A Conference That Hopes to Make Headlines

Conferences rarely break news. If they’re lucky, some lovably wacky exec will pull a zany antic or two, earning the meeting a headline. (Twitter’s Adam Bain pulled out a megaphone!) With its 2011 MIXX Conference, the Interactive Advertising Bureau hopes to change that pattern.

During the sold-out two-day conference at the Crowne Plaza Times Square, presenters will unload new—and, they hope newsworthy—studies, surveys, and data. The five reports follow the conference’s theme of “Building a Narrative,” a traditional marketing technique that has been disrupted by digital, according to Randall Rothenberg, IAB’s president and CEO. “Marketers no longer create campaigns, but need to create stories that resonate with their consumers, which those consumers will pick up and socialize themselves,” he told Adweek.

To that end, Buddy Media and Booz & Co. will present results of a study on the new campaign model for advertisers who spend increasingly large chunks of change on digital. Amazon and Nielsen will address the “scientific art” of telling the right story (different, apparently, from having the right message). BBDO and Yahoo will explore storytelling expectations (keep them high!). Time Inc. and Innerscope measure consumers’ conscious and unconscious reactions to media engagement, and comScore looks at mobile ads and “holistic measurement.”

Digital dataphiles, are you drooling yet? Here’s something to hold you over: Last week IAB released some data of its own [1]. In the first half of 2011, digital ad revenues increased by a blockbuster 23 percent to $14.9 billion. The growth rate handily topped every other category, including cable TV and spot TV. For interactive ad execs, that’s news worthy of a megaphone.