American advertisers take on digital and social media

In July, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) held the sixth edition of its annual ANA Digital & Social Media Conference in Colorado Springs, USA.

The three-day event brought together top client-side digital marketing professionals and key industry experts to discuss topics such as social media, e-commerce, native advertising, content marketing, measurement, agency management, and internal organisational structure.

For the opening of the conference, Bob Liodice, President and CEO at the ANA, touched on media's "Big Four" concerns: ad blocking, ad fraud, media transparency and viewability/measurement.

Liodice and Bill Dugan, the association's Group Executive Vice President, also presented the key findings and action steps from the K2 Media Transparency investigation. "Media transparency is not only a U.S. issue but a Global issue ... Marketers need to work hard to understand their contracts and relationships with agencies", Liodice said.

Shiv Singh, SVP & Global Head of Digital and Marketing Transformation at Visa gave a thought-provoking presentation on driving growth through digital innovation and partnerships. Comparing brand-consumer relationships in 1995 and 2016, he noted that "brands need to rebuild trust with consumