No, that was not my goal at all.

If anything, I was there to get people not to use Augmented Reality.   Superfluous use of technology tends to minimize the impact of use cases that actually make sense. My fear is that the marketing community will adopt this technology, exploit it and then spit it out like so many technologies before it (Second Life, anyone).

My hope is that we have matured as an industry and that we are able to do our due diligence before leveraging the technological flavor of the month (not that Augmented Reality is new–it has been around for quite some time. It is, however, new to the marketing community).

With that said, I think the class went great! Representatives from Traction, OMD, Kraft, The Integer Group, 20th Century Fox among others were all present. It seemed that I got people thinking strategically and that was my goal. As always thanks to Brad Berens, Daisey Whitney, Katharine Panessidi and the entire iMedia family for the opportunity to share some of my passion with the marketing community.

Now, as promised, here are my slides (there are only a few…give me a call if you want me to talk you through them )

Augmenting iMediaView more presentations from Adam Broitman.

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Some highlights from the day (taken from Twitter):

elliotbenn: RT @AdamBroitman: mobile is one giant onion @zawthet #imediasummit

CraigPladson: Confirmation from credible source at #imediasummit – there are 7 MM iPhone users in the US. Not 15 MM as previously stated.

AMediaCircus: the average american eats 550 pounds of meat per year–Zaw Thet #imediasummit

dberkowitz: blog post from #imediasummit: 10 myths of mobile marketing, via jumptap http://bit.ly/eHwv (expand)

rganguly: NHL mobile case study preso is fascinating: massive uptick in all-star voting and fan engagement #imediasummit

CraigPladson: When sending text alerts, make sure to ask subscribers if they still want to get them after 3 text messages. #imediasummit

CraigPladson: US limits inbound texts to short codes at 160 characters. Canada limits text messages to 136 characters. IVR very important. #imediasummit

dberkowitz: @adambroitman he stole my line. i always thought of mobile as a boysenberry because it goes great with yogurt #imediasummit

FuelforThought: Mobile ad networks seeing 2-8% CTR on avg. As high as 20% CTR & 17% click to call for best mobile campaigns. #imediasummit via @CraigPladson

ChrisWexler: :: Hispanics/African Americans over index for mobile usage #imediasummit (RT @AdamBroitman) #imedia

elliotbenn: RT @AdamBroitman: mobile is one giant onion @zawthet #imediasummit

For those of you that were reading this blog when I posted more frequently and more personal things, thanks for staying with me (I am assuming you are staying with me, as you are reading this post). Things at crayon have been going really well. It is a pleasure working with such great minds. I have been very busy with work lately, but have managed to get in some speaking and writing as well. I began writing for Minonline after a fortuitous run in with the illustrious Amy Novak. I also continue to write and blog for iMedia (who continues to serve as my media family).

Last week I spoke on a really cool panel about digital innovation at a 212 event. For those of you that made it, thanks so much! Today I will be speaking at the New Marketing Summit in the lovely (with no cell reception) Foxboro MA. I am very excited about this as well. Next week it is on to the iMedia Financial Summit where the bald marketing team will take on Geary Interactive in an agency shoot out (note, Vigor Branding is helping out with the graphic design, as that is not what crayon does–you can be sure Joe Szala and team will do an amazing job of supporting Mr. Verdino and my brilliant strategy–hey, we are bald, after all).

Anyhow, that is it from me. I would love to hear from you. Send me comments, email, what you are up to-I would love to hear more about the A Media Circ.us community. Did you know it has almost been three years!

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After a hectic week on Wall Street some industry analysts are predicting a downturn in online advertising spend for certain sectors. Other analysts are predicting a cut in ad spend across the entire industry as early as Q4. These predictions beg the question-who will suffer from such a state of affairs?

Will brands suffer from fewer above-the-line video ads and rich media ads that largely serve to disrupt media consumption? My feeling is-not as badly as some would like to think. Brands may not be able to reach as many people if their advertising budgets are decreased, but smaller budgets don’t always equate to diminished returns.

