TUNE’s Hamilton unveiled a study at the conference that shows the connection between mobile and the bottom line, writ very large. The company’s study analyzed the Fortune 1000 by both their business success and their mobile acuity, finding that mobile leaders have been growing their market value 15% faster than companies that lag and that leaders are almost two times as likely to be financially successful.
 

MMA CEO Greg Stuart took the stage to update the audience on the MMA Marketing Attribution Think Tank (MATT). MATT is focusing initial efforts on Multi-Touch Attribution – tracking each of a consumer’s interactions with a brand in the purchase cycle. He described MATT’s overall goal as “measuring those little intimate experiences and putting a value to them on cost effectiveness.”

Attribution was put to the test by John Baronello, director/marketing analytics, Allstate, who presented the results of the brand’s SMoX study with the MMA. During the study, which examined cross-marketing effectiveness, the brand compared its older measurement model with a multi-touch attribution solution, finding that MTA has helped it figure out what works. The study also demonstrated one thing that doesn’t work anymore: the clickthrough. “It’s time to kill it,” Baronello said. “The individuals that click on [ads] … we saw that it meant nothing.”
 

Use Context to Deliver Great Content.

Even as many speakers focused on metrics, media buying and the bottom line, the need for content to live up to the most sophisticated technology was never far from the discussion. Roy spoke of Hallmark needing content that was as customized as its media, while Wendy’s and Budweiser gave compelling examples of how to leverage context that enhances content’s power.

Wendy’s, a prodigious user of Twitter, has become known for its playful jabbing of competitors such as McDonald’s and its willingness to respond to users, playfully egging on Wendy’s customers such as 16-year-old Carter Wilkerson, who recently asked the company – via Twitter, of course – how many retweets it would take for him to get a year of free chicken nuggets. By interacting with him, Wendy’s helped fuel #nuggsforcarter, a viral meme that led to Wilkerson breaking the world record – previously held by Ellen DeGeneres – for most retweets. In fact, Leadership Forum attendees put Carter over the top during a session featuring Wendy’s and Twitter. As Twitter CMO Leslie Berland put it. “Twitter is live, it’s open and the world is watching, and the world is watching Wendy’s,” Berland said.

Budweiser walked the audience through the production of “Harry’s Last Call”, a short film the brand produced in anticipation of the Chicago Cubs finally winning the 2016 World Series after 108 years of waiting. The effort is the ultimate example of how a major brand, with a major budget to match, can leverage context. These days, said Monica Rustgi, senior brand director at Budweiser, the company has two work streams, one for marketing that is planned out a year in advance, and another one, which expends time and budget on cultural moments. 
 

AI and VR Are Becoming More Real All the Time.

Even as marketers are becoming increasingly adept at leveraging cultural moments, they are also looking at how the next wave of technology will build on what can be done today. SapientRazorfish’s Syed thinks the camera will be the first augmented reality platform, and that it will be one of the engines driving a general shift toward utility, as brands use AR and other tools, such as artificial intelligence, to know their customers better.

Jay Altshuler, vp/media and partnerships at Samsung, screened virtual reality content for the audience from its partnerships with VICE, Fox and The New York Times. While acknowledging how hard it is for any advertiser – even Samsung – to get noticed these days, he also championed today’s possibilities: “We always say this is the most exciting time in advertising because if you can think it, you can do it,” he said.