AdTech Day 2 Impressions

Creative Snark: AdTech Day 2

We’re thrilled to have Patrick Spargur provide his impressions from AdTech San Francisco.

I tend to find people brilliant who confirm my existing prejudices. My insights here are probably a bit tainted with that, on the other hand I am not alone.
- Pspargur

Occupy Advertising
Really? No, but…Classism in the Social Graph? Joe Turow, PHD imagined for us a dystopic near future in which reality-composed mainly of paid media interactions and personalized tracking-creates a hierarchy of more and less desireable realities all based not just on your demographics but your real world behaviors.

Does your media saturated behaviourly targeted messaging womb feel noticeably better appointed than the working class schmo down the street? Mine either.

Paul Adams, Global Brand Experience Manager – Facebook
Facebook really maybe doesn’t necessarily think you should build apps after all but you can still if you want.  Well, not exactly, that’s just sort of what Paul Adams inferred in his thinking beyond influencers Keynote presentation. While apps within Facebook can be valuable destinations in the short term the real value in Facebook lies in the “many lightweight interactions over time” that build trust and love. Seriously though, no apps, just the Social Graph. On Facebook though, you are a publisher not a destination.

I shit you not.
Both Shawn McMichael of Microsoft’s X-Box Kinect (via the Kinect) and Heidi Browning of Pandora (in cars) mentioned a future where you will be able to curate both your content and your advertising via voice. A future may well be “talking to ads” literally. Via actual hardware you’ll be soon be able to say out loud to interactive ads “show me more” and, assumedly, “shut up”

Pinterest is not here.
Physically. But they pop up in lots of small ways in virtually every speaker’s presentation. Oscar de la Renta’s marketing rep said it most pointedly though…”They’re something we use to be sure, but Pinterest, Twitter & Tumblr aren’t something you pay for.” There was a time when people said the same about Facebook. Pinterest will hopefully mature as gracefully and stick it out for the long haul.

Facebook’s Reach Generator
Wins second prize to Pinterest as the most often mentioned property that didn’t appear to be directly represented at the Conference. Paying to ensure your posts are seen even on a highly restricted basis may foreshadow some of what Facebook has in mind to further monetize their advertising offerings and be seen as more valuable to both advertisers and investors.

Sponsored Stories are the new AdWords
In the “start up spotlight” on the exhibit floor there were many vendors who’s sole product seems to be optimizing the advertisers’ experience on Facebook and maximizing effectiveness.

Grapheffect as an example “Powered by a suite of SmartBoost technologies, enabling brands to identify and amplify ads, audiences and stories that perform the best” seemed to mainly be built around knowing more than you do about Sponsored Stories. Assuming they do, and I hope somebody can make sense of them, this industry will likely grow along the lines that SEM/SEO companies did as Google rolled out its more complex tool sets.

Music is still cool
The “feel good” presentation of the conference came at the very end. Pandora, Spotify, Turntable.fm & Tastemakers.x were all able to have a series of chummy interactions throughout their hour. Most impressive was their ability to differentiate themselves from themselves without stepping on each other’s toes and clearly state their value proposition. Pandora is Free & Ubiquitous next generation radio, Spotify a platform for music discovery and sharing, Turntable.fm bristled at being labeled “very dot com” but recovered nicely in discussing the “evenness” of live dj rooms and the value of them to people younger and hipper than the audience. Tastemaker.x is the gameification of the music industry.

As this presentation directly followed the Gaming Keynote Seth Goldstein closed by noting that more people are more passionate about Lady GaGa or Elton John than any sports team in the world.

Adtech is no SXSW, though SXSW is not Coachella. Coachella may not be Bonnaroo, but I wouldn’t know cuz I still have an Olivia Newton John station on my Pandora.

Coins, Experience, Energy
Stefan Pepe of ZYNGA (as well as Dave Madden of EA Sports & Michael McMasters of the cooler side of Microsoft) talked at length about extending the C-E-E model into adverting and having ad participation be one way to earn Coins, Experience, and Energy within their games. A few years ago this might have brought to mind 4Loko addled Korean kids wasting away in gaming malls but when extended to popular games such as Draw Something & Words With Friends starts to feel not quite so niche.