The first real day of Ad-Tech was very interesting and educational especially the keynote. The keynote showed a lot of information about our digital age. Jeffrey Hayzlett spoke about Kodak and how they have changed their business model to accommodate the changing economy. How they market and how they approach and what the new brand the consumer sees.
Kodak has changed the perception on how consumers view them as and how the consumers see them. They have changed how they are viewed on the Internet as well. Creating social groups and social networks to help with the demand of digital pictures.
Kodak has changed base on the growing industry, with more people moving from analog to digital - Kodak adopted. The re-branding has helped consumers recognized Kodak as the new digital printing, photo sharing, low ink toners, etc. Being seen as the gateway to the new era, they want to stay right side by the consumer. This allows them to relate with the average consumer whether it be price, needs, in expensive products etc - Kodak is there to help with the changing industry.
More and more marketers and companies see the Internet as a new place to hang out, a place to share and interact without face-to-face contact or even picking up a phone. Companies such as Kodak see the opportunity and want to tackle this industry as close as possible to their digital photography, digital marketing meets digital photography – makes sense.
Exhibit Hall:
This was huge. John Chow says it is not as big as CES but I think it was huge. This would be my second time going to a big convention and compared to Affiliate Summit West, the booths are bigger, more louder, more people, and the hall was bigger! I toured the place for a little with Wes Mahler and John Chow.
Later we went a head and decided to split off as I wanted to meet all my affiliate managers – that had booths this year. John was just throwing footballs in to the crowds of people, evil John evil!
There were a lot of new business aspects such as digital security, security of user data, PPC analytics, email marketing, etc. There was so many a lot were geared towards digital marketing that I did not see a lot of bloggers nor affiliates. Strangely enough some bloggers found me as well as affiliate marketers. Even networks read my blog, which is kind of strange, but readers are readers especially if they read it all the time.
I met with all of my affiliate managers I believe that had booths, even new networks that I recently just joined. It was fun, crowded, informative, and tiring. After several hours talking and engaging with several booths I went back to the hotel.
After Exhibit Hall:
After visiting the exhibit hall and talking to some people I met up with a new blogger who wanted to learn all about affiliate marketing but is scared to jump into it. So far he has spent over 5k in learning courses and ebooks and audio to learn affiliate marketing, yet he is ‘scared’ to jump in. I can feel for him as I was once there and scared to lose the money I have. But 5k in seminars, ebooks, and other aspects of marketing might be a waste if he does not actually do the affiliate marketing for himself.
Marketing alone is not just knowing the knowledge but also doing it and getting the experience. What is all the knowledge with out experience? I also met up with another new person who wanted to get into affiliate marketing and wanted to know how to get out of a 9-5 job. Later in the day Wes Mahler and I met up with him as well as the other person we met up with during the exhibit. We all had dinner and discussed multiple dimensions of affiliate marketing and exchanged ideas.
Later that evening we went to an affiliate network party which later then became several affiliate network parties. The first party we went we engaged our new friends to the affiliate network to get some exposure to what affiliate marketing is. Engagement with the affiliate managers and even discuss how it can better help them in the future as far as income.
As far as the private parties, which proved to be a better place to network and have a more intimate discussion with your affiliate, the night soon turned into chaos. There were several parties that night. We went to 2 bigger affiliate network parties and then ended up going home.
Later that night I met up with Ms. Danielle and Bob at another party at a local bar. Which then once i arrived we went to another bar - erhm Gentlemen's Club. Everything was great I met new people that are all affiliates, but didn't really get to talk too much especially if women are dancing in front of your face. Just to let you know the West Gentlemen's Club has nothing on the East =P! It was very entertaining and one of the big guys just kept buying lap dances for everyone. I was just sitting and then bam a new lady shaking it. But it was entertaining!
I was tired by then and we all took our separate ways back to the hotel.
Pictures from some of the parties, these are from Day 2:
