The State of the Industry Panel at ad:tech San Francisco

L to R: Randall Rothenberg, Rishad Tobaccowala, Carol Kruse, Neil Ashe, Jeff Berman

ad:tech San Francisco drew over 12,000 attendees last week and had a well-documented events and party calendar on the ad:tech blog thanks to Steve Hall.

The State of the Industry Panel (presented by the IAB) was the best keynote of ad:tech San Francisco in my opinion:

It was informative, though-provoking, entertaining, and filled with quotable quotes. Most of all, the speakers were made comfortable by the personable moderator, Randall Rothenberg.

See below for highlights.

Moderated by:

• Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau

Panelists:

• Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO of Denuo Group and ad:tech Lifetime Achievement Award Winner
• Neil Ashe, President of CBS Interactive
• Carol Kruse, VP Global Interactive Marketing, The Coca-Cola Company
• Jeff Berman, President of Sales and Marketing, MySpace

The room started out empty. Within minutes, hundreds of attendees were seated.

Randall Rothenberg: Where are your companies investing in advertising?

Summarized answers from the panelists:

• Asia (Kruse)
• All digital properties (Ashe, Tobaccowala)
• All online media, especially search (testing brand vs. direct response)
• A focus on mobile
• We want to focus on understanding the whole person through using behavioral predictive analytics (Berman)

Rothenberg: What is the value and contribution of social media?  Is it  just PR hype or something else — a hybrid?

Summarized answers: Old models don’t make sense any more.  Social media is not campaign based, but requires ongoing communication.  The media objective of the past was about where to put advertising – now it’s find where the audience sticks.

Rothenberg: Can Social Media  be a part of a media plan – or is it rather “communications planning” or “influence planning”?

Summarized answers:  Social Media can’t be planned by campaign or by quarter.  It must be an ongoing plan. It has to be authentic, and it has to talk about what’s great, fresh, and trusted.  It’s not a media strategy – it’s a  service strategy, customer service, and product strategy;  it’s branding, not media.

Rothenberg: How does an agency incorporate Social Media then?

Summarized answers: You have to consider “non-working media” versus “working media”. What works and what doesn’t? Agencies have to start by being agnostic. They should have fewer campaigns, and reach more ecosytems. Take a “great creative idea” and take it across all media.  There is no way to coordinate accross multiple agencies.  The consumer is driving changes so fast that we’re all running to keep up.  The Chief Knowledge Officer will be sitting in the position of power.

Rothenberg: Have we boxed ourselves into direct response?  Or is there room for creativity or branding?

Summarized answers: Direct response metrics saddle us with a burden. One recurring theme heard often over the past day (at ad:tech) is that it’s all going to become one — both branding and direct response.  The focus on metrics was in order to get budgets approved. When it comes to building brand awareness, “nothing compares to television” for Coca-Cola.

Rothenberg: How much does creativity matter, compared to metrics?

Summarized answers: Creativity will matter even more. Creativity is not just pictures. Google search is getting more and more creative.  Has the definition of “the great idea” changed?  Or is the palette just larger now?  The end-user or consumer will make the great decision. They will have more decision making power. People choose with their hearts and use numbers to justify what they just did.

Rothenberg: Is content or channels more important?

Summarized answers: Tobaccowala said, “The hysteria of insecurity is now driving the industry.” The point is not which channels to use, but what content to put in the channels.

Conference Chair Drew Ianni wraps it up

ad:tech San Francisco also had great keynotes featuring:

• Jimmy Wales, CEO of Wikipedia
• Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu
• Steve Hayden, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Worldwide
• Pete Blackshaw, Executive VP of Digital Strategic Services at Nielsen Online
• John Travis, VP of Branding, Adobe
• Eric Feng, SVP of Audience and CTO, Hulu
• Tina Sharkey, Chairman and Global President, BabyCenter
• Joel Rubinson, Chief Research Officer, The Advertising Research Foundation

Thank-you to all of the conference organizers, notably Don Knox, Drew Ianni, Jeff Valentine, and Warren Pickett.

Marissa is the CEO and Co-founder of AD-Village.

