As said before it was my 3rd year of attending Webit and, as such, I feel very comfortable there all the time ( of course, after finishing the registration challenge and me not being on the lists – but I get the personal touch of a hand-written badge) meeting a lot of cool people, international friends, business contacts, colleagues from the local IAB’s, potential partners etc.
Without any doubt “unparalleled networking opportunities” is a very suitable phrase. Webit has become, in just 3 years, the meeting point and networking hubb of CEE: regional teams meeting there, business contacts refreshened, business deals prepared, regional collaborations or, just like that – getting western digital market in contact with the bursting energy of the CEE Region. In terms on figures and dates regarding attendants and country represented I’ll leave that to Plamen. I can only say that there were enough people to make it challenging, surprising and definitely not a waste of time. And there were some people with whom I didn’t get the chance to speak 
Then again – it might just be my impression, subjective and under the influence of the personal habit of always getting the best out of Webit.
In terms of content and presentations – only few of the ones I managed to attend when I wasn’t outside talking, really impressed me – but enough to leave with at least 3 new ideas and concepts from each session. But again, I’m being subjective!
Some of the presentations I saw already in Interact Barcelona – which made me a little puzzled since I was expecting a different market level and different audience. Seems that marketeres and digital specialists in Europe pretty much need the same know-how and encouragement in terms of online use no matter if west or east. The idea of making the Digital environment desired for the brand communication is international. That is why I was curious about the ideas and main focus of the presentations from IAB Engage in London – since UK (and Denmark) are the only countries where online overtook TV. But that I will present in a future blog post.
Alain Heureux – President of IAB Europe performed the Opening Speech stressing out more or less the idea mentioned above. More than that, he pointed out the power of the joined forces of European Countries in developing together the digital environment & the importance of sharing knowledge and experiences – learning from eachother.
An idea I liked was that the “Active digital user is everywhere and there are no boundaried on the Internet”. So no matter the value or size of a regional market, the presence of the user in the online world (with access worldwide) is a fact that cannot be ignored. More than that “Consumers want to be in the boardroom – co-productions with the brands” – a statement that is no longer new, but seems to be hardly controlled by most of the marketers – at least in the region.
Second on stage was Plamen Russev – the most energetic, passionate and ambitious event organizer I know – and one of the main ideas I noticed in his speech was the endorsment of regional collaboration towards a common goal: growing the digital business environment and the online advertising market. An idea that I really appreciate and that we try to apply within the IAB CEE Network with the collegues from regional IAB’s.
First key-note presentation was Marc Bressel’s from Microsoft Advertising – highlighting that every brand has a story to tell – nothing new so far! I keep hearing this idea all over romanian events, foreign events, reading it on blogs and digital advertising magazines….and I’m wondering: why tell the same story over and over again? And then I realize that the audience is not the same and that marketers are sometimes just like babies: you need to tell them the same thing more and more so that it became a thought in their subconstient and then thay can act accordingly.
Marc delivered the presentation that blew my mind when seen it at Interact: the massive cross media campaign of Jay-Z’s book launching! Same question: buget? Same answer: doesn’t matter the budget but the results…bla bla. My conclusion: although a US oriented & US style idea, it is a good example of cross -media usage and integration and could be a good source of inspiration. The campaign is fantastic!
Some more ideas from Marc’s presentation:
- the New Digital means: Challenging our beliefs about what cross media means
- a very good example about use of the new technologies and the implications those have at advertising placement level: for example: how kinect for Xbox can affect advertising placement?
Telling a good story involves:
1. Relevance
2. Connecting to the audience
3. Being Creative
Delivering creativity through:
- Rising Stars banner formats: – the reason why they proposed the Filmstrip format
- Building the Ad Experience
Delivering connections
- global scale – multiple screens
- remeber taht users have an emotional connection with the devices – TV, laptop, mobile, tablets so, the way that they interact with the screens will determine the way they will interact with the content delivered through those devices.
For example:
TV – entertain
PC – similarity/information
Phone – Intimate ( close to the heart)
Tablets – magic
Apart from that, here are some other main ideas I left with from further Webit’s presentations:
- Multi media campaigns work – see for example McDonalds campaign.
