Category: The Conversation Economy

The sixth annual CM Summit is just two weeks away, and that means I’m knee deep in prep: thinking about the major themes driving our industry, and in particular, those driving media and marketing.

This is why I’m so pleased that our opening conversation will be with Laura Desmond, the CEO of Starcom MediaVest Group, one of the largest buyers of media in the world. SMG recently made news by winning Microsoft’s lucrative business in the US, and counts P&G, Walmart, Coca Cola, and GM amongst its all star roster of clients.

In short, Desmond has a front row seat to the changes happening in media and marketing today, and from the notes I took in our prep call earlier this week, our onstage conversation should be compelling. Some of the topics we’ll be covering:

– The “consumerization of IT.” As technology becomes integrated into all of our lives, large business to business marketers like Microsoft and Oracle are contending with changing demands of their customers in the workplace. Conversely, the large consumer packaged goods companies like P&G must become IT companies, as consumers demand they respond as nimbly as the Amazons, Googles, and Netflixs of the world.

– Brands as publishers. This is the theme I’ve been writing and preaching about since the founding of Federated Media in 2005, but it’s taken center stage with major marketers this year, according to Desmond. Brands need to become curators, filters, and providers of consumer experiences, she argues, and they need to work in new ways with traditional publishers to get there.

– The shift of media budgets from television to digital. This is the elephant in the room everyone can see, but no one can shoot. While the big five digital platforms command nearly 80% of digital budgets, the truth is, television brand dollars still rule the roost. Why? Desmond has some answers, and expect to hear a call for the end of “market mix modeling,” a practice which began in the 1950s and has barely changed since.

– The role of demand side platforms, real time bidding, third party data, and exchanges in today’s evolving market, an issue which dominated the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual meeting and conference earlier this year.

There’s a world of issues to cover off in our opening conversation, and with more than 30 speakers from GM, Visa, Sony, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and more joining us on stage across one and a half days, our goal is to give CM Summit attendees a high-level look at the business of marketing, in a rapid-fire conference that will keep folks on the edge of their seats.

Register today before we sell out. And if you have a question you’d like me to ask Laura, leave a comment here or join the conversation on the #CMSummit hashtag. See you in New York!

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Special thanks to our sponsors: Blackberry, AT&T, Google, Quantcast, Demand Media, Facebook, Outbrain, Pandora, Pixazza, R2integrated, Slideshare, Yahoo!, AOL, American Express OPEN, Balloon, BriefLogic, Evidon, Marketing Evolution/Telmar, Mobile Roadie, Spiceworks, and Ustream. And a shout out to our partners at IAB, Mashable, paidContent.org, ReadWriteWeb, SMAC, and TechZulu.

One new thing I’ll be doing as well is forming an advisory board. More on that soon, but my goal is to gather input on the program from a diverse set of voices. This is something I did way back when we started in 2004, it felt right to do it again.

You’ll notice the lineup has a fair share of the industry heavyweights you might expect me to interview (Steve Ballmer, Dick Costolo, Steven Elop, Michael Dell, etc), as well as some names that perhaps you have not heard of (Intel anthropologist Genevieve Bell, “The Information” author James Gleick, etc.). In the coming months, I’ll be announcing new additions pretty frequently, mainly through Twitter, so if you want to stay on top of them, follow me or the Web 2 Summit handle.