Over 50 ad operations and technology leaders from nearly 40 media owners have gathered in Brighton, UK for the 15th AdMonsters European Publisher Forum. The sold-out event is off to a strong start with a keynote address by Tim Hussain, Head of Mobile Advertising at BSkyB. Tim’s session, “Digital in the second decade: Navigating Convergence” tackles some of the big questions around mobile and backs up the promise of mobile with some impressive numbers:
What do we really mean by “Online” in 2010? How do consumers engage with our businesses in multi-platform world? At what point do you focus your energies on the new platforms for advertising like mobile, video and the convergence of digital and television? How do you balance the fear of being left behind with the need to have a solid gameplan? These are the questions that Ad Operations leaders and their bosses need to be asking themselves as they try to navigate these exciting and interesting times in our industry.
In a group exercise that kicked off the conference, the participants prioritized the key issues facing the online ad industry in the UK and across Europe. Unsurprisingly, delivering on the potential of iPad and other emerging technology came up frequently. Other key topics included: making sense of audience data; managing advanced targeting solutions including semantic; incorporating these enhanced data points into a solid yield & inventory management strategy; creating a road map for mobile strategy; video advertising innovation and best practices; HTLM5 implications for ad ops; and, finally, iPad/Tablet/IPTV/and other new ad platforms.
Over the next couple days, the group will collaborate on sorting out the fundamental challenges faced by each of these topics and coming up with short and mid-term pragmatic solutions.
On Tuesday morning, AdMonsters will be revealing the results of the 2nd annual UK ad ops salary survey. The summary report will be available to the wider industry on Friday, October 15th.