Adweek: The essential role of vulnerability and friends with beer

Wasn’t it great to catch up again? The three things I miss most about being let out at an advertising conference are beers, serendipity and community-learning (more on that later).

Beyond the copious sweets, getting my QR code scanned every 5 seconds and queuing down and round and round and down to get into the same theatre that I was just sat in 10 minutes ago, what were the main themes at this year’s AWE? I picked up on 3 major themes:

1. Advertising folk are rubbish in silos: Networking is learning.

Everyone I spoke to was excited to be seeing people in the flesh again, hanging out, sharing coffees and pints. Yes, we’ve missed the physical interaction - as human beings we’re designed to be around other human beings. But I think there’s something deeper that we have been missing. I had a lot of conversations where the person I was talking to said, “That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking…” or where I’ve been listening to someone and I’ve thought, “Exactly, I’m glad I’m not the only one!”. I think it’s easy to think you are the ‘only one’ when you’re stuck at home in front of your computer. But standing in front of your peers having a beer (or two) we feel the sense of community, that community gives us the confidence to share things, to be a little bit vulnerable - and that’s OK because it turns out we’re all feeling a little bit like that. Not sure about how to learn more about CTV or where it fits into your strategy, that’s OK laughs your pal, they're confused too! Feeling a bit nervous about your Q2 targets, so do I! By making ourselves vulnerable in communities of trusted peers we can gain confidence, and we can benchmark and compare our experience. Confidence through vulnerability. I call it ‘mate-validating’, some people call it ‘having a beer’. Whatever we call it, it’s important, I’ve missed it and it’s one of things that I now realise I most value.

2. 2022 is the year of… testing and new technology

If there was one common approach that I picked up from a lot of the sessions it’s that people are testing, testing, testing. Of course, that’s always been a critical part of digital, but now it feels like we’ve got a lot of new things to test. I listened to a few talks on CTV where the future of TV was described as the Wild West (again). Answering their own hypothetical question on ‘Where do I start’, the speakers suggested starting with a few small tests. There is still a lot of fragmentation, lack of industry standard and measurement, so you may not want, or be able, to spend a large budget on CTV right now. However, speakers pointed out the importance of dipping your toe in the water, allocating a small budget on learning. Seun from Matterkind coined a great new fact, since Youtube was founded in 2005 very soon we’re going to have the first generation of TV planners and buyers who have only known a non-linear world. As Gubbins expanded in his session, it feels like we’ve reached a tipping point. Katie from Discovery talked about the opportunity that CTV provides for smaller and regional brands to test highly targeted TV advertising. So, test away my marketing chums, CTV has lowered the bar to entry! However, Katie stressed the importance of ensuring high quality creative. I had fascinating conversations with many new tech companies including one that optimises creative around a set of rules, derived by machine learning to ensure that the ad creative is the most effective and most viewable, driving engagement, attention and performance (Hat Tip: Creative X, no relation I promise). But my favourite example of bold new technology was Simi presenting Yuty.me on the Innovation stage on Tuesday. Yuty is an incredible AI powered tool that gives highly personalised beauty recommendations based upon your face. To do this they’ve built thousands of virtual faces to train their algorithm. Whilst the link with advertising may be less obvious, for me this is the future of commerce. The next stage in evolution beyond DTC, a highly personalised shopping experience powered by big data and machine learning. DTM? Direct to me?

3. Everyone is talking about contextual (hooray, finally!).?

Naturally, I attended every session on contextual. It was great to get insight from agency leaders, other suppliers and get some mate-validation from our peers on what people are really thinking about contextual right now. Ruth Mortimer quoted an IAB session a few weeks ago where the IAB told the audience that if they weren’t testing contextual already they should be. Well Amen to that! Although I still suspect that a lot of brands and agencies will leave it until the last month before the impending cookie winter, just like GDPR, before they properly start to put in place their ‘contextual strategy’. But as I noted above, the way that testing works is by doing it small and early, that’s how to get ahead and learn what works, what’s new and what's right for you and your clients. We’re lucky to work with some very enlightened customers who have fairly sophisticated testing strategies, enabling them to build up an armoury of contextual weapons (*goes a bit game of thrones*). There isn’t just one type of ‘Contextual’, with this one being a bit faster, or this one being a big cheaper. Each contextual tool has different applications. In one of the first sessions on contextual, Ben from WePlay talked about where in the funnel Contextual can add the most value: Many think that contextual is (only) good at the top of the funnel, building brand awareness, but contextual can also reveal needstate, intent which can be used to target consumers at the right moment. Liz from Epam talked about going beyond clumsy keyword analysis and looking at the meaning of the whole page. It was really reassuring to hear so many well informed speakers talk about contextual and share their understanding and encourage the audience to explore. It was even more reassuring to do some mate-validating in the bar and foyer afterwards and find that, yes, a lot of people are really taking contextual seriously and it’s become a real priority. We have definitely seen more interest in running tests this quarter, and more sophisticated briefs from existing customers. Perhaps it was the IAB call to arms, perhaps they’re inspired by the speakers, perhaps it’s the impending cookie-doom. Wherever you are on your contextual journey, EntityX would love to help you set up some tests so you can learn how to wield the power of contextual (*OK I’m missing Game of Thrones, I admit it.)

And on a side note, kudos to AWE not only did they have diversity and inclusion as a major theme (particularly on the Wednesday) but they also ensured that all the panels were much more reflective of our industry than I remember seeing before - ensuring we all benefit from a broader, richer, more diverse and ultimately better range of perspectives and experiences.?

I’m looking forward to the next industry conference and I hope to catch up with you there for a bit of mate-validating and learning over a cheeky pint.