The good people at GCI did their blogging outreach homework and were kind enough to offer me a spot at Verge held at the Carlu in Toronto. They made me feel at home and greeted me by name – thanks Matt Roth for making me feel like a journalist.

Verge is Ogilvy’s Global Digital Marketing Summit, so it is basically a road show that travels to various cities talking to Ogilvy employees and clients about digital marketing, user empowerment and social media.

The MC was Guy Stevenson, (MD of OgilvyOne Toronto) who started with an overview of the space. I particularly liked his stat that a registered member of a Web site is worth $27. His calculation was based on the total cost of several recent web site acquisitions (IGN, YouTube, iVillage, etc) divided by their total number of members.

Next up was Chris Wall, the Co-Chief Creative Officer out of New York. He was one of only three people (two speakers and the MC) at the event  representing Ogilvy. To be honest, I couldn’t figure out whether he was positive or negative on the sweeping changes happening in marketing.
I disagree with several of his points, particularly how much production quality matters in digital content. I think the most popular podcasts, YouTube videos and blogs stand counter to his point. I also felt he took the typical ad creative stance saying how most of what was on YouTube was garbage. I agree, but remember most of all content produced, especially advertising, is garbage.

He ended by discussing a new Ogilvy venture called Ogilvy Transient. Which is basically the ad agency as roving newsroom (brand journalists) changing address frequently, going where the story is, with non-traditional roles like indie filmmakers and novelists along with the regular ad folks. The notion of communications agency of the future taking processes from a newsroom is actually one I support, but have frequently abandoned due to the huge hurdles of client relationship structure and compensation. Perhaps they have cracked the nut, but I am skeptical.

In a rare turn of events, the client upstaged the agency, with Alan Hallberg, Sr. Director, Worldwide Advertising and Demand Generation, Cisco Global delivering a great presentation on what they are doing in digital media.  B2B presentations normally bore me to tears, but Alan was upbeat, positive and embracing of change. Some highlights:

•  Advertisers think people are dogs (eager to please, do what you tell them, etc.) but actually they are more like cats (elusive and unresponsive unless you have something that they want).
• The US Government’s most successful response campaign has been the National Do Not Call registry
• Moving from Inside Out to Outside In marketing strategy
• Moving from talking about yourself to helping others talk
• HQ sending out demand generation vs. the Field

[tags] Verge, Ogilvy, OgilvyOne [/tags]

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Posted in Advertising Industry Events Toronto agencies by dwalker 2 Comments