Hey everyone! As a self-proclaimed ad-geek, I love getting as much info about advertising as I can. Luckily for me (and all my peers), COM hosts a number of awesome events and speakers throughout the year, and there’s another one coming up tonight!
At 5 p.m. tonight, Mike Schneider, the SVP and Director of the Digital Incubator at a&g, will be giving a talk titled: The Role of Authentic Content in Modern Branding. While at first glance, that may seem like an awful lot of buzzwords, I can assure you that there is substance to back them up!
You see, I got the chance to hear Mike Schneider (or @SchneiderMike, as the Twitterverse knows him), last year at a panel COM hosted on how companies and agencies going beyond the basics of social media and use it to effectively access and communicate with their target communities. Pretty cool, eh? Like I said: ad-geek.
Anyways, I was blown away by Mike’s breadth of knowledge and comfort with public speaking. He was quick, personable, incredibly sharp, and best of all, witty. Not only did he teach the audience some valuable lessons, but he kept them entertained while doing it (largely as a result of his banter with fellow panelist and COM professor Edward Boches). After hearing him talk, I certainly felt more informed about how I could more strategically implement a social media plan if I were thrust into that role at an agency.
Tomorrow he will speak again on the topic of content branding; a recent trend where advertisers and agencies create real content that expands or shapes a brand’s image, rather than simply trying to sell it to a target market. Agencies and clients are rapidly seeing more value in this kind of content, as it provides content consumers actually want to engage with for its own sake, while simultaneously giving the brand exposure. A great example is this Mini Cooper campaign launched by DDB Paris that featured a game based on Google Maps http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uveD0Z3lIWo.
Opportunities like these are just one more of the many reasons I love COM. Make sure you take advantage of them! They are informative and helpful for career development, as well as quite entertaining.
And the best part? They’re almost always free.
Until next time,
Jon
Link to the Event: http://schneidermike.eventbrite.com/