Missed the SM2 Innovation Summit? Here are ten takeaways – in two minutes (or less):
“The idea is that there’s not one big flying car moment. There’s a lot of little things that add up over time” – Andrew Carlson, EVP/Experience Design, DigitasLBi.
Said Smarties juror Heidi Schoeneck, EVP/Executive Creative Director, Geometry Global: “[Global campaigns] were trying things. They were trying to break the boundaries of what media channels could do.” The Smarties jury gave out only five gold awards to North American entrants, as compared with 20 globally.
“As brands are trying to win in social the thing that keeps getting forgotten is the actual human on the other side,” said Ben Lerer, CEO Group Nine Media
GSK had a viral hit with an Excedrin video that used VR to simulate migraines for non-sufferers, but the strategy might not work for every brand. “Quite honestly, if there isn’t a relevancy than sticking in that technology is not going to do it,” said Dominic Iacono, Marketing Director, Respiratory and Pain Relief, GSK Consumer Healthcare North America.
Don’t go down the path of putting programs on platforms just to check the box. Said Edlynne Laryea, Global Director, Digital Partnerships at Johnson & Johnson, it’s about “getting back to the true insight that we’re trying to solve and then figuring out how to build for that.”
Speakers emphasized partnering internally and externally, even with competitors. “For me, the go-to is just to bring disciplines together,” said John Deschner, Chief Innovation Officer, Managing Director TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles.
The CMOs of eBay and RetailMeNot – Suzy Deering and Marissa Tarleton -- touted this as the next phase in search. Take a picture of something you’d like to buy, upload it to a retailer, find the item and buy!
Adveritsing is easier than ever to ignore, so push the envelope: “We are taking this very important, highly-engaging, opt-in medium and treating the user like a dummy,” explained TBWA’s Deschner.
Strategic Advantage’s Jim Harris noted that while mobile has a compounded annual growth rate of 87 percent, it is still underindexed -- when one takes into account the amount of time people spend with it – by 25 percent.
GroupNine’s Lerer advised attendees to study what’s failing – to raise the floor of success – rather than trying to score viral hits. “Virality is a dangerous thing to focus on,” he said.
If you’d like to be updated on 2018’s SM2 Innovation Summit, click here, and for the full schedule of MMA events throughout the world, check out this link.
