EVENT REPORT: Digitech 2011

TMV were lucky enough to attend the second annual Digitech conference, which was tied into the Sydney VIVID festival. The difference with this event was that it focused around presenters providing case studies of campaigns that their companies had undertaken. So the focus was on learning and best practice to deliver results. Whilst yes the focus was not music, but instead digital marketing – it delivered more value in TMV’s opinion than your typical music industry conference.

Perhaps music conference organiser’s can learn a thing or two! Gone are the days where panel sessions deliver value to attendee’s – who wants to pay to see the same old faces state the same things and give the audience nothing of value? These days with most music conference’s one would be better off going to company websites as you could learn just as much from there corporate blurb as you could from what the panel members state on stage.

First up on day one of Digitech 2011 was a case studying examining Sydney’s most visited destination and winner of the national tourism award Taronga Zoo. The focus was on consolidating and aligning content across all digital channels for cohesive branding strategy implementation. Next up was a focus on ‘The Box’ – how Curtain University (WA) utilised a digital strategy to deliver more enrollments and how the campaign evolved, its trials and tribulations.

The third case study focused on mobile and specifically how SMS can be utilised to deliver engagement. James Robinson the GM of SMS Solutions Australia evangelised the benefits of mobile to any campaign. Key takeaways included the fact that 2011 witnessed more than 50% of Internet search worldwide being conducted via smart-phones. The most amazing figure that was stated was that 80% of commercial email is NOT read!

Session four examined the next frontier of digital marketing and was presented by Simon Goodrich the National President of Australian Interactive Media Industry Association AIMIA. Discussions included the fact that the adoption of new digital tools and examining real life examples of take-up/adoption and ROI.

The final session of day one was a three-hour workshop presented by Christian Bartens the Managing Director of Datalicious. This workshop delivered great value to all attendees. Delegates were taken through the tools and methodologies that allow you to more effectively read consumer behaviour. We then moved onto how to utilise the knowledge gained from understanding consumer behaviour to measuring and optimising campaign performance in a cross channel environment. A key takeaway form this workshop was that “generating insights by combining data the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.

Sadly due to other commitments I could not make the morning session of day two of the conference. However the afternoon sessions were both eye opening and also helped to reinforce previous and new learning’s. Session five focused on rethinking email marketing in the age of social media. Question to consider included “How do people feel when you send them email?” A welcome message is usually the most read email and it is generally down hill from there. The key takeaway from this session was that yes whilst it has to be easy for potential users to subscribe you have to make it even easier to unsubscribe from your email list.

Session six was a case study provided by Luke Bevans Marketing Director at UMG Australia. The key focus was on CRM and how do we in the music industry compete with free? Throughout the case studies provided delegates learnt how they could build customer relationships through social channels and how that could be a positive for the companies bottom line. Whilst UMG were coy about their cost of acquisition per new customer using digital channels the presentation was enlightening and demonstrated that the music business is finally getting digital! Well Universal Music anyway…

Michael Eva, Digital Content Director at Austereo, provided the final case study of the conference. Austereo is Australia’s largest commercial radio and entertainment brand. They key area of interest was the concept of the user-generated radio stations that Austereo had created where the audience created the content. Michael demonstrated whom Austereo utilised technologies including augmented reality, apps web and IPTV to deliver a cohesive content strategy for multi-platform including traditional media, online, mobile and social.

Overall, this was a dynamic event that actually provided value to delegates and I’m sure will enable them to deliver better ROI for their company’s digital campaigns in the future.

Related posts:

1. Event Report: Digital Content Monetisation 2011 – Day 1
2. Event Report: Digital Content Monetisation 2011 – Day 2
3. EVENT REPORT: Dungog Film Festival 2011
4. Event Report: Digital Content Monetization (Part I)
5. Event Report: Music Futures Session1

Posted by Jakomi Mathews on Jun 14 2011. Filed under featured, Industry Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.