New York Advertising Week: Can the advertising industry keep up with advances in technology?

Digital Cinema Media’s CEO, Simon Rees, looks back on his time at New York’s Advertising Week and discusses whether the advertising industry will be able to adapt to meet increasing consumer and technology advances.

This month's column finds me in a reflective mood. However, reflecting on last week's 10th anniversary Advertising Week event is no small task. The event is actually more than 200 distinct events from day to night drawing attendees from the client, media, celebrity and broader cultural communities. This year, it also attracted a number of UK media luminaries including Paul Bainsfair, director general, IPA, Tim Lefroy, chief executive, Advertising Association, David Buonaguidi, founder and chief Creative Officer, Karmarama and Mark Howe, UK MD Agencies, Google, amongst others.

A big theme of the week was the debate about whether the consumer and technology advances are actually running ahead of the ability of the advertising industry to adapt and change. In a panel I sat on with Mark Howe from Google and Rupert Staines from RadiumOne, there was a very direct discussion about how technology has 'ambushed' advertising. While there is no doubt that consumers, then the technology, are driving change at an incredible rate, I believe there is still a place for great big brand advertising.

The challenge for us all is how to execute this across a plethora of new channels and platforms. The idea and the creative execution are still at the forefront, the challenge for brands is to talk to people through the lens in which they consume content.

A lot of the energy driving the Advertising Week event came from the fact that all businesses present had a sense of urgency and a 'start up' mentality in their approach. Nothing is static and the great brains and great talent in our media industry are forever trying to keep abreast of the need for change and innovation.

Sustainable innovation has been a big theme for us at DCM over the last couple of years and last Saturday saw us reach a significant landmark in our history. On 28 September our company celebrated one year of fully digital cinema. In stats, this means that since 2012, DCM has shown 52 million ads to some 130 million people. This has delivered 2.2 billion 30" second impacts before 1,170 unique films in UK cinemas.

Most importantly, more than 200 new brands from a range of categories have booked cinema campaigns since DCM launched digital operations including The Mail on Sunday, Samsung, Daft Punk, YouTube, Burberry, River Island and the Guardian.

One of my favourite campaigns - that would not have been possible before being digital - involved us partnering with PHD to enable Google to schedule an ad after the credits of The Wolverine to target a very specific demographic during YouTube's Geek Week. Richard Waterworth, You Tube's Marketing Director explains: "Geek Week was a big event for YouTube and PHD used a wonderful behavioural insight to deliver an innovative media idea."

For all the debates about technology at Advertising Week and our own digital achievements - for me, it always comes back to the idea.

First published on MediaTel Newsline blog 09/10/2013