What I experienced at Dmexco: A first timer’s perspective
Fern Potter, Global Digital Partner
This year marked my first time at Dmexco, I felt like a giddy kid in an ad tech sweet shop, excited, and somewhat overwhelmed.
Dmexco, for me, had it all; not only were there big names but also relevant speakers, lively debates, a huge publisher presence and all the ad tech you can imagine under one roof.
There were three things that I wanted to achieve: attend the start-up hatch, represent women in ad tech, and attend as many inspiration talks as possible.
1.This year P&G launched the start-up hatch, an initiative for entrepreneurs and new technology to pitch for a grant, with the winner taking with them a wealth of experience and 20k in investment. In a time where innovation in ad tech is outpacing consolidation, these initiatives allow for us to be the best of the best. We must keep up to speed with development to gain competitive advantages for brands in such a disruptive landscape. There are huge opportunities here and congratulations to the winners: Opinary Deutschland (http://opinary.com/en/about-us/)
2. I was thrilled to be invited by AppNexus to join the panel for their Women’s Networking Event, a particularly apt topic considering the need for driving awareness of diversity in the ad tech world. Touring Dmexco with our client Diageo meant that both Stephanie Bell, Global Marketing Director — Procurement, and Isabel Massey, Global Digital Director — Media, joined me on the panel, a perfect alignment with the focus that both Carat, Diageo and AppNexus have on inclusiveness and diversity. The key take outs from the session were to drive trust and flexibility in the work place, develop both mentor and sponsorship relationships to drive your own agenda, and to speak up.
3. Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer, P&G, delivered a fantastic finale on the much anticipated sequel to his talk on viewability last year. Pritchard uses Dmexco as a platform to deliver the P&G values and this year was no exception, focusing on the trusted market place, driving brand safety, transparency and fraud free relationships.
Sheryl Sandberg, delivered a strong voice on the disruption of mobile and digital to the marketing funnel, stating that “creative still wins the day”, the way brands communicate their story must be on a 1:1 basis as disruption is creating a level playing field for both the large names and smaller outfitters. This follows the Carat mantra, from Pixels to People, data driven and audience led media decision making to deliver a brand story, based on the consumer and the need state, as opposed to using data for data sense.
This brings me on to my final shout out to IBM iX Paul Papas, who delivered a fantastic talk on the way IBM Watson is disrupting business and also empowering decision making for both brands and media, again all through the lens of audience first.
Based on the success of my first experience of Dmexco, it certainly makes me excited about next year’s will bring!
Our Global Chief Digital Officer, James Harris, was in conversation with a number of industry leaders at Dmexco, discussing this year’s trends. You can find the videos here.
