The Future is Bright - The Art of Marketing Conference Toronto

Mark your calendars for Tuesday March 2nd, 2010 for The Art of Marketing Conference at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. This is will be one of the events that will be both informative and inspiring.


This exciting one day conference will feature six internationally renowned bestselling authors and leaders who will share an exciting blend of cutting edge thinking and real world experience on today's most critical marketing issues.
No question the biggest topic on every marketing communication practitioners mind is how to get a clearer understanding of how the marketing world has changed, what role communication now plays in the buying decision and the impact on the business bottom line and ultimately how the consumer views, interacts and positions a brand in a very crowded and over saturated marketplace. Cutting through the clutter has always been critical, but now consumers have a bigger say in the success and more often the failure of a strategy.


The Art of Marketing event has a stellar group of speakers on tap. Best selling authors and industry influencers include Seth Godin on Leadership & Creativity, Dan Heath on Strategy & Communications, Mitch Joel on Digital Marketing & Social Media, Max Lenderman on Branding & Experiential Marketing, James Othmer on Advertising & Branding and the brilliant career and strategist Sally Hogshead on Persuasion & Influence. 

The day will kick-off with Mitch Joel the President of Twist Image, one of Canada’s best Digital Marketing and Communications agency. When Google wanted to explain online marketing to the top brands in the world, they brought Mitch Joel to the Googleplex. Marketing Magazine dubbed him the "Rock Star of Digital Marketing" and called him, "one of North America's leading digital visionaries."

He is has been named one of the most influential authorities on Blog Marketing in the world. He is also a Blogger, Podcaster, passionate entrepreneur and speaker who connects with people worldwide by sharing his marketing insights on digital marketing and personal branding.

Currently Mitch has 14,320 followers on Twitter where he shares endless amounts of information. Mitch is without a doubt one of Canada's most influential contributors in Social Media.

Seth Godin was called by Business Week the "World’s Foremost Marketing Guru" and “Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age,” Seth is a best-selling author, entrepreneur and agent of change and draws upon his best-selling books and years of being a marketing pioneer to bring audiences of all kinds to their feet.

He will address the topic of "Leadership and Creativity", he focuses on the creative thinking necessary for a business to create a “purple cow”—an offering that stands out from the crowd and causes customers to take notice. Using real-world examples from extremely successful companies, his lectures reveal the benefits of using creative, remarkable thinking to transform business ideas and practices. In his book "Purple Cow" Seth explored how ideas spread, why the stories companies tell matter, why treating customers with respect pays off and how these and other business decisions determine whether your business becomes invisible or remarkable. Today Seth pursues his work as a change agent full time.

Sally Hogshead has it. Her message is very new and constantly timely. Business has changed, the world has changed, and Sally shows audiences how to stay ahead. She is about release on February 9th her newest book "Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation". She is also the author of "Radical Careering - 100 Truths to Jumpstart Your Job, Career and Your Life." I have personally found great inspiration and assistance in my teaching my "career" planning classes in Sally through her blog and following her on Facebook and Twitter.

Her story is very unique, In her second year in advertising, Sally won more awards than any other copywriter in the U.S., and was called “the most successful junior copywriter of all time.” At age 27 she founded the West Coast office of Crispin Porter + Bogusky in the dual role of creative director/managing director. Her work has collected hundreds of honors, and been invited into showcases ranging from “Best Ads on TV” to The Smithsonian Museum of American History. In addition she was part of the team that won the $100,000 Grand Kelly prize for MINI Cooper.

Sally will deliver her unique style that has made her a fascinating speaker that electrifies audiences. Nine seconds. That’s the length of the average attention span today. Just nine seconds! People become distracted by the next product, the next ad, the next option. How can you possibly hold your customers’ interest long enough shape their opinion? She will share her thoughts and give answers on how can you break through the clutter to nail your next sales call, or motivate your internal team? For that matter, how can you influence any decisions?

