Engage 2008 – a digested attendance

IAB chief executive Guy Phillipson is wearing his favoured combination of grey suit and coloured accessories so we must be ready for IAB Engage 2008! With a great big collective intake of breath we’re off, though we’re all still slightly confused about the dancers in scrubs in the foyer…

…Guy says Barack Obama won the election by harnessing the power of the web to connect, inspire and enable the people. Who’s in control? Brands like him who understand not just that a shift has taken place, but how to use it…

… Matt Mason author of The Pirate’s Dilemma and consultant to put-out Hollywood media moguls on what to do about the internet, explains how mainstream radio worked out a way to co-exist with pirate radio stations. They used it as a source for new music, new DJs and new ideas. Put-out Hollywood media moguls should do the same…

… the thing about economics, you see, is it’s predicated on scarcity. Digital is all about abundance and that means everything has changed, including the nature of storytelling. In fact, we should no longer seek to tell stories, but curate them…

…unfortunately, Jerry Yang’s story is a very dull one. He wants to talk about how we’re all in ‘the attention game’ but doesn’t really and also forgets to tell us his ideas on how to play it. Given he thinks Yahoo is strong because it is still a great ‘starting point’ on the web (which we’ll always need), we’re not sure he has any. But we are pretty certain that $33 per share was a very good offer…

…Mark Charkin, global VP of sales for Bebo, has got the attention game all worked out. What you need to do is sponsor a promotion through Bebo that generates lots of videos of young presenters running around and shouting, preferably to a guitar-led pop soundtrack…

…Matt Locke, commissioning editor for Channel 4 education, genuinely does have the attention game worked out. He’s hired an agency (okay, it’s iCrossing) to really measure how his audiences engage with his online content. As a result he tells his people to devote only a third of their budget to any launch. The rest should be used to react and adapt to what users think, say and do – because now you can know. It is the single most useful piece of insight to emerge from the whole day (really)…

COFFEE!

…advertisers need TV and online because together they’re better, says Sarah Messer, head of research and insight at ITV. She knows this because it says so in this study that TV trade body Thinkbox and internet trade body the IAB commissioned. Oh, and, in online video, it’s pre-rolls that get remembered (or is that seen) the most…

…spirits slip as the major online media owners (AOL, Microsoft, and the Guardian) get together to tell us what they think. This includes an explanation of what behavioural targeting is. We are not impressed. At least Alex Marks from Microsoft is very funny. We like him lots…

…but, what’s this? A man from Orange who’s not wearing any shoes and is utterly let down by the venue’s inability to make videos work is actually a proper genius and really, really good presenter. We love him! Obama won because he focused on the journey, not the conversion (the vote). A search for Orange Broadband tells us everything we need to know about the digital challenge – and his in particular (O2 appears top of the paid and a site called Orange Problems appears fourth in the natural). Plus, Spot the Bull (http://www.spotthebull.co.uk/ ) Good Things Should Never End (http://unlimited.orange.co.uk/flash/go ) and Balloonacy (http://www.creativeshowcase.net/en/1/thismonth.mxs?pos=1&month=200806 ) are three of the best online campaigns you’re likely to see. Justin Billingsley, Orange UK brand director, is so good, that the IAB’s Kieron Matthews can’t resist saying he was the best of the day (though he really should have done). And he’s so good, we repeat here his final four recommendations:

1. Eavesdrop – you can now listen to what your customers are saying. Do so

2. Stop watching live TV- your customers either already have or are going to

3. Challenge your agencies – or hire Poke

4. Read The Feed – it’s his team’s blog and it has his presentation on it as well as all the stuff they like (it’s at http://thefeed.orange.co.uk/)…

LUNCH!

…Richard Eyre, media master and IAB chairman (among other things) really loves Cornwall. He shows us his holiday snaps to prove it. Fortunately, he does so in such a way as to remind us that he is one of the most gifted speech-makers in the sector and paint a picture of the digital market. Times are genuinely hard. No-one in digital knows what hard times are like. Still, the internet is an underlying current so powerful that it will continue to carry us forward. It’s just that some of us will get dashed upon the rocks by competing forces in the process. Oh well, there’s always search…

…Richard also reminds us that, aside from being a brilliant speech-maker, he gives the single best speaker intros of any conference host in history. The man fortunate enough to benefit from this today is…

…Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. Frustratingly, Burnham insists on reminding us of our responsibilities. The room is full of people who know exactly what cookies are and why we need them and here’s this public service type telling us we need, wait for it, “informed consent”! Unfortunately, he’s probably right. On a lighter note, there are some jovial references to someone called Laura from the X-Factor that those of us who refuse to have the X-Factor on in their house fail to understand…

…the Secretary of State almost certainly doesn’t know what cookies are (if he did, he’d probably have a fit) but we forgive him because we remember he has rather a lot to be getting on with. Take the Olympics, the BBC, and arts funding for starters. His favourite TV ad is “the one with the Orang-utan playing the drums”…

… need coffee. But, instead it’s…

…the Kieron and Guy show! Kieron waves to the webcam and says ‘shit’ quite a lot. But they do, with the aid of the IAB’s very good Creative Showcase, show us some great campaigns (the continued inability of the venue to get video to work not withstanding). Their lessons are fivefold:

1. Help your audiences ‘live the product’ (like Nike and AKQA do)

2. Bring people together (like O2 and AIS did)

3. Give people personalised experiences (like Nike and AKQA did)

4. Use online to affect offline (like Foster’s and Play did)

5. Explore what technology can do for you (like STA Travel has with this video that – among other things – puts the STA Travel logo in the top right-hand corner when you post it to your Facebook profile…

…really need coffee but, no, it’s…

…another panel, this time to allow Frederico Grosso of Blinkx and Spencer Hyman of Last.fm to sell their businesses to advertisers. But we like their products – especially Last.fm – and press on undeterred…

COFFEE!

… panel. Mobile. It’s getting there…

…and, last, and probably least, it’s Ian Pearson, formerly futurologist at BT, now just futurologist. People who’ve seen him before say they have seen it all before. But some of us like how he suggests no business plan should be five years long. Even three years is a stretch. The problem is things change too fast and in unexpected directions. Then there’s how he says that “if you can’t succeed on the net now, you’re stupid” and “if your idea doesn’t work on the web now, your idea is crap”. He adds that robots and the like will mean the rise of feminine [interpersonal] skills, an idea with which I actually agree. We’re less impressed with skin interfaces and ad fields around our jackets but never mind because…

… WE’RE DONE! The curtains part to reveal an on-stage party venue, complete with expectant drinks hostesses and DJ! Some head forwards to see what the hell all that’s about. Most reverse themselves out the front door to that which they know and understand. Thanks IAB Engage 2008, roll on next year. You can see full details on the event at the IAB site.