Now that the sun has set on one of digital advertising industry’s favorite trade shows, Dmexco, Jennifer Shambroom, CMO, YouAppi reveals what key trends and insights she unearthed at the event.
It’s without a doubt that dmexco is still the premier exhibition for brands, agencies and technology providers in Europe with significant representation from other countries, primarily the US.
Even with Mobile World Congress Americas happening in San Francisco, during the same dates, and the launch of the new iPhone and Apple Watch the day before the show, there was still a significant number of qualified attendees at the show – making it worth the marketing investment for us.
This year there was a fresh new perspective with café’s and live gardens throughout the show. Attendees were hosted in stands that featured walls covered in plants, meeting spaces in living rooms, outdoor amphitheatres, garden patios, café’s and restaurants. The emphasis was on what is new and fresh.
The theme of dmexco was all things digital. You don’t need to say ‘mobile’ any longer because it’s all synonymous. The new reality is that mobile needs to be the primary focus of your business, or it will die.
Across both sides of the technology, consumers demand a relevant, immediate and engaging user experience on mobile. Alternatively, brands, vendors, and agencies need to deliver to keep consumers engaged.
These are the core areas of focus where I saw brands and vendors focus their investment at dmexco:
User Experience
Brands were showcasing the latest technology through engaging user experiences. Bing showcased facial recognition technology, Google showcased YouTube, search, VR room, and its fresh new mobile experience. Spotify featured data it is seeing around consumer’s listening habits with the walls adorned with interesting stats on behaviors and patterns of fitness fanatics, mums, dads, millennials and so on. The investment this year was to offer guests a full café experience at their stands making them feel at home
and at ease.
Commerce
Vendors were featuring new and innovative ways to make the purchase process as seamless as possible. Why? Because in the always-on, on-demand world payments need to be seamless, immediate and painless.
Engagement
Across the board brands, agencies and vendors were demonstrating how to engage consumers by leveraging new and innovative technologies. Stands were featuring ways for users to interact with their technology in the stand across VR, AR, facial recognition,
personalisation, etc.
Personalisation
The latest trend is to allow attendees to create personal items on site. A number of companies, Oath and Selligent, for example, were hosting silk screening stations for you to create a one of a kind item on site whether it was a bag, pillow or t-shirt.
It’s not just about giving away swag that goes into the landfill, but providing a rich experience that showcases how much the brand focuses on creating personalised experiences for consumers.
Monetisation
Many vendors were showcasing new methods for monetisation in apps through personalised mobile ads. This was cementing the fact that this strategy needs to be part of the user experience, not just banners.
I left the show with new insights and ideas around the digiconomy. Living and breathing the digital world can take a toll on abilities to actually take in the world around us. As a result brands have to come up with increasingly innovative and truly engaging ways to communicate with their target audiences and cut through the noise. For me, the show brought a fresh new perspective on digital and has continued to show the industry how to stay innovative in the ever-changing tech landscape.
