Adforum CEO Summit Day 2: Darren Woolley, Trinity P3

Day 2 of the Adforum CEO Summit opened with heavy grey skies over Manhattan for our first day of agency meetings. Up early and on to the bus, the mood and expectations were high as we headed up and across town.

The team at Ogilvy NY did not disappoint by getting us to Rethink Ogilvy and inviting us into our breakfast meeting dressed as a smoky nightclub or cabaret complete with tuxedo waiters and a jazz band. But the message was clear and reinforced here and in the following meetings at Droga5 and Grey Global Group.

The industry has come to grips with integrating and having digital as the foundation and platform for brand communication, so now the focus is on creativity and the ideas that drive change and results. But that this is no longer about global head offices developing campaigns that are pumped out into the various markets.

The new paradigm is a focus on delivering customised messages to consumers based on their geographic and cultural needs.

This was demonstrated with live links to their four main growth markets in India, Brazil, Russia and China, which in five years have quadrupled their contribution to the agency’s total revenue.

Each region provided an update of their region and the work. But it was TB Song and Mickey Chak from Ogilvy Beijing who impressed with examples of virtual reality and geo-mobile campaigns for Tsingtao and The North Face respectively.

The fact that China had 380 million internet users, which they claimed will rise to 700 million in the next 5 years, and already had 730 million mobile phone users, were the huge numbers that impressed the consultants from the US and Europe, reinforcing China’s importance in the global market.

To follow the progress during the week look for this blog or check out on Twitter #adforumceosummit for minute-by-minute updates.