dmexco: consolidation, digital, buzzword bingo

DMEXCO, Europe’s largest Digital Media conference, took place last week. The annual event sees advertisers, publishers and agencies from around the world descend on Köln, West Germany, to network, learn about the latest digital innovations, and drink plenty of Kölsch – the local Pilsener.

Matthew Chappell, Partner at Gain Theory, gives us the lowdown on the five key themes from the event.

Consolidation, not innovation:
Overall, there didn’t appear to be much in the way of innovation. Obviously big players like Facebook and Google aren’t going to release details of their next big move, but overall there was a discernible lack of new, exciting stuff.

The digital world is one in which there are many challenges and even more solutions. The exhibition was huge and it felt as though there were a lot of new players trying to play their hand in ‘digital’, ride the wave, and make a quick buck along the way. All of them seemed to offer one point solutions. This just adds to the challenges marketers face in digital and there was a feeling that the industry should be aiming for more consolidation, with fewer players offering a better rounded product.

Consolidation in the form of a better rounded solution, should make marketers’, lives easier  after all our clients at Gain Theory tell us all the time that one of their pain points is having one business question but a multitude of answers and ways of getting to that answer. Connect with the customer? Try programmatic, one touch, beacon technology, attribution etc. The level of complexity doesn’t just come from the advertising world’s inherent need for shiny buzzwords. In most cases, it stems from the challenges posed by a disrupted consumer pathway, the data collected along the way and marketer’s needs to be at one with the elusive customer.

Despite the plethora of multiple solutions being offered to marketers,  it does feel as though agencies and publishers are trying hard to make it easier for advertisers, to cut complexity and to come up with digital standardisation.

Digital is everything
Across the conference, many were calling for the industry to stop treating digital as a separate entity. Paul Bulcke, CEO Nestle, asked, “What's the point of a chief digital officer? Digital is everything - it's like having a chief everything officer, or CEO.”

The discussions on digital ubiquity extended into many media and marketing channels. There was an instructive talk on the future of programmatic TV, featuring Jamie West from Sky and Rhys Noelke from Germany’s RTL, where it was argued that we’re only at chapter 1 of the great programmatic TV book, and the big developments were still to come. There was also a great session on the Outernet – or “when mobile devices meet outdoor advertising” – which looked at just how personalised outdoor advertising might become.

New selling and marketing platforms
One of the biggest innovations was around new selling and marketing platforms. Mercedes and Amazon strode on stage to announce the successful launch of the Amazon Mercedes platform. The platform - available in key markets such as UK, USA, Japan, and Germany - gives the consumer the power to play around with different designs, explore car types, and book a test drive. This is an automotive first, and fits with the Amazon aim of selling everything and anything.

Tasty, the Buzzfeed food channel, has had a phenomenal first year and demonstrated this in a presentation with Facebook. They are the world’s top food network, with more Facebook fans than the population of the UK (70m!). Their brand partnerships are especially strong, with many of their top videos being sponsored. Baileys Salted Caramel Milkshake, sponsored by Diageo, had 26.6m views and 372k shares. A recipe which used the Oyster 7 minute grill to cook a Jalepeno Popper Burger caused Amazon and Target to sell out of said product within a day. Compared to many branded content stories, these are a staggering success.

Transparency
Stephen Allan, Chairman and CEO Mediacom, was asked what his most important trend was and replied, “Consumer trust. A trend we’re starting to see is more transparency with customers and giving them more choices.”
This comment reflected a lot of the chatter at the event and can be applied to industry as well as consumers. The next few months and even years could be interesting for marketers and their media and digital agencies in this regard.

The Germans love to party
At 18.29 on Wednesday, the conference was still awash with people. Various stalls had started to pour beers, wines, and Jägerbombs, and there was an increasing hum. Then came a loud countdown, followed by pumping house music (clearly this is an international conference, no Wagner, Kraftwerk or Techno). The Google party had started and others soon followed. Thursday was a noticeably quieter day.

Buzzword bingo
No self-respecting blog covering a digital media event would be complete without a few buzzwords. And DM EXCO didn’t disappoint. Here’s our run-down:

• Programmatic. Still the big one. Everything and everyone is programmatic
• Creativity. If robots are buying the media, do we still need human creativity? Short answer: yes
• Digital transformation. Why are businesses so much slower than consumers to adopt new media?
• Point solutions. One problem, one solution, massive complexity
• Data. So ubiquitous as to become meaningless. Everyone at dmexco was dealing with data in some way

To sum up, DMEXCO highlighted that whilst there are solutions aplenty in digital media, each heralding a new route to reach the consumer at the right time/place and vying for the marketers attention, it does pay to keep a close ear to the ground on some of the ground breaking examples of brands getting it right.

Hopefully the themes of consolidation and transparency will play out, giving us an  easier, improved, and more cost-effective way of conducting their digital activity.

But there are still risks. We saw plenty of smaller companies who were clearly out to make a quick buck and with those it pays to have a good nose for bullshit bingo

One thing we do know is that the best marketers are still those who are brave and agile enough to try new things and savvy enough to mitigate the risks.