On the flip side, there is no question that agencies who charge a percent of media spend will suffer from this downturn-still; I won’t cry myself to sleep for those stuck in a model that is inherently broken. To all my good friends working for traditionally minded agencies (agencies that will lose money this holiday season)-now is your chance to help change the model. Now is your chance to step out of the media-buying-as-commodity box, begin to charge more for your strategic thinking and intellectual property and spend less on canned media buying.

A month ago I moved to strategic consultancy, Crayon, in order to harvest my belief in the fact that what the advertising/marketing world needs now, more than ever, is more strategic thinking-and much less superfluous ad spending. Here are a few strategic arena’s that have been on the brain this week in light of all the speculation surrounding cuts in ad spending:

Image via Wikipedia

The Lasting Value of a Good Mobile Strategy

This week we saw, what some feel is the dawn of a new day in the world of mobile marketing and advertising-but most of the commentary in both traditional media and the blogosphere focused on one thing; whether or not the HTC G1 is an iPhone killer.

As a marketer you should be considering how mobile marketing (notice I did not say advertising) can help achieve your business goals-in most cases it will not involve mobile banner buys and other forms of disruptive marketing (especially when ad dollars are being reigned in). The debate about the iPhone versus Android is relatively insignificant for marketers. The real ramifications (for marketers) of the burgeoning, open mobile ecosystem are the ability to create value added tools-tools that do not just serve the bottom line of a single campaign-but tools that have the capability of creating lasting value for consumers. A great example is Visa’s announcement that they will be working with the Android platform on mobile payments.

At a time where the purse strings are being held close to the belt-longer lasting strategies are the ones that will win.

Image of Sean Cheyney

Digital Marketing Does Not Mean Marketing to Numbers

This week I listened to a great podcast on Susan Bratton’s Dishy Mix. She interviewed friend and colleague, Sean Cheyney of Accuquote who had some really interesting things to say (I definitely recommended having a listen).  Sean told a story of a conference at which he posed the following question, “how many of you know what happens to a lead after you generate the lead?” Only one person raised their hand in response to this question.

I don’t spend a lot of time deploying traditional lead generation campaigns these days-but it always amazes me when I hear stories of marketers still treating web marketing like a digitized version of a traditional medium.  Online lead generation has much greater potential then direct mail (at least in the ability to segment leads and create more custom follow up messages). Sean’s anecdote got me thinking about the opportunity that exists at the cross section of lead generation and social marketing. If a lead is important enough to spend time mining-the consumer attached to the lead should be important enough to have a conversation with.

In future lead generation campaigns you may want to think about adding optional fields for a Twitter name. Strengthened consumers bonds fostered by conversation could certainly help close a deal.

Image of Greg Verdino

Innovation Involves Creativity

Innovation does not always have to break the bank. In fact, sometimes innovation only requires time and creative thinking-not new technology. We are at a point where there are so many new technologies that are untouched by marketers. There is a great deal of opportunity to leverage these technologies at relatively low cost. This week colleague (and bald brother) Greg Verdino wrote about how marketers don’t always need to chase shiny objects, or the next big thing. He writes how marketers often lose interest in “the untried, in favor of the unknown“.

As our economic woes continue-we as marketers need to find ways to weather the storm. While layoffs and cutbacks will be inevitable-the strategic, innovative marketer/media practitioner will always be able to find a paycheck. Those professionals dealing in tonnage and smoke and mirrors however may have to practice the dictum; “would you like fries with that”.

Innovation does not always require new tools. In fact, some of the most innovative ideas are those that mix existing tools with a dash of creativity. Take ARG’s (alternate reality games) for example. Often times they employ traditional media to create new experiences.

Don’t fixate on tools-at the end of the day the most important things are strategy and creativity.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the new Facebook design. It looks a lot to me like FriendFeed (which I use and am a fan of) but I am not sure that this will be popular with the masses. As someone in the industry, I think I may have a different outlook and I wanted to see what the rest of the world is thinking. In an effort to do that, I created this poll.

I was asked some questions by Michael Estrin of iMedia the other day about the recent f8 announcements. Have a look at his article.