AC Lion at Gabbcon NYC: Disruptive Minds Join Forces

We joined the biggest names in ad tech, programmatic, sales and marketing at GABBCON NYC to discuss the ever-changing nature of the industry. AC Lion was proud to be one of many sponsors of GABBCON this year, encouraging the conversation of innovation in marketing and advertising along with other industry leaders. Our team took the time to volunteer the event, network with colleagues and attend guest speaking events. Here are a few things we took back from the event.

• Brand Safety in the Digital Advertising Realm.

Gabe Greenberg, CEO and CoFounder of GABBCON took the stage with GroupM’s Executive VP of Branded Safety John Montgomery to talk about a controversial subject among marketers / ad-tech, viewability and fraud in the digital advertising realm. The two went back and forth on how agencies must take into account the realities of ads appearing in controversial content and the measures that can be taken to protect brands from appearing on this content. “For example, major airline clients are targeting content based on keywords. Their advertisements will not appear on any content with the words “fire” or “disaster” John explains. John furthered the conversation with Gabe by bringing up the issues he has facing clients on the matter of viewability and fraud. John explains “There is no easy way telling a client that only 70% of their ads will be viewable. They will say ‘Well what happens to the other 30%?’” As Digital Audience Buying seeks to attract more budget for branded advertising, the issues with trust in the digital supply chain becomes a subject of extreme relevancy among media planners, programmatic and publishers.

• We are in the “Post-Cookie” World

“We are beyond the days of the desktop,” says Bank of America’s Senior VP, Enterprise Media Planning, Investment and Measurement Executive Lou Paskalis. Lou, along with Sonobi President Anthony Katsur, Hearts and Science Head of Programmatic Will Heins and Assembly Chief Digital Officer Jeff Liang lead the panel “The Cookie is Crumbling,” an examination on marketing beyond the tracking cookie and digital targeted marketing. Each of the panelists has their own interpretation of what it means to market in a space such as mobile, artificial intelligence and streaming devices. “It’s about creating a customized experience for our audiences,” Lou brings up, “We have a six word mission statement that we all follow at Bank of America: Design for Audiences, Deliver to Individuals. I brought it up to marketing and they said ‘That’s pretty good.” I brought it up to programmatic and they said ‘That’s pretty good.’” The group discussed other methods of targeting audiences beyond the desktop such as capitalizing on high-fidelity data held by major players such as Facebook and Google, device ID targeting and device graphing. The panel came full circle at the end to the concept of mottos and reorganizing marketing efforts around the individual experience. “Make it your February resolution, write an instant vision of where you want your company to be in 2+ years.” Will Heins exclaims, wrapping up the panel.

• Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality Really are the Next Big Step for Marketing

One of the most ambitious panels of GABBCON, Gabe Greenberg, The Weather Channel’s Global VP of Agency Partnerships Rhonda Bitterman, OMD’s Chief Digital Officer Doug Rozen, NEXREF Technologies’ CEO Gary Haymann and Communications Designer at Microsoft’s Geoffrey Colon discussed the newest emerging technologies in marketing. One of the main talking points of the panel included how Bot technologies such as Alexa, Google Home and Siri are dramatically changing how advertisements are views and how users engage with these ads. Rhonda explained an example of how interactive marketing was developed with one of her clients, a major pharmaceutical brand, implemented via Alexa. “We developed an ad which users can engage with. If a mother asks (Alexa) what the dosage is for her son, the ad (built on a knowledge domain that allows for learned behavior) can respond with the proper dosages.” Interactive marketing and advertising, in this capacity, becomes a container for knowledge which can continuously engage with the user. Rhonda further explains “It effectively allows us to fully navigate the buyer’s journey.”

Did you make it to GABBCON? Tell us your favorite talk in the comments below!