James Othmer is the author of Adland: Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet, and The Futurist  but has pent his professional career at the intersection of art and commerce, old and new media. As a creative director at Young & Rubicam Advertising in New York, this 20-year agency veteran created brand narratives and award-winning commercials for some of the world’s most powerful corporations, including Citi, AT&T, Dannon and Colgate. This experience has provided him with the opportunity to travel the world and meet some of the world’s most interesting and innovative people, from artists and musicians to four-star generals, web designers, CEOs of Fortune 500 Companies and yes, even comedian Carrot Top. His blog "AdLand" has been noted as "Picks up where 'Mad Men' leaves off" by Fortune magazine

His acclaimed first novel The Futurist. The Washington Post wrote, “If Othmer is spilling this many insider secrets, The Powers That Be must want him to – or he’s a dead man. The Futurist was published as a short story in The Virginia Quarterly Review and was a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Fiction.” His latest, the non-fiction title Adland: Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet, takes a clear-eyed look at the past present and future of branding. Adland was named a Best Business Book of 2009 by Fast Company Magazine and was on the list of Hudson Booksellers "Best Book of the Year".

Max Lenderman in addition to be an outstanding writer and author, most notably "Brand New World: How Pauoers, Pirates and Oligarchs are Reshaping Business" Max is serves as Executive Creative Director at GMR Marketing. GMR is the largest experiential marketing company in North America, where his work has won numerous industry recognitions, the latest including the 2009 Effie Award and the 2007, 2008 and 2009 Ex Awards. He previously founded and ran Gearwerx Experiential Marketing, Canada’s premiere experiential marketing agency, with offices in Montreal and Toronto. In addition, Lenderman is a founding board member of the International Experiential Marketing Association (IXMA)

Lenderman’s breakthrough publication, Experience the Message: How Experiential Marketing is Changing the Brand World, was a Business Book of the Year Finalist in 2006. It was his latest book, Brand New World that caught my eye this past summer and I share as a visionary "must read" for my students in terms groundbreaking marketing strategies and the new business models.
He has been interviewed by dozens of news agencies on the branding, communication and strategic subjects, including The National Post, The Montreal Gazette, The Globe and Mail, Report on BusinessTV, CTV, NOW Maagzine, The Hour, Marketing Magazine, Profit Magazine, CBC Radio: The Sunday Edition, and is a former columnist for Strategy Magazine.

Wrapping up the day is Dan Heath is the co-author, along with his brother Chip, of the book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Made to Stick was a Business Week and New York Times bestseller, and it has been translated into 23 languages. Amazon readers voted it one of the top 100 books of 2007, and Amazon editors named it the #2 business book of the year.

Dan co-authors a monthly column for Fast Company magazine and serves as a Consultant to the Policy Programs at the Aspen Institute. He has taught and consulted on the topic of "making ideas stick" with organizations such as Microsoft, Macy's, Nestle, and the American Heart Association. Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, Dan conducted research and wrote case studies for Harvard Business School, and more recently, he worked and taught in the executive education division of Duke University. Dan is also the co-founder of a start-up textbook publishing company in Austin, TX, called Thinkwell —Thinkwell will celebrate its 10th anniversary this fall.

The good people at The Art Of Marketing wanted to make a special offer to those of you who are connected here in this community, so here's the deal: if you sign up to attend The Art Of Marketing  using this link you will get the special rate of $349 per person. Please use the promo code: RK28. Tickets will likely go quickly, there are  two types of tickets available general admission seating which includes the full day conference and speakers fro $399.00 plus taxes. There is also VIP package that will include seating in the first 5 rows, lunch and copies of books from select speakers, this package is $499.00. The promo code will discount both packages.

I have no idea how the producers of this event can pull off a show like this with such a high-calibre list of speakers for only $349 a ticket (Canadian, no less), but that's your gain as you can easily see this truly a stellar group of speakers coming to Toronto.

The Art of Marketing - Toronto Tuesday March 02 from 9:00am to 5:00pm
Metro Toronto Convention Centre
255 Front Street West Toronto, Ontario
https://www.theartofmarketing.ca/register

Ahhhhh... The Summer MUST Reads from The AdGuy

What I love about the summer is the time I get away from the daily grind, not that I am ever faced with a "grind"... but I get the "ME" time I miss.

"ME" time usually consists of me spending a little more time with two sons and my wonderful wife, who still lets me be a big kid and get away with more then anybody should be able to. No I won't give details, but she will be considered for sainthood.

