the webthinking blog

I had the pleasure to attend, for the 2nd year in a row, CMA’s Digital Marketing Conference, on October 29 and 30, in Toronto. I have translated some of my notes into couple of sound bytes:

Rob Master / Unilever
To be successful in today’s digital marketing landscape you need to figure out “how to penetrate the culture?”

Steve Levy / Ipsos Reid
Consumers outspend advertisers to avoid the advertising noise.

Top digital marketing trends: email, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, interactive consumer websites, blogging and podcasting, social network marketing, mobile marketing. Last one is still very complicated though. No kidding.

I was talking to Rick Bruner of Google over lunch – I wish the new Google AdPlanner had Canadian data as well. “Release early and reitrate often” is Google’s philosophy. Hopefully soon enough we’ll see those numbers: your web site stats and your competitors’.

First panel discussion
Barak Obama is the Digital Marketer of the year.

Charlie Gray, Head of Staffing and HR at Google and Bruce Powell of IQ Partners shared very interesting tips on how to find, hire and retain the best talent.

Tara O’Doherty / w.illi.am
Avoid web site information overload and band-aid design.
A blog is a tactic, not a strategy.
Only 50 per cent of your visitors agree with your web site design. Huh!
“F-pattern” web page scan determined by eye tracking still rules. There are still techniques you canuse if you really like to have a right navigation.

Stacey Grant-Thompson / Rogers
22 million mobile users in Canada. Of course, we’re still far behind the rest of the world, partially thanks to the big three carriers. Location Based Services (LBS) and the Electronic Wallet are the next trends in mobile usage.

David Pogue
“I interviewed Mark Zuckerberg. It turns out that the number one name in social networking is sociallly challenged.”

Interested in seeing tweets?