On the Floor at Advertising Week 2012

Yesterday was the first day of the Smarter Mobile Marketing event at Advertising Week 2012, and so far, it has been a great opportunity to discuss the latest mobile trends with some of the leading thought leaders in the space.

Millennial Media’s President and CEO, Paul Palmieri, kicked off the day with a talk about what “first screen” means in today’s digital media landscape. The explosion of mobile usage has changed how we view the phenomenon of a first screen, and the truth is that the first screen is constantly changing and is whatever happens to be in front of a consumer at a particular moment of time. Paul highlighted what a huge opportunity this is, and will be, for brand marketers.

The middle of the day was filled with different brands showcasing success stories of how mobile has created a new, powerful opportunity to engage with consumers:

The first to speak was Chris Golier, the VP of Mobile Marketing and Strategy for the NHL, and   Chris gave some insight into the app the NHL created to complement the TV experience of watching games. The app was officially sponsored by Molson, and used features like a store     locator and an interactive game to drive engagement. Chris also reported that the average user session time for the app was 25 minutes, which shows how effective the app was at retaining consumer attention.

Additionally—Stephanie de Bodinat from Adidas spoke about a branded app they developed around the Euro 2012 soccer tournament that drove 1.6M downloads in just two weeks, and senior executives from Mullen and Olympus spoke about the recent campaign they ran on the Millennial Media platform that used a mobile experience to give consumers an interactive preview of how an Olympus camera worked.

Following these talks, I was able to take the stage with Catherine Tabor from Sparkfly, and Shannon Zimmerman from Auntie Anne’s pretzels, where  we spoke about the recent campaign we ran that used Point-of-Sale tracking to help close the loop.

Finally the day ended with me hosting a panel and facilitating an intriguing discussion with two agency heads, Amanda Richman from MediaVest and Nick Pahade from Initiative. Our talk touched on everything from mobile ad spend to how they are approaching tablets; and one theme that emerged was the overall impact mobile has made on the advertising landscape.

Both Amanda and Nick stressed that they don’t view mobile as a “specialty area” but that it is incorporated into all aspects of their agencies.

Overall—it was a great day here in New York, and we’re looking forward to seeing what the rest of the week brings.