Reading is a must for anyone who has the dream or desire of working in this crazy business and this summer my "ME" time has been occupied with reading six (6) new books, but two of these titles have been nothing short of "outstanding" reads and will likely have a massive influence on what I will bring to mine and other program class lectures this fall.

My thoughts are not really reviews in as much points of interest that make both titles "MUST" for all students of advertising and those are running the wheels of communication who better catch-up quick.

BRAND NEW WORD by Max Lenderman

We live in a "brand" new world, where marketing is taking on incredible new forms. I simply reflect upon my 30 years off roaming around the "AdWorld" and I am amazed at the change.

To reach a "million" viewers for a specific spot you spent millions on placement.... today those millions can be reached in seconds and at the fraction of the cost, plus if you have something that's unique then those millions will get your message out even more people. That's what makes this book such a great read.

How is this business changing, and how do you need to adapt to that change? It's not a guide. It might be having you asking more questions then it will ever provide the answers. "Brand New World" looks at branding in a globalized world and where the next hot brands might originate from.

Drawing from over two years of extensive travel and research, award-inning creative director Max Lenderman has created an unique and easy read about groundbreaking marketing strategies and business models that every "adlander" or CMO needs to become familiar with or get left behind.

And this is especially true in the hyper-developing "BRIC" countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China. There has been unimaginable economic growth in these nations and this is revolutionizing marketing across the planet.

Max Lenderman is Executive Creative Director at GMR Marketing LLC. His clients include ING Direct, McDonald’s, Pepsi and VISA. A founding member of the International Experiential Marketing Association and this is his second business book. His first, "Experience The Message", was excellent (NOTE: it was shortlisted for the 2006 Canadian Business Book of the Year).

To review a some pages and samples of the book go to HarperCollins.

You can follow and learn more about Max Lenderman at experiencethemessage.com.


Free: The Future Of A Radical Price by Chris Anderson


Chris Anderson is a guru of the information age. At least that what ever Google hit explained.

He served as editor of, Wired, the voice of the digital world. Mr. Anderson has written about how digital technology and how it has made the world a better place.

Free is another examination of how digital technology is changing life and business, through the spread of what the book's subtitle describes as "a radical price" - zero.

Businesses based on offering free stuff aren't new - broadcast television and radio, for instance, entertain viewers and listeners for free in return for their attention - but there's certainly more free stuff around than there used to be.

“Free” stuff is spreading because of one fundamental difference between the bricks-and-mortar world (which Anderson calls the world of atoms) and the digital world (which Anderson calls the world of bits). In the world of atoms, each item is expensive to produce and distribute; in the world of bits, it costs close to nothing. This has all sorts of consequences.

Pricing models become more and more variable as the world has become increasingly digital. Copying costs almost nothing, so piracy mushrooms. People can create stories, songs and movies and distribute them to other people, gratis. The collapsing costs of production and distribution are both benefiting consumers and killing companies. Take Wikipedia, for instance, it offers the world, the universe and everything in detail to anybody with an internet connection, while destroying the encyclopedia business.

File-sharing has brought costless pleasure to millions while threatening the existence of record companies. Piracy has introduced millions of Chinese to the joys of Hollywood films while making it virtually impossible to sell music, software or recorded music in the country.

The costs associated with the growing online economy are trending toward zero at an incredible rate.

Never in the course of human history have the primary inputs to an industrial economy fallen in price so fast and for so long. Just think that in 1961, a single transistor cost $10; now Intel's latest chip has two billion transistors and sells for $300 (or 0.000015 cents per transistor--effectively too cheap to price). The traditional economics of scarcity just don't apply to bandwidth, processing power, and hard-drive storage.Ahhhhhh... The summer read, I have a few short weeks left before it's back to the pulpit (grind).

"Free", goes beyond a marketing gimmick or a cross-subsidy. Mr. Anderson also points to the growth of the reputation economy; explains different models for unleashing the power of "Free" and shows how to compete when your competitors are giving away what you're trying to sell.

Once again it's not a guide, simply a "you need to know before it's too late".

As I make my way through "Free", I find myself wondering where will the high cost of post secondary education fit into this future. Yes, I am a little frightened to Google "Free Creative Advertising Education". Then again...