What I learned from Dmexco - Isobar global CEO Mark Cranmer
When I told some friends in the industry (I still have a couple) that I was doing a conference gig at Dmexco they said: ”Blimey, that’s a long way to go to do a conference slot. Why did you agree to do that? Can’t you get someone from the Americas to do it?”
Mark Cranmer
Now my friends aren’t stupid (neither of them) but it did remind me of how many Brits have a narrow depth of field of what is going on in Europe. Out West has always attracted us. Far East always intrigued us. But over there is often overlooked.
And so to Dmexco in Cologne, Germany. The Digital Marketing Exposition and Conference. It’s a big deal. It’s in its fifth year. It has 700+ exhibitors, over nine massive exhibition halls. Running simultaneously, it has a heavyweight conference (around 50 per cent in English) spread over two days. What’s more remarkable is that it’s all entirely free to attend.
At any level, Dmexco is impressive. It’s well organised. Numerous companies exhibit: all the usual big US suspects were there, so too were Yandex from Russia and Baidu from China. Yep, those fellas are different and they aren’t rolling over anytime soon.
The Dmexco ‘festival’ has a rich variety of conference subjects taking place in various locations at the expo and if our panel was anything to go by, the audience attends well and is generous in spirit. So there’s lots to learn if you go. I also think there’s lots to learn for any of us who care about the future of our industry and want to shape what ‘digital marketing’ evolves into.
It’s a real life, real-time encapsulation of our evolving marketplace. Increasingly, a market without borders with clients hungry to join in and understand more. And why are the big brands all there? Because among the 25,000 delegates there are lots of clients from all over the market of ‘Europe’. I spoke to a couple of agency guys who have been exhibiting for five years and they say more and more of the delegates are clients wanting to understand the digital marketing environment across the continent so they know what to do next.
So I tried to put myself in the head of a client marketer and had a look around the monster halls at the multitude of exhibitors. A clear picture soon hit me.
Everywhere you looked there were multiple options to measure, analyse, convert and report. The halls were abounding with “rich relevance”, “beyond adverifications”, “uncommon sense of consumers” there was even an opportunity to be “engineered by crealytics”. This made me feel quite queasy as a thought (until I saw the Adpolice stand, which had some deliberately uniformed ladies that brought my thinking back to a human interactive level).
I’m all for the power of performance and accountability in digital marketing but seeing the current data zeitgeist up close in Cologne it made me feel we need to rebalance our own interpretation of what is really possible in today’s era. We need to ensure we don’t lose the focus on captivating content and experiences, know what I mean?
So I came away from Dmexco impressed and excited by its power and indeed potential. I think the UK needs a stronger representation there. Dmexco has a bold and broad vision. It’s welcoming to all and I think it’s still rich in opportunity for us to shape the future for the digital marketing in more engaging human terms.
See you there?
Mark Cranmer is the London-based global CEO of Isobar