central shows where more people utilized their mobiles. I can understand that since I have yet to be to an ad function in Western Canada where we are invited to bring our mobile tickets rather than printing them out. In fact, in the last 2 months, I have been to 2 functions where the ticket stated that I would be denied entrance without a printed ticket.

I would strongly recommend attending IAB Canada seminars, conferences and functions in the future. While I always had respect for the IAB, they blew me away by listening to my feedback and really making an effort to present local and relevant content. Alexander and I are all signed up to take part in the Paid Search Optimization seminar that the IAB is putting on in November. I’m hoping we’ll both learn some tricks and tools that we don’t currently have in combination and continue to buff up our skills in search. I hope to see you there.