Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
Kudos go out to Barry Frey, president and CEO of the Digital Place-based Advertising Association, and his team for the best #VideoEverywhere Summit event I have attended – and I’ve attended all over recent years.
Barry Frey
New York Digital Signage Week’s Tuesday started with a bang as two of the most interesting speakers I’ve heard in a long time: Lori Hiltz, CEO of Havas Media, and Rishad Tobaccowala, chief strategist of Publicis Groupe, spoke individually and then were on stage together with lots of strong statements – we’ll write more about their pronouncements in the future, but suffice to say that people were hanging on to every word, Ed.
The same goes for David Sable, global CEO at Young & Rubicam, who gave the keynote address. With so many of the close-to-800 delegates in the room from ad agencies, the crowd was listening intensely.
In fact, all speakers were good. Only one went on a bit too long. And since we don’t like panels in general, ! was a little disappointed that there were several under the guise of novel programming. The ‘shark tank’ would have been more interesting with four shorter presentations rather than two long ones and punchier questions The idea was good but perhaps needs a bit of the rethink for the next time. But we are nitpicking.
I loved the fact (Frey obviously used his connections in the TV broadcast sector) of the short videos from the main broadcasters – including one with the ladies from ‘The View’ – to promote the Summit. They broke up the speeches nicely. I also liked the fact that Frei moved into the audience on several occasions to speak to individuals who had informative news or views on particular subjects. It kept things moving along at a nice pace.
And nobody could have topped former ad woman, the 83-year-old Jane Maas and her descriptions of liquor, smoking and sex, sex and more sex in ad agencies of the 1960s. She had everyone in the room laughing and certainly deserved her standing ovation.
So, again, kudos, Mr. Frey, for a good day. You’ll have to work hard in 2016 to top this year’s event.
November 5th, 2015 at 13:31 @605
Barry reprised his remarks Wednesday by using the Q&A periods during the DailyDOOH Investor Conference to pontificate talking points from his pitch without actually asking a question. It was annoying and inappropriate.