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Editor's Note: Continue to check back here for twice-daily updates from New Orleans as well as features on panel discussions and keynote addresses, opinion pieces and an extensive wrap-up. All coverage will be highlighted on AdBanter.com, in lagniappe and on the Online Ads Discussion List.
Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2000 -- PM Update
NEW ORLEANS - The afternoon sessions at Online Advertising 2000 demonstrated just how painful a poorly planned speech could be. While not indicting the World Research Group, several presenters were not in attendance due to the snowy conditions on the east coast which resulted in the shuffling of speakers onto topics that they were, to say it nicely, not experts on.
Craig Swerdloff, a sales manager with 24/7, is one of the people who were not exactly thrilled with the assignment handed to him on Wednesday morning. When it became apparent that David Moore, 24/7's President and CEO, would not make it to New Orleans, Mr. Swerdloff was thrust into the role of addressing the conference on the subject of target marketing.
Mr. Swerdloff focused on consumer relationship management; a concept that he says should be embraced throughout the industry. Swerdloff pointed to the continuing concerns - privacy, concerns and technology outpacing consumers - as reasons to make certain that one-to-one relationships keep on growing.
"We need to continue to reach out to consumers," Mr. Swerdloff said. "It used to be where reaching out was considered spamming, but it's not that way any longer. We have to develop and cultivate these relationships and never forget who we're serving: the consumers."
24/7 says that it has a database of 23 million email addresses in which they send out newsletters and advertisements in an opt-in format. Mr. Swerdloff said that while they send the emails to directly affect sales, they also send retention emails, to continue to develop the relationships. While measuring response to these types of emails is often times a problem, Swerdloff said that many of the retention emails get a 10 percent click-through on the services the company is providing.
While the session was not as strong as it would have been if Mr. Moore would have presented (Swerdloff did a valiant job filling-in but he read the entire presentation verbatim) it was possibly the best session of the afternoon. Many of the sessions were hurried and handled poorly as organizers tried to make up for lost time at lunchtime.
Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2000 -- AM Update
NEW ORLEANS - Online Advertising 2000 has gotten off to a shaky start here in the Big Easy, with Wednesday morning's sessions less than full and understaffed. Many of the event's organizers, from the World Research Group, are stuck on the east coast waiting to catch a flight down to New Orleans. Many of the staff, sponsors, exhibitors and attendees have still not made it in, although some of the conference's facilitators are taking Amtrak trains in order to get here.
The initial panel discussion of the event was led by Suzan Nolan of BlueSky International Marketing, and focused on convergence and global branding. Jordan Rosner of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Charles Lanphear of the H.J. Heinz Company and Bob Bejan of MSN led an interesting discussion (practically plug-free) on several topics ranging from broadband to opt-in advertising to ROI and self-measurement.
Out of the box, Ms. Nolan asked the panel how they thought broadband would transform the way we currently view the Internet. Mr. Rosner said that while he thinks broadband will take on several different forms, he fully expects to see the use of all broadband services (he mentioned the convergence of radio, television and the Internet) to be available all over your house. With wireless technology becoming more advanced and with lower prices on the horizon, Rosner said that the role of the traditional computer may be altered.
"People will not be tethered to their CPU," Rosner said. "With all sorts of wireless technology and with everything converging, I expect that people will have the ability to be in any room in their house and be able to get the information that they want."
Mr. Bejan said that within 24 months, appliance companies will be debuting refrigerators that have the broadband technology and other appliances will soon follow. He said that the technology will be so encompassing that people will become "house potatoes," never having to leave their homes for all of the current inconveniences such as buying groceries, car shopping or refilling prescriptions.
An audience member brought up the topic of ROI and how to best calculate it. All of the panelists agreed that each client is different and each circumstance is different. Mr. Rosner gave the example that he measures his ROI not by just the Internet, but through all of the advertising his company does. He said there is no way for Pfizer to specifically tell how large of a part that the Internet plays in sales of products like Viagra, but that at least 15 percent of the drug's sales are done over the Web.
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