Marketing 3.0 – Lessons from Advertising Week in DC

Angela Brown, Marketing Manager

“Inspire. Be inspired.” This was the official theme for last week’s Advertising Week in DC (Ad Week) and there were plenty of big ideas to go around. This is the first relatively large conference I’ve attended in some time and there was an interesting energy in the air. After two years (or more, depending on your area of specialty) of economy calamity, there is a cautious optimism among marketing, advertising and media professionals in the DMV as we make the slow march toward recovery.

We’ve seen some pretty crazy things happen in our industries both as a result of, and completely independent from, the Great Recession. Our budgets shrank, but our clients and supervisors expected more from us. The power and magic that ad execs wielded over consumers during the Mad Men era disappeared as customers became increasingly cynical and decreasingly willing to open their wallets. And as technology continues to evolve at a breakneck pace, agencies are consolidating and competitors are emerging from areas that few people saw coming.

Forget marketing 2.0. Marketing 3.0 is about more than the tools we use to do our jobs. It’s about the fundamental shift that is taking place in our industries – advertising, marketing and media, which are becoming increasingly integrated – and a call to action for us to do better. To be better. We need to think bigger, work smarter and listen more.

I typically have a tough time summarizing conferences, seminars and workshops briefly, so I will leave you with a list of tweets that I think best capture the biggest points not only from Ad Week, but from the past two years. Internalize them. Print them out and put them at your desk. Do whatever you need to do to remember them; because as you reflect on what’s happened, these are the things you need to know to be ready for what’s coming.

• The 5th P of marketing is “participation”. Consumers are involved even if you don’t ask them.
• It’s not about tools, it’s about language. That’s why need to have smarter conversations.
• Clients can be tough, but without them we disappear.
• People are the most important product in a company.
• Reputation has a positive and direct link to purchase behavior.
• The future of advertising in real-time media rests on those who get things done. Anyone can have an idea, we need producers.
• The most powerful tool of marketing is (still) the recommendation of a friend.
• Brands don’t have the luxury of doing siloed, functional campaigns. We’re in the age of integrated campaigns.

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