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Interact Congress 2010 & MIXX Europe Awards

    

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For presentations from Interact Congress 2010 in Barcelona, please go to the Knowledge Bank. 

La Llotja in Barcelona was erected in the 14th Century as a commodity exchange and it was one of the first trading houses in Spain. Foreign merchants, local traders and officials carried out their transactions in the large Gothic hall, and it is fitting that it will be the venue for Interact 2010 - a 21st Century meeting of Europe's online community.

In 2009 over senior 300 executives converged on Brussels to take part in Interact 2009. The event included powerful panel debates with some of the industry’s leading practitioners, thought-provoking viewpoints from major players, and exclusive research projects. The fourth edition of our Interact Congress in Barcelona will again deliver a high level of content under the 2010 theme of Online Brand Advertising.

We will also be launching our first MIXX Europe Awards on the evening of June 3rd, the finale of Interact. An international jury of creative thinkers will decide on the best of the best in digital creativity in Europe. Alongside the MIXX Awards, we will also publish Europe's first agency ranking project.

Find further information to the Interact website

UNDERSTANDING THE AUDIENCE UNLOCKS THE POTENTIAL FOR BRANDING ONLINE

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Tom Bowman, Vice President of Strategy & Operations for Global Advertising Sales at BBC Worldwide spoke to us about his views on online brand advertising. He'll be sharing them on the first panel on the main conference day, Thursday 3rd June in Barcelona. Entitled 'Opportunities and Challenges for Online Branding' and moderated by Guy Phillipson, CEO IAK UK, it is set to be a lively discussion.

Tom is a renowned digital advertising specialist, having worked for some of the biggest names in the industry over the last 12 years including MSN and Yahoo! He was one of the founding members of IAB UK when internet had a capital 'I' and there were 'digital' departments in every company. At BBC Worldwide he leads the team that advises internal clients and stakeholders on ad sales strategy across all platforms.

Branding online - the same basic tenets of marketing communications apply
Tom believes that it is crucial to create the right environment for online branding campaigns to be successful. Branding is a continuous task for marketers and the basic principles of marketing apply to campaigns online as well as offline. The brand manager of a sophisticated luxury brand for example will be looking to communicate that message online - and publishers need to be aware of this. Some websites still don't understand this and clutter their sites - big turn offs for advertisers and users alike.

Ask the audience

Publishers like BBC Worldwide are in the business of selling audience and, in order to do this effectively, they need to understand attitudes to different devices (mobile, PC, games console) and then craft the message to win attention. So Tom believes that successful online brand campaigns, as in every other medium, rely on understanding the audience and matching the advertiser, the brand and the message to it.

Behavioural targeting - Beautiful for Branding
Tom believes there's a strong future for behavioural and contextual targeting in this world and that is good for brands online. Combined with a deep understanding of your audience, behavioural targeting is the "super charger" to any online brand campaign. In fact, he concludes "It's beautiful for branding."

See you at Interact 2010 in Barcelona on the 2nd-3rd June 2010!