Ad:tech New Delhi Day 1: The event kicked off with exciting discussions

Ad:tech, an interactive advertising and technology conference kick started yesterday for the very first time in India, New Delhi. It is an exhibition where keynote speakers are brought in and interesting topic driven panels are held to provide the participants the tools and techniques to compete in a world that is forever changing. The conference was well attended as about seven hundred odd participants came pouring in. It also saw the presence of quite a few clients and some non-digital agencies as well.

Babs Rangaiah, Vice President Global Communications Planning, Unilever gave the opening address in which he elaborated on various engagement opportunities. He further stressed on the fact that to be successful in the digital domain, one needs to take the help of good partners and that nothing can be done in silos.

Elisa Steele, Chief Marketing Officer, Yahoo! Discussed on the topic, "The Future of Digital Marketing: Engaging Consumers Like Never Before.' She said, "Digital marketing is still in the infancy stages however digital media is surrounding us. Change usually scares people but the key is to try to do what you do not know. We have opportunities to change the paradigm. Brands can stand out only by forward thinking." The three key things to keep in mind, she stressed are, differentiate, taking care of distribution and making the right decisions.

In the panel discussion themed at, Agency Transitions - Panel Session: Agency Renumeration Models: What is the right mix?, there was a lot of discussion. Moderated by Manish Vij, Founder, Vun Network, (SITG/Quasar/Tyroo/Zoomtra/Letsbuy.com), the panel comprised of Vikram Sakhuja, CEO - Southeast Asia, Group M, Sameer Suneja, Managing Director, Perfetti Van Melle India and Anjali Hegde, of Interactive Avenues. The panel discussed various things from adapting their business models to pay per performances.

The next panel discussion was on Justifying Digital Budget in a Marketing Campaign. The panel comprised of Kiran Gopinath, Founder & CEO, Ozone Media, Ravi Kiran, former CEO, South Asia, Starcom MediaVest Group, Hitesh Oberoi, Managing Director & CEO, Info Edge (India) Ltd and Sandeep Vij, CEO, DDB Mudra. The session was moderated by Madan Sanglikar, Principal Partner, Mindshare. This panel discussed the importance of making digital strategy felt in brands campaigns and also working out an appropriate budget.

Under Marketing Masters, there were about six presentations given by eminent personalities like Wasim Basir, Director - Integrated Marketing Communication, Coca-Cola India, Krishna Prasad, Chief Experience Officer, Dentsu India Group, Ramswaroop Gopalan, Country Manager, SapientNitro, India, Kartik Jain- Head Marketing & Direct, ICICI Lombard, Jason Scott, General Manager, Microsoft Advertising, Asia and Christopher Miglino, Co-Founder and CEO, Social Reality.

Jain spoke about the seven insights to build online proposition like the purchase pattern, understanding users' behavioural pattern, value proposition, multiple engagement like using a mobile and television screen simultaneously along with search insights and other trends. One must ride primary product by using TV effectively and should always listen to customers, he emphasized.

Gopalan stressed on the importance of internally trying to interact with brands and to build right tools. While Scott discussed the use of seamless mutli- screens which were in association with Microsoft in movies like Avatar with multiplying results.

The final presentation for the day was by Rajan Anandan, Managing Director and Vice President for Sales and Operations, Google India where he discussed how digital marketing is evolving and it is only going to evolve further with time.

These were some of the discussions and key note addresses on the first day. Attendees are waiting in anticipation for the second and final day, 28th April 2011 where more interesting discussions and insights will take place. | By Janees Antoo [janees(at)adgully.com]