Marissa also blogs at marissalouie.com and the BusinessWeek blog “Young Female Entrepreneur“.

Find her on Twitter: @malouie

Contact her at (510) 375-1941 or Email her at marissa@ad-village.com.

By Marissa Louie

The Advertising 2.0 Party at ad:tech SF

Take a handful of fun Skittles, mashup a little Web 2.0, and invite celeb co-hosts from ad:tech SF — sounds like a party jam!

This is the official ad:tech afterparty for Tuesday April 21.

At 8:30p, hop on over 1/2 a block to Hotel W *after* the evening’s events at Moscone Center West:

• ad:tech/SF BIG (6:30-8:30p)
• Affiliate Marketing Networking Party (5:30-7:30p)

Join Co-hosts and VIPs:

• Marissa Louie – CEO of AD-Village
• Aaron Sahagun – CEO of Alumwire
• Amanda Coolong – CEO of Beta PR
• Efren Toscano – CEO of Techzulu
• Julian Brass – CEO of Notable.TV
• Kamal Ravikant – Angel Investor
• Khris Loux – CEO of JS-Kit
• Kym McNicholas – Reporter, Forbes TV
• Shawn Collins – Founder of Affiliate Summit
• Steve Hall – Founder of Adrants and Adgabber
• Tom Bedecarre – CEO of AKQA
• Tom Foremski – SiliconValleyWatcher, ZDNet, and former Financial Times columnist

Platinum Sponsor:

• Sun Startup Essentials: Jumpstart your startup

Gold Sponsors:

• AD-Village: Access to high-paying ads across top ad networks
• JS-Kit: Rich, interactive features for your website
• Skittles: Transplant the Rainbow (Skittles, anyone??)

Media Sponsors:

• ad:tech (Official ad:tech blog writeup by Steve Hall from Adrants is here)
• Adrants
• Affiliate Marketing Summit
• Bub.blicio.us
• Techzulu

Badged ad:tech SF attendees only, please. Non-attendees, please add yourself to the waitlist.

**RSVP AT: http://ad-village.com/AD20**

See who’s coming on the Facebook event page.

Even in this Recession, we are helping Web 2.0 companies monetize with advertising revenue. We invite you to come celebrate the good times at The Advertising 2.0 Party.

Previously:

Launch Party 2.0 at Web 2.0 Expo on April 1 at Club Six (500 guests, plus TechCrunch, BusinessWeek, Lalawag, LA Weekly, SF Weekly) — we’ve barely recovered since..

Marissa is the CEO and Co-founder of AD-Village. It helps website publishers make more revenue from online advertising by recommending top ads in a simple ad recommendations interface.

She is a frequent conference speaker and has presented about online advertising most recently at O’Reilly ETech, REBarCamp, and the Microsoft Blogger Roundtable.

Marissa blogs at marissalouie.com, BusinessWeek blogs, and here at Bub.blicio.us.

Find her on Twitter: @malouie

Contact her at (510) 375-1941 or Email her at marissa@ad-village.com.

by Adam Jackson

Credit: Brian Solis

This year, the consensus was that there wouldn’t be any holiday parties or we would simply see a lot less. I’ve followed the Silicon Valley tech scene for a number of years and I remember the big parties – the parties with ice sculptures and rock bands. I remember when every event was open bar and catered. Ah, those were the good days.

The idea that holiday parties will be non-existent this month is incorrect. In fact, there are still plenty of parties going on. I’m adding 3-5 new parties every day to SocialCalendario. What I’m noticing is that these parties are drastically smaller than previous years. It’s easy to throw a holiday party for your employees, their families and for your users.

The first step is to cut the extras – no live bands, no performers of any kind. Every Silicon Valley geek loves a clown making balloons, but that’s an expense that isn’t feasible right now. You still have to offer something for free though. Music is a must and it’s best to make the alcohol free. It doesn’t have to be free all night and you don’t have to do an open bar. Drink tickets are a great way to budget the alcohol for a party and limiting guests to beer and wine will help save money.