Some other interesting ideas – Rick Kelley – Head of Mid Market Sales in EMEA (Facebook)
- Before starting a Facebook campaign ask yourself “What would make you like a Toothpaste FAcebook Page?” -> that resides in building essential connections with your fans
- 800 Mil ppl are using Facecbook on daily basis so that is where conversation is happening.
- Some other figures: 350 mil Facebook mobile users
- In Bulgaria there are 2,2 mil users
- In Hungary – 3,5 mil users
My adnotation: According to Facebrands.ro – Romania has over 3 mil Facebook users.
Next day, after a slightly difficult wake-up due to Webit’s party and clubbing in Sofia, got some pretty nice ideas and perceptions about mobile use from Guillaume Bacuvier (Director of Google’s mobile sales and operations for SEMEA)
The obvious I’d say ( at least for the active category of population): the internet will be primarily mobile – more than 15% of the trafic will come from a phone or tablet
- Mobile is expanding the online time
- Why is the phone better than the computer – it is more like a “person”: eyes ( camera) , skin ( touch screen), ears (microphone), voice ( speaker) – more personal, more like a human being
- more media consumption on mobile in a week than on print (reading newspapers & magazines)
- mobile has a multiplier effect – for example in global campaigns
- creative opportunities on mobile – live broadcasting on mobile
- magazines -> on tablets ( glossy)
- Use of mobile for proximity related campaigns – drive sales & traffic o local basis ( search for restaurants, pubs, shopping malls and other POIs )
- Shopping companion – 70% of smartphone users use the phone when shopping in-store ( which makes it, obviously, a very interesting channel for brands, stores and shopping malls – scan the bar code, insert QR Codes on package, shelf, in-store actions etc)
- Smartphones will become as wallets (different ad formats -> coupons – that can be taken directly to the store: codes; bar codes, QR)
- payment mechanism -> google wallet (interconnecting marketing data with actual shopping – interesting results, findings & measurement of marketinf actions)
www.ourmobileplanet.com – offers quite nice info about accessing the Internet over a smartphone in various countries and make comparisons ( of course, Romania is missing – damn it! ), info about penetration, shopping, behaviour etc. An interesting tool whatsoever. And looking forward to see our country there as well!
One of the speakers I really like in terms of case studies and really awesome things to talk about is Russ Lidstone – CEO of Euro RSCG London ( for the ones for whom the name doesn’t ring a bell – they are the creators of Evian Roller Skating Babies – among other very cool campaigns). And, although some bits of the presentation I’ve seen before in Barcelona, I simply love seeing the “Let’s color” case study for Dulux (on 4 markets, use of engagement and community, use of microsite, blog, regeneration events, pr, print and digital, film – content was powerful)
Some ideas from Russ’ presentation:
- the 5th mover advantage -> learn from other, observe and then you’ll have a stronger position afterwards
- Managing social momentum – The Twitter case study on BP oil spil – sharing positive feelings by handling negative sentiments -> brings the need for brand humility.
Entertainment + useful = worth
And the last presentation I attended vas Mat Morrison’s (Head of Social Media of Starcom Mediavest London) - Value of a fan – was one of the most pertinent and pragmatic presentations regarding the “fan” madness on Facebook.
All the presentations are downloadable from Webit’s site provided one has a user and pass for the website.
Those were basically the presentations I managed to attend and found the most interesting Some voices said that Yandex speech was also very interesting – so I’m sorry to have missed that. Perhaps I can find the presentation. Anyway, their more and more active presence and involvement in events around Europe, makes them an interesting to observe company
Although I had quite a good time at Webit and found it quite useful ( and for the Romanian team was quite like a field trip ), I was really annoyed that this year as well the Internet wasn’t working properly ( not at all during the first day) and scarcely during the second. It is mandatory for a Digital event in our days to have decent Internet connection – even more than providing food – in my opinion! So, although I understand the fact that is very hard to provide Internet for over 5000 people (as the organizers stated) I think solutions can be found, especially since it is not the first edition and all the past editions had the same issue. Although last year they did pretty good! So, change the provider, find more providers, provide cable connections for bloggers, set up more hotspots set up passwords – I do not know, but i know there must be solutions. Even more when you know there will be a lot of participants from different countries connecting from at least 2 devices ( phone & laptop/tablet) and without access to mobile Internet ( except at very high roaming data taxes).
Seems that, we already know what we’ll be doing next year at the end of October – 24th and 25th.
