Advertising Woes? - aftermath

There's no sign of 2009 looking anything like a tough year for advertisers. In spite of this the panel at Chinwag Live: Advertising Woes? managed to find plenty of positives alongside the gloomier news.

At a busy event last Tuesday, over 100 people debated the year ahead for the online advertising industry with the panel of Wayne Brown (Client Services Director, glue London), Catherine Demajo (Head of Marketing, Time Out Group), Damon Reeve (CEO / Co-founder, Unanimis), David McMurtrie (Head of Product Specialists, Doubleclick), Guy Phillipson (CEO, Internet Advertising Bureau UK) and Philip Buxton (Digital Strategy Consultant) taking the helm.

A podcast of the debate will be published in a few days (via RSS or on our iTunes feed), but in the meantime there are great summaries of the debate from Stuart Aitken over on the IAB's website,

For [Wayne Brown], measurability is the key to the future survival of the medium. “We’ll come out of this recession much stronger if we can match the high standards of creativity with targeting and tracking,” he argued.

Phil Buxton, who aside from chairing managed to either make notes or engage a photographic memory has also published a detailed round-up on the iCrossing blog,

Further to that, the common theme to emerge from last night’s discussion was that, to drive efficiency, advertisers will be seeking to truly understand their customers’ paths to conversion - the user journey - more than ever before. Digital – as Wayne Brown commented – understands user journeys far better than any other ‘channel’ (because it can be the platform for an entire one). The agencies, publishers, and technologies that can help clients both develop that understanding and act accordingly will survive - and possibly even thrive.

Pictures

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Thanks to Sun Startup Essentials and UK Trade & Investment, without whom Chinwag Live wouldn't be possible.

[Pictures taken by Julia Eilon]