IDG World Expo has released details of the "Syndicated Company and Product Environments" conference track at Syndicate, scheduled to take place December 12-14, 2005 at the Hilton San Francisco. This track will discuss how companies of all sizes, from corporate titans like GM to neighborhood book stores, are syndicating all kinds of content in pursuit of real business goals.
The Syndicate conference shows how syndication and social media tools such as RSS, blogs and podcasts are helping to change the way businesses do business. The "Syndicated Company and Product Environments" track is one of four tracks, and it is geared to help companies learn how to better interact with and directly inform their customers.
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The Web Marketing Association has announced it's accepting entries for the 2006 Internet Advertising Competition Awards, the ad industry's award competition dedicated to online advertising. Awards will be presented within each of the industry categories and advertising formats such as online ad banners, interstitials, rich media ads, email, online newsletter campaigns, microsite/landing page, integrated ad campaigns and even ads the client didn't choose.
Unfortunately, oddly and sadly, pop-ups are also included in the competition. No industry entity should acknowledge this bastion of marketing idiocy which amounts to nothing more than utter disregard for human preference and which represents the lowest form of scum this industry has yet to rid itself of.
iMediaConnection's Kevin Ryan is in Shanghai this week at ad:tech and reports there's tremendous interactive marketing growth occurring in China and things could dramatically heat up in a year or two. While the conference was much smaller than the recent New York ad:tech, Ryan reports search engine marketing is alive and well as is online commerce in the form of online shopping. U.S.-based shopping site Smarter.com has entered the market and, according to Ryan, will "focus on fashion, baby and maternity, pet supplies and sporting goods among other key categories in Japan, while Chinese will focus on 3C channels (computers, consumer electronics and communications.)"
Trade show producer has announced the line-up of sponsors and exhibitors for Syndicate, a B2B conference focused on emerging trends and technologies in content syndication, scheduled to take place December 12-14, 2005 at the Hilton San Francisco. Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google and many others will show how syndication and social media tools such as RSS, blogs and podcasts are transforming the way businesses do business.
Cornerstone sponsor Yahoo! is joined by Platinum sponsor Microsoft. Silver sponsors include: Attensa; Feedster; KnowNow; NewsGator; Pheedo; Pluck; PubSub Concepts; and SimpleFeed. Bronze sponsors include: Acquire Media; Cymfony; FreeRange Communications; inclue!; LookSmart; Marqui; PRWeb; Spearhead Innovations; and WhatCounts. Associate sponsors include: Google; Gritwire; Moreover Technologies; Technorati; and Top 10 Sources. Association sponsors include: American Business Media; Online Publishers Association; SF Advertising; and Word of Mouth Marketing Association.
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The Art Directors Club, to announce its 85th Call For Entries, has produced a promotional poster with the headline, "Pimp My Brand," and an image of a guy in a pimped out Ronald McDonald in, perhaps, a nod to Miss McDonald or to the manipulation brands receive from consumers.
Acknowledging the growing involvement of consumers with brands, ADC Executive Director Laurie Kratochvil said, "Our 'Pimp My Brand' call for entries acknowledges the trend of makeovers and the resurgence in innovative packaging, design and marketing. It also recognizes the powerful role that advertising and design play in today's media-centric life."
Of course, time will tell how willing marketers will be when it comes to brand pimping.
On Wednesday at 12 Noon, the largest ad:tech ever, with over 8,300 attendees, closed. There were over 200 exhibitors and more parties than any one individual could ever hope to attend. The mood at the show, as it has been for the past couple years was upbeat and optimistic. As an independent voice, I can say dmg world media, the event producer, has done a great job promoting and organizing the show.
While yesterday, Tuesday, at 5PM exhibitors quickly dismantled their booths, Wednesday morning was still teeming with activity at the many sessions held between nine and the show's wrap time, noon.
The next major U.S ad:tech conference is in San Francisco, April 26-28 at the Moscone Center, newly chosen over area hotels as the show has grown so large. In March and April of 2006, ad:tech will launch its "impact" series, a collection a one day shows in ten cities across the U.S. We hope to see you, next, in San Francisco or at one of the "impact" series shows in a city near you. Until then, rock on and have fun.
Tuesday night's social activities at ad:tech New york began with a trip to the Hilton Hotel Lobby Bar in search of What'sNextOnline's B.L. Ochman but, instead, we ran into Gawker Media's Nick Denton and Christopher Batty with whom we discussed the over-hyping of blogs and agreed they're pretty much just a system that allows people to publish a website really easily. OK, there's some other good communal consumer stuff about them too. We never found B.L. but we did check out the Bridges Bar which was packed as the exhibit hall had just closed and there weren't many early parties except for the Industry Brainpower Awards and Soire, which we missed, and the WhenU Official ad:tech Wrap Up Party over at WhenU's Penn Plaza offices.
 WhenU put out a great spread with the best snacks of any party this week including delicious, gigantic shrimp. We ran into Tacoda CEO Dave Morgan for a brief chat and both marveled that Mr. "I'm a Web Copywriter" was there handing out business cards as he had to every booth on the exhibit hall over the course of two days.
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The panel entitled "Measuring Your Brand Buzz in Consumer Generated Media" moderated by Organic CEO Mark Kingdon along with panelists Jonathon Carson, president and CEO of Buzzmetrics, Pete Blackshaw, CMO of Intelliseek, Dave Balter, President of BuzzAgent and Andrew Bernstein, CEO of Cymfony, focused on how consumer generated media has become an important source of brand information for marketers and how it can me measured to benefit marketing direction.
A key recommendation from all panelists was to relinquish control. Consumer generated media can not be controlled. However, it can be listened to and joined in a way that provides marketers rich detail about brand perception and a channel through which to directly communicate with consumers. Blackshaw referred to some the the negative consumer commentary as "nastygrams" and Kingdon noted that this sort of consumer backlash has been around forever but, today, it's all happening much faster and has become harder to manage in advance.
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Aside from the company whose slogan is, Wanna Be On Top," the "booth attractions" at this year's New York ad:tech show were few and far between. At CPA Empire's booth, a lovely lady dressed in a red ballerina dress with wings was handing out pins with numbers on them which attendees could match with other pins with the same number to win plasma TV's. Not a bad promotion and well worth the excuse to visit the booth to observe and participate.
There were no less than seven parties, that we knew of, Monday night, the first night following the first day of ad:tech New York 2005 and we made it to six so we'll do our best to sum up the evening's activities for you if, for some unknown reason, you weren't there to experience it all for yourself.
As is tradition, Tribal Fusion hosted its Grand Opening Reception in the Exhibit Hall following a very busy, very crowded day on the exhibit hall floor. There was Tribal Fusion-branded beer, various wines and finger food to enjoy along with the company of the eMarketer crew, Waisum Tam and David Murrow. While we're sure the AC was doing its best to fight the body heat of 8,300 attendees, it wasn't quite cutting it and we opted to head out of the Exhibit Hall and down to the Hilton Hotel's Bridges bar for the Partner Weekly cocktail party.
 This year, Partner Weekly made the event invite only and sealed off the usually very open Bridges bar and dressed up the entrance with red velvet curtains and a red carpet to, we assume, make us all feel important. The inside was transformed into a casual nightclub atmosphere with low lighting and candles. Since the food at this party was emanating from th same kitchen as Tribal Fusion's we were less than thrilled at placing yet another ball of fried something into our mouth so we just ditched the food and headed to the bar. At this point the extended eMarketer crew was with us (pictured) along with Tia Fix from PrimaryAds and a discussion ensued about how busy this year's show is and whether the industry is still trying to legitimize itself or if that has been achieved.
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