03 Oct Highlights from the New York Advertising Week

Posted at 03 Oct 2017 in Blog, Digital Advertising by administrator

Sparcmedia was at the 2017 New York Advertising Week, a premier event for marketing, brand, advertising, and technology professionals, with four days of talks and networking, where industry professionals come together to learn about the latest ad technology developments, hear from experts and look for those inspiring pieces of information that help them on their advertising journey.

The event is held in Times Square which seems an appropriate venue as almost every inch of every building is plastered with billboards and neon lights advertising upcoming TV shows, fashion lines, and Broadway productions. There are lots of spin-off events and of course, entertainment opportunities as clients and suppliers come together in what is one of the most iconic industry events. Here are the top things that got us excited at the event:

Target Media Network

In the US, shopping behemoth Target has taken its in-store and online customer data and built out an incredibly powerful data set. Kristi Argyilan, Senior Vice President of Media and Guest Engagement for the brand, talked of the incredible uplift they’ve garnered on their own campaigns using it and now they have opened it up to other marketers for purchase via a brand safe ad network. We can’t wait to test it out with our clients.

Brand Safety, A Fresh Perspective

One very brave senior marketer talked about cutting 99% of sites on their media plan as they didn’t feel that they were the right fit for their brand. She said that as each brand is different there is no “one size fits all” with brand safety, therefore as the CMO, you need to be involved in building that whitelist because your agency will never know your brand as well as you do.

The Importance of Customer Metrics

Brigitte King, Chief Consumer Officer for L’oreal was asked if she could look forward 2 years, how did she hope data would be viewed and used in her business. Her response: That she would like to see customer metrics like retention, share of customer, ROC (return on customer) sitting next to and spoken about with the same passion as market-share, sales figures and ROI.

Better Brand Measurement

Many of the CMO’s at the event confessed to buying brand campaigns on the old method of reach but feeling let down by the lack of visibility on what percentage of that reach was viewable. They agreed that high viewability on brand campaigns was imperative because it directly impacts their media mix reporting, however professionals like Joshua Palau, Vice President of Digital and Omnichannel Marketing for Bayer Healthcare said that what they really want to know is how digital affects their brand sentiment as this provides a great reflection of how sales will uplift.

Facebook + Google

There was a huge amount of talk of the disdain that marketers feel towards these channels because of the closed data and lack of transparency, however many said that they were working with them to find a happy medium and that they felt there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

Amazon – Watch This Space

The sentiment around Amazon’s recent purchase of healthy supermarket chain Whole Foods is that it is a complete game changer and brings new life to the role that bricks and mortar stores play for brands, especially consumer packaged goods. With 55% of shopping searches initially happening on Amazon in the US market, the site is a complete powerhouse. Marketers are genuinely excited to see what this business will do next and how they can add it into their marketing mix. (Read our insights on Amazon Australia)