Be very careful because however. Most venues have bar guarantees. Some venues will let you rent for free but then ask for $7500 in alcohol be sold that evening. It’s not impossible, but 50 employees can’t drink that much. Oh, but there’s another option too. Holding an event at a restaurant is great! Many restaurants have a full bar, will let you rent out a space and will allow you to setup some music either pre-recorded or a DJ as long as it isn’t too loud. The restaurant usually won’t have a minimum bar guarantee and won’t throw on fees like a venue would.

Let’s say your startup just started making money or you just scored a large round of funding. In economic times like these, where even Google is toning down its holiday party, it’s important to not stand out too much. Stand out with an excellent product or with adoption numbers but standing out by throwing a huge amount of cash into a sculpture of your company’s logo is not the right way to go about it even if the sculpture was donated.

Everyone is expecting small parties this year and that’s what we’ll have. I’ll simply be attending more of them instead of waiting for the big one. If you must attend a party this month, SFNewTech is up there.

Holiday Party 2.0 is another must attend. There’s another upcoming party from yours truly that I’ll make sure to tell you about in a few days. Any questions, hit me up on Twitter or Email and I’ll be happy to direct you in the right direction for planning a party or finding the right one to attend.

By Larry Chiang and Marissa Louie

Holiday Party 2.0

Hosted by Bub.blicio.us, AD-Village.com, Zinette Magazine, and S1 Management

12/2 11:19pm: SPONSOR LIST IS NOW FULL
12/4 11:18am: SEE NOTES BELOW RE: AFTERPARTY

Fa-la-la-la-la, where’s the holiday moolah?? Show me the money.

In the old days, it was “Let’s set aside $50 grand of our $12mm b-round and effen host a holiday party.”

While we WILL miss the carving station, Cirque du Soleil ballet dancers and gift baskets, we are in a borderline depression. Chin up ol’ sport!, because we are architecting a party — a holiday party where we make money, build awareness of our start-up and wow our partners and sponsors with 10x ROI on their $100-200 sponsorship.

Remember, anything worth doing is worth doing for money. Why should holiday partying be any different= We fully expect surprises to be laced between now and FRIDAY (yes, four short days away).

The party is Dec 5th, 7-9pm at Roe Restaurant (651 Howard St.) in San Francisco.

Special Guests:

• Jackie Peters of Heavybag Media
• Sarah Lacy, Author of “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good”

Co-Hosts:

• Larry Chiang
• Marissa Louie
• Brian Solis
• Krystel Ariel
• Adam Jackson
• Tyler Willis
• Barney Pell
• Waleed Abdulla
• Yo Yoshida
• Max Schulze
• Paul Schleicher
• Michael Moradzadeh
• Halle Tecco
• Ryan Merket

Spotlight Sponsor: Sun Startup Essentials

Sponsors:

• AD-Village .com
• Asse9 link
• Founders Fund .com (solicited)
• Zinette .com
• Yoono .com
• Involver .com
• JS-Kit .com
• S1 Management .com
• Blog Networks on Facebook
• Rimon Law Group
• WordPress .com
• Workstir .com
• Ninne .de
• Whole Foods Market

Media Sponsors:

• Bub.blicio.us
  
• Future-Works PR
• Heavybag Media

RSVP via text message under 140 characters to:

@malouie | (510) 375-1941 | marissa@ad-village.com

@larrychiang | (650) 283-8008 | chiang9@duck9.com

or check the Facebook group.

In the spirit of Holiday 2.0, it’s “Let’s make some money hosting a holiday party by inviting co-hosts like Brian Solis, Jackie Peters, Barney Pell, Sun Startup Essentials, Founders Fund, Involver.com, Yoono.com, and Rimon Law Group.

Because we are ZOMG monetizing , we will invite you to come celebrate Holiday 2.0.

** Chiang SURVEY QUESTIONS: **
Should we tip, bribe, comp and tip bloggers to come?
Should we charge a $5 cover?
Should we charge a $15-75 cover to VCs?

Should we have an AFTERPARTY?
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=25107055702&id=811315726&index=3

Young. Female. Entrepreneur.

by Marissa Louie

Darlings, throw your effen hands up. I’m proud of you. Not only are you a Silicon Valley Anomaly, you’re probably really hot too. And under 40.

