I spent some time at the exhibitor lounge of the Adtech Conference in Melbourne (Hilton on the Park) this week. I wasn’t lucky enough to access to the sessions (at over $1000 a seat it was on the steep side) but I thought I would venture out and see what the big guys where talking about. We all want to learn more and having access to real life case studies can be a great way to get inspired.
On my way there, I saw an advertisement by Qantas which made me think just how far we have come in the last few years when it comes to digital marketing that Qantas can add qantas.com/rewards on a billboard and customers will naturally think that it is referring to the url of their website. A few years ago this would not have been possible but we are now so used to see web addresses that we accept them as a call to action within advertising.
So I arrived at Adtech, I actually got confused as to which hotel it was on the way and decided to look the event up on my smart phone. Adtech’s mobile site is not very user friendly. It actually isn’t a mobile site at all but a miniature version of the normal PC browser site. That was disappointing from the event organiser.
I did eventually arrive and I can say that the event wasn’t as large as I would have thought. There were about 15 exhibitors in total. Three where Analytics vendors and another 2 or 3 where email service provides. Thrown into the mix was a social media community service (communityengine.com) which enables an organistion to create their own social media platform. This was used primarily within the Govt sector. There was also a CMS provider (Sitecore) and probably the most interesting of the lot a provider of content (castleford). Yes a professional journalist service which writes content for your blog and can also manage your social media content accordingly. This isn’t one of those dodgy article writing service, it was a professional service.
From the analytics providers it was all about integrating social media activity into your analytics and enable your company to get a broader picture of what was going on and around the website. WebTrends has a new version coming out and Omniture also had a social media module coming out.
Actually there was one other interesting exhibitor in research.ly a reporting tool looking at the activity around your brand within the social world and who was influencing it. This service actually has a 30 day trial that I thought was worth testing.
In terms of the presenters, I know Pepsi did a talk on some of the promotion that they ran during the Superbowl this year and found that using social media delivered for them just as much traffic and activity as did running TV advertisements. I wonder what the difference in cost was and how much of a lasting effect each campaign has had.
Social media is certainly on tip of most marketing executives tongues this year and with it comes expectations of integrated campaigns covering traditional media and social. This is exciting but also a little daunting because social media is still very new and the tools and know-how on how to do it well and effectively are only starting to be created.
Just how digital is your life. Three years ago I didn’t even own a computer and today I can confidently say that a considerable amount of what I own is in some digital form.
I actually resisted buying a PC because I knew that once I had it I would use it and that is spend my evening hours on it (as well as my day hours). And as I feared, I do spend some part of my evening on it. In doing this I have also begun collected information on my PC, some personal some work, some in between.
I have also had a smart phone that I purchased recently; gradually this tool is also becoming an integral part of my day to day life. You can see the trend here, it’s all very digital.
So I thought I would do a stock take of what I have that is digital and how important this data is to me.
One thing I don’t own is a digital camera. Still have an SLR that I purchased about 6 years ago. Great camera, worth a bit at the time and delivers great photos. However most of the photos of my kids are in digital. I must have several thousand. All sitting on the hard drive of this PC (and a few other places). So without a digital camera, I am slowly building a folio of digital pics that show how my kids have and are growing. Truth is many will never see the light of day in an album, yet I still wouldn’t part with them. Memories for when my kids do eventually grow up and lock themselves in their room and don’t want to talk to me.
It’s not just the photos, there are also the videos. Since they were born I have been filming them. Their first year is a popular video for all of the family. Then there are all of the bdays. The camcorder uses tapes but the produced videos (in particular their first year was created on this PC and still sits on it). I can’t afford to lose that (even if I have the original footage on tape).
Then there is all that personal stuff. Letters to people, material that I have downloaded for personal hobbies. It’s all digital as I don’t have a printer at home and rely on keeping it all on my PC.
I have also stored my financial records on this PC. The last 4 years worth of tax return is on this PC. I prepare it all here and pass it on to my accountant. Obviously he would have some record of this but it’s my primary record. Legally I need to keep copies of this data.
What about my emails. Two years ago I didn’t have a Gmail address, now I do. I also have my Optus email account which is hooked up into my Outlook. Several years’ worth of email, some of it critical to my work and play. The Outlook email is local the Gmail is offsite at Google.
Music. If it’s on a CD either in the car or at home it’s also on my PC. Every cd I own is also my PC. Now this is something that I would cry over if I lost because it’s probably not worth that much to me but it would be painful to try and get some of it back.
Family Tree. Some years back I completed a family tree (back a few generations). Quite a difficult task given that most of my immediate family is overseas. This is something that no one else has completed in my family. I have actually lost the original file in a USB stick that I misplaced. However a scanned copy of a print out is on this PC. This I care about, particularly now that I have a family if my own.
Next I have my phone. The last time I used my personal phone book was when I needed to call overseas to family. All other contacts live on my mobile phone. There are hundreds of contacts in there. Some people are friends, other business associates from years back. Imagine losing all of these contacts and trying to find them all again. Impossible.
So as you can see, between my PC and Smartphone, there are plenty of digital assets that I own and care about. All of this from someone who 3 years ago didn’t own a PC. Have you ever considered just how much you have and what its worth to you? The question you need to also ask is just how much do you need for you to need to back it up.
Look at it another way. If it was a car, how much would it need to be worth for you to insure it, $2000 +? If it was cheaper to replace it then you probably wouldn’t insure it, but how do you replace your digital assets. You can’t. So insure it!!
