On the second-to-last night of the conference, AdForum organized its annual dinner at a restaurant called Public. This is the night when the heads of agencies can loosen their ties alongside search consultants, then everyone gets all fluid and friendly.
Here are a few shots to prep the palate (the rest are here). A couple were taken at other points in the week, when people found time to giggle, gossip or — in some cases — dance.
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Friday the 9th, the last day of AdForum’s summit, was a treat. The morning kicked off with a buffet-style breakfast at the Thompson and a talk from Global CEO,Havas Worldwide and Euro RSCG Worldwide David Jones.
Instead of rendering search consultants comatose about why Havas is a special network that gets the social media/digital thing, he talked mostly about a project of particular importance to himself and his agency: Tck Tck Tck, a mostly-crowdsourced effort to raise awareness about climate change.
Not to say he didn’t discuss Havas-related issues at all; he said the holding company is working on turning Arnold into a global micro-network. It is also in relatively little debt compared to its competitors: a mere $40 million, give or take.
As for the topic most salient: Tck Tck Tck began as a way to encourage governments to throw their weight behind the Copenhagen Summit in December and sign a deal that moves business forward while protecting the environment. Over two million people worldwide have registered, and the British government recently voiced support. A number of musicians key figures (including Kofi Annan) and artists have also donated talent to the message. Check out their music video, Beds are Burning.
On the fourth day of the AdForum Worldwide Summit, we were treated to Social Media & Mobility: Brand Servants or Brand Masters?, a set of presentations and debate among people that carved niches into the nebulous frontier of digital communications. This list of thought leaders included Jerry Johnson of Brodeur, Nicco Mele of EchoDitto, Emily Nagle Green of Yankee Group and Joe Trippi of Joe Trippi & Associates. You may recall the latter as a shaping force of the Howard Dean campaign that, with help from social media, began well enough — and ended like this.
Johnson kicked off by telling us that in the future, our grandchildren will look back on two historical anomalies of our time: retirement and broadcasting. Then he dispelled a series of myths about social media. They follow thus.
Our first stop yesterday was Draftfcb, where familiar faces with crisp suits greeted us with breakfast bits. President/CEO Laurence Boschetto kicked off by telling us what he’d cover:
So we began at the beginning. Where’s Draftfcb been for the last few years? Hunkering down post-merger, mainly, and trying to ensure integration didn’t result in too many inefficiencies. As a result — you’ll notice Draftfcb always comes back to the bottom line — 2009 was a record year for them, despite the economic downturn.
As for how they work, the model is simple enough. Their proprietary ad measurement tool divulges that a company only has 6.5 seconds to win the heart and mind of a user. So Draftfcb came up with 6.5 Seconds that Matter, a formula for producing solid work.
The model is based on the premise that your crucial 6.5-second idea lives at the intersection of two things: a little-known fact that changes how you think about a brand (internally known as the “holy shit” number), and an insight.
Wednesday morning the consultants got a taste of the healthcare ad world, thanks to the kind indulgence of DAS Healthcare.
DAS stands for Diversified Agency Services. It manages Omnicom’s holdings in a number of disciplines, meaning attendees got to sample a number of agency/PR offerings at once.
I spent most of the morning at procurement meetings, which ran concurrently. (I’ll blog about those later.) But I’d hate for you to miss out on the DAS stuff, so I scoured the bus on a quest for somebody who’d distill the session and provide a thoughtful view.
We visited three agencies yesterday and sampled an additional three in a speed-dating segment, so I’m just going to highlight the key points of each presentation.
The new office at 636 Eleventh Ave. is under construction, much like the culture of the company, now led by Miles Young.
Will be doing the requisite write-ups tonight to supplement all that twittering, but in the meantime here are some teaser shots from Ogilvy and BBDO.
Around 2:30, the Adforum Magical Mystery Tour hit the Paley Center for Media, mainly to hear presentations from PR folks wiggling their toes in the digital and social media spaces.
We got to the auditorium and were stopped at the threshold by AdForum Dream Leader, Hervé de Clerck. He motioned to a pile of books on a small table dividing two sets of chairs, facing each other.
“Pick a book,” he said. Based on which book we picked, we had to sit on either one side of the table or the other.
2009 marks the 8th year of the Adforum Worldwide Summit. In attendance: 20 countries represented by 28 search consultants, two fewer than last year but still a lively bunch. You’re left with the impression these people, from so many faraway lands, have come to know each other fairly well, and the vibe is a lot like summer camp.
This morning MRM Worldwide was kind enough to chauffeur a bunch of groggy but stalwart search consultants into its offices, then nourish us with just-warmed bagels and well-constructed digital strategies.
More on that as the day winds down. Meantime, above is a shot of Mike Cornwell, recently-inaugurated CEO of MRM Worldwide UK, describing his trajectory to MRM (and the AdForum summit) with an image-rich description of his passions and personal icons.
John Bentz brings 20 years of experience with leading consumer brands to Waggener Edstrom Worldwide’s consumer marketing practice. His expertise includes consumer insight mining, strategy development, campaign creative development, consumer issues management, global product launches, cause marketing and social marketing.
