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{{chris}} First impressions of day one at the CMA Conference.

It’s 10:23 am and we just finished up the early morning sessions. The conference content is proving to be very interesting. I’ll get to that in a moment. First, the environment. The Guvernment is a nice club. I’ve been here many times before, and it’s quite nice a venue for an event like this. My one complaint – it’s a bit chilly and the spot lights are burning through my monitor.  Aside from that it’s great – including ample table room and WiFi.

Moving along – lets talk information. One of the most interesting things that came out this morning is the rage over Quick Codes in Asia. I’ve never heard of it before, but now I know. A quick code is a unique black white image which is placed with out door advertising. A user can take a picture of a specific quick code, SMS it to the QC service and a coupon is returned, and the user can use the coupon on the spot. A perfect example is for Coke – the QuickCode can be held up on screen to a camera in a Coke Machine and the user receives their beverage plus a premium gift, coupon or other incentive.

Quick Codes are not in North America yet, but the advertising agencies and marketers are expecting them to arrive in the next few years.

Other interesting facts coming out today – which most of you won’t be surprised over is the fact that SEM is growing this year over last year according to IPSOS Reid. Specifically:

• Email Marketing is up, no surprise – our spam folders confirm this.
• Social Marketing and Interactive Marketing such as leverage groups within Facebook and other socia sites, and video shared through services such as YouTube is more popular this year over last. it’s not pervasive though.
• Blogging has doubled over last year, but many are still not doing it
• Viral Marketing growing but not pervasive as it’s difficult to know what will or will not go viral
• Social Networking itself saw no usage at all.
• Mobile Marketing awareness up but usage not changed- likely because it’s not available in Canada yet
• Interactive Games – Flash still remain a popular in usage.

The number one factor cited by Agencies and Marketers which would convince them to spend more of their budgets in Digital Media is the introducing of metrics. Measuring the effectiveness of their efforts and calculating ROI is the answer. An interesting area to consider moving forward.

We’re getting settled back for the next session now, so stay tuned for another post when I get a chance.

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