On Tuesday, we attended the annual Ad Club EDGE Conference at Royale. Per usual, it was an awesome showcase of some great thinking, inspirational speakers, and a taste of things to come for the next 12 months in marketing innovation, and technology. And it was by far the classiest collection of folks that have ever stepped foot inside the old Roxy at the same time.
The day started off with a quick application demonstration from DJ Patil (@dpatil) and Andre Charoo (@acharoo) of @color. Color was the official app of EDGE, and though it’s still not out for Android (I felt slightly left out), it was very cool to see all of the photos come together from the event as the day progressed. If you don’t know Color yet, check it (and the $41million they raised a few months back) out here: http://www.color.com/press.
After the Color demonstration, the day was split into 3 sessions, STORY TELLING, TOOLS, and GAMES. Since it was a long day, and people love sound bites, I’ll be brief with the recap and give you just that.
STORY TELLING
Every brand has a story, and being able to clearly articulate your brand story is paramount when trying to get consumers interested in it. One of the best stories of the day was from Johnny Earle from Johnny Cupcakes. He went from hustling candy bars in school to hustling t-shirts at worldwide locations simply by living by the mantra: reinvent yourself constantly, take risks, don’t sell out. Boom, sound bite. Up next, Deb Roy from Bluefin Labs scared the pants off of privacy advocates everywhere when he showcased their latest project which maps and links conversations going on throughout the social space to various media channels. I couldn’t do their technology justice, but you have to check it out here: http://bluefinlabs.com/. When discussing Timberland’s brand story, Jim Davey opined: ‘Brands are becoming more and more like media companies and the best stories win.’? Just think about the opportunity that YouTube alone offers brands who want to disseminate content. Social media and the internet as a whole offers brands the opportunity to take marketing content from a traditional ad and build upon it through multiple media sources quickly and cheaply. Though it wasn’t necessarily a marketing story, Sean Carasso, from Falling Whistles told us all a remarkably inspirational story of resilience and hope. Check their story out here: http://www.fallingwhistles.com/main/.
TOOLS
The Tools session focused on both tool developers and brands who are using existing technology to create improved brand interactions. Companies like Smarterer (way cool, check it out: http://smarterer.com/), and Locately (http://www.locately.com/) are developing solutions while brands like Harley Davidson, The Boston Globe, and Boston’s own Taranta Restaurant are using current technology in new ways to improve their consumer’s brand experience. To see what they’re doing, check these out:
- Harley Davidson: http://www.harley-davidson.com/en_US/Content/Pages/HOG/HOG.html
- Taranta Restaurant: http://www.marketinglagniappe.com/blog/2011/05/15/qr-codes-utilized-by-taranta-as-a-marketing-lagniappe/
- The Boston Globe: sorry no visuals for those not in attendance, but those who were did receive a sneak preview of the new BostonGlobe.com (this could be big)
GAMES
It wasn’t all fun and games during the games section of the conference. It was also educational and thought provoking. Amy Jo Kim (@amyjokim) from Shufflebrain led off the session with some sound advice, ‘don’t automatically think of badges and points, think of user experience.’? And when exploring game development, she encouraged the audience to map out the desires of consumers based on the social engagement axis ‘ is the desired behavior tied to expression, exploration, competition or collaboration? Map that out, and then start game design.
Additionally, brands like Zipcar and Perkstreet Financial shared how they’ve applied gaming mechanics to their business to drive consumer engagement and sales. At Zipcar, gaming is a core part of their experiential marketing efforts, while Perkstreet is redefining how the financial industry offers rewards (and that’s saying a lot since the financial industry wrote the book on loyalty programs and rewards points).
We’re excited to apply all of the learnings from this year’s EDGE conference and are already looking ahead to next year. What do you think will be on the Edge in 2012?