Fotki

Shabooya sha sha shabooya ROLL CALL! Who here is a young female entrepreneur? My fearless darlings, wear your company logo on your chest. Comment on this post and I’m your new girlfriend for life. Or call me/text me at (510) 375-1941 to join the Girl Gang. The Girl Gangster Entrepreneurs.

You know you’re a young female entrepreneur in the Internet biz when:

-TEAM-

-1- You work for The Man The Woman. What could be better?!
-2- You have an office suite in a Milpitas office park, but you primarily spend time in your Nob Hill San Francisco office space with a kitchen, backyard, overhead projector, and wi-fi. No wait, you turn a hip local coffee shop like Sugar Cafe into your third office so you can do Entrepreneur 2 Entrepreneur Office Hours with other cool people. Because you, honey, are VIRAL by nature.
-3- You’re the CEO but the rest of the team wants to take care of you. You might even be the youngest person on the team, but have no problem managing others who are twice your age. You have experience, balls, or both.
-4- Your venture has a 80-20 ratio of males to females. Out of your 16 core team members, only 3 are female. You make sure the females and males are treated by merit.
-5- Nobody can truly hurt you. But if somebody tries to hurt your team, it’s OVER for them.

PARTIES AND TIME MANAGEMENT-

-1- You sometimes get caught wearing full-on party gear by your Internet biz friends at non-tech events. And you get away with it. Just make sure your reputation is intact and that you have a healthy work-to-party ratio. Transition between being Plain Jane and Janet Jackson effortlessly.
-2- Angels and VCs – real or fake? You can tell a real Gucci purse from a fake, so you should differentiate the genuine investors from the fake. The genuine ones might be able to really help you. But if they really just want to waste your time fantasizing about you over dinner, Filter. Them. Out.

-REPUTATION-

-1- Your Woman Charm gives you home field advantage. Turn it on at the right times, because you are a rare specimen in the Valley. It helps you stand out in a crowd, at a party, at a press conference, during a video interview. It may even differentiate your blog. Advertise yourself and turn that into revenue.
-2- It’s 11pm and you’re at Safeway after the Digg party. You get introduced to a connector VIP like Sanford Barr of Stirr. He asks what you do. He has a puzzled look on his face when you tell him how your company got started, and you just know he’s seen everything in the Valley. Then he says he knows your company’s name. (You think he’s kiddin’ ya.) But then he even knows your last name. Nice!
-3- You are a rogue. A stubborn, fearless, rogue. You often do the stupid thing. It gets you in trouble at work, with family, with friends, and with love interests. If you channel it correctly and you get a little lucky, it can also propel you towards entrepreneurial success.

-LIFE HACKS-

-1- You no longer have to wear corporate raider gear but can wear lifehack gym clothes that pass as business casual all day long.
-2- On the Caltrain from San Francisco to Palo Alto, you ask an engineer from hi5 how old he thinks you are. He sneaks in a look at your website bio via wireless card. He says, “You can’t be older than 38. You’re definitely not 40. Are you 35?” ZOMG what a compliment.
-3- You’ve managed your own life so that you have no kids, no husband, and no responsibilities to run home to, giving you free reign of your time and energy. Ahh. If there is a male in your life, he is helping you take care of the responsibilities. You may want to consider a Massey Prenup if it’s not too late, though.
-4- You know you don’t need an MBA. Don’t waste the precious youth, vivacity, and money you could’ve spent on your startup on a tier-one B-school just to get contacts. If you really want to take the easy way out, work at a country club or SF Tennis Club for $8 an hour, lead gen, and become a trophy wife.

-HAPPINESS-

-1- Strangers, friends, and your family are proud of you. Except if you have rich a$$ relatives, they might not be so supportive (to which you pay no mind – just look at Paris Hilton versus the Hilton Hotel Family). Accept the good vibes, but don’t embrace it too much lest you get lazy. Don’t let it feed your short-term ego too much either. Because you might be future President of the Billionaire Girls Club and can give back to society for OPK (other people’s kids).
-2- You’ve come to love pain. Because you turn negative into positive like no other, and nobody can break you. You are fearless, fun, female, and you rock. The bounce in your step shows it.
-3- You could cast an entire Les Miserables play with your unhappy yuppie friends. A 5 year run, plus. But you, darling, are passionate and happy.
-4- You just do it. These are your dreams? D@mn the consequences. F**k the naysayers. Because you know that for every year that passes, your risk tolerance as well as your je ne sais quoi diminish. REVOLT! REBEL!

Young female entrepreneurs, if any of this rings a bell with you, JOIN THE GIRL GANG by texting me at (510) 375-1941 anytime because I don’t sleep.

Marissa Louie is the Founder and CEO of AD Village (http://ad-village.com) which helps bloggers monetize and advertisers optimize. If you liked this post, you might also like 10+ Funniest Angel and VC Blog Posts and The Future Co-existence of PR and Advertising. She also announces Entrepreneur 2 Entrepreneur office hours via Twitter.

What is viral marketing?

Friends in social media and social networks have asked me for my perspective at gatherings and recent conferences like BizTechDay and SNAP Summit. I used to work at Slideshare, which I joined partially because I was fascinated that it had spent $0 on marketing yet was ranked around 2100 on Alexa. During my first three months, I played a minor part in contributing to its skyrocketing from 2100 to a rank of up to 800. Talk about viral!

There is nothing more satisfying to me than spreading my love through viral marketing. When it comes to warm fuzzies, the more I receive, the more I give back.

Here, I break down the components of viral marketing. Viral marketing is like an interconnected set of gears, or wheels: if one wheel turns, it causes the other wheels to turn.

view on flickr

Here are the aspects of viral marketing you can start using now:

Content and Relevancy

• Viral hooks: I caught up with Dave Morin, a mastermind behind the really really viral Facebook Platform, at the SNAP Summit on Monday. He mentioned that every social network should have viral hooks that pull from relevant and interesting information.
• Leverage online presence: Tap into the online identity of your users across multiple channels. What are the online behaviors of your target audience? Where do they go to play? Blogs, social networks, social media, advertising playgrounds, news sites, etc.
• Brand memorability: Let your viral marketing campaign make use of your current brand value, and also use the campaign to reinforce and increase your brand value. If brand awareness is the goal of your campaign, do an indirect sales pitch (not a direct sales pitch.)
• Useful, relevant information: Make it so and your users will not only believe you, but love you and spread the love for you. Your product’s information must be distinctive and useful, not just average. Add value, don’t diminish it!
• Content – great, new, consistent: This increases your customer base, and furthermore your readership and subscribership. Cater your content towards attracting, retaining, and encouraging the increase of good clients. Let them rely on you, since you *are* a trusted friend.

Action:

• Call to Action: Trigger actions and behaviors by your audience. Make it easy for them to pass the word along. Then, boom! It can spread like wildfire.
• Call to Passion: Passion breeds virality. Trigger strong reactions. Or evoke the (love factor) with your product, service, or website: make them justifiably enamored. Make your audience want it, crave it, need it NO MATTER WHAT.
  

  Passion is the new voice of reason (I can barely contain my excitement as the CEO of AD Village. I *heart* my fellow Villagers.
  

• Authentic: Have a personal voice that resonates with your target audience.
• Forwardability, Transferability: Make something that others are compelled to forward to others. Once they forward it, don’t let the virality stop there: have follow up calls to action within your viral campaign. Push your medium: email, RSS feeds, pasted links, and sharing within instant message chat clients.

Source | Donate

Planning and Implementation

• Scalability: Make sure you’re ready for the traffic resulting from your viral campaign. Copy + paste the basic foundation of your viral campaign into future campaigns so that users can follow a common theme.
• Improvement: Monitor the metrics of your viral marketing campaign so you can improve its results and so you can compare it to those of future campaigns. Sales, revenue, page views, Comscore and Alexa stats, Google rank, new customers, and way more. Get user reviews. Let’s aim to build a solid company that can grow and scale!
• Take Risks: The shock factor. Awe, humor, passion, differentiation. Take a risk, elicit a response.
• Prioritize Time and ROI: Viral marketing does not always make sense for everyone. Make sure your viral campaigns are used to reach your target market.

Price

• Cheap: With so many avenues to do viral marketing, you don’t have to blow your advertising budget. If done well, cost-effective viral campaigns can accomplish your goals.
• Earn $: For the pros only. Make money off of the viral campaign itself. If you’re aiming to convert sales for your company via viral, do a direct sales pitch, where you’re blatantly pitching your product, service, or website.

Start turning a viral wheel today! Email me if you’d like to get together to spin ideas. We frequently do casual OTF (On The Fly) Entrepreneur 2 Entrepreneur chats over coffee and lunch in San Francisco, so make sure to follow my tweets on Twitter.

Marissa Louie founded AD Village (http://ad-village.com) to empower bloggers to maximize their ad space monetization and to enable advertisers to improve their audience targeting. She has written 10+ Funniest Angel and VC Blog Posts October 2008, 10 Types of Ad Targeting, Top 10 Tips to Increase Traffic to Your Blog, and dabbles in blog poetry like *I REVOLT* (A Blog Monetization Poem). She is one of the Geekgirl GFs (The Gigis) and gets esoteric on Twitter.

by Marissa Louie

Has the current economic climate caused our dear angel and VC friends to be delectably off-humor in their blog posts? Or are they merely giddy at the thought of becoming VC billionaires in the downturn?

10 Funniest Blog Posts by Angels and VCs this month:

-1- Brad Feld: It’s Monday. Do you know what your VC is doing?

“This doesn’t mean sit around with your thumb up your ass.”

-2- Dave McClure: Fear is the Mindkiller

“If you are running an existing startup, you are probably going to have to cut spending, cut hiring, and you may even end up firing people / doing layoffs.  And then you pay taxes and then you die.“

-3- Guy Kawasaki: Guy’s Index of Absurdity: The Top Ten Ways to Tell If Things Are Really Bad

“Pierre Omidyar starts selling stuff on eBay.”

-4- RRE Ventures: RRE Bikini Bottom Franchise

“Another way to think about the team at RRE.”

-5- Dave Winer: Flirting Her Way to Victory

“At least three times, Sarah Palin, the adorable, preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the audience.”

-6- Jeff Nolan: Display Ads Gone Wild

“Apparently there is a new television show on CBS….”

-7- Fred Wilson: SWOT Analysis on America

“Your country is extremely lucky that it will have as a President someone who is universally acknowledged as the “deepest thinker to ever get in the Oval Office” “

-8- Mark Cuban: The Only Mavericks that Matter

“Anyone know of any decent players named McCain and Obama that I can sign for the preseason?”

-9- Jeff Clavier: One of the 25 Most Influential People on the Web. Moi?

“It is obviously very nice to share the investor spot with peeps like Peter Thiel and Paul Graham.”

-10- Christopher Griffin: “Sabers Up!” — Peter Thiel’s Criteria for Quality Entrepreneurs

“Create an internal drive to succeed unmatched by hopping from Ivy League to Wall Street to Stanford to employee #80 at successful startup X.”

**The black shih-tzu**

-11- Larry Chiang: Nine Biggest VC Mistakes in a Downturn

“Sell something you don’t own.”

**Honorable mention**

-12- David Cowan: Militant Avamparists are So Irritating

“Paschalepist – one who believes that on the Sunday following the full moon closest in time to the vernal equinox, a fluffy white mountain hare (of the species lepus timidus) hides chocolate eggs.”

**Your turn**

Suggest funny angel and VC blog posts through Halloween (you know these are going to be ridiculous!)

Marissa Louie founded AD Village (http://ad-village.com) to empower bloggers to maximize their ad space monetization and to enable advertisers to improve their audience targeting. She has written 10 Types of Ad Targeting, Top 10 Tips to Increase Traffic to Your Blog, and dabbles in blog poetry like *I REVOLT* (A Blog Monetization Poem). She is one of the Geekgirl GFs (The Gigis) and gets esoteric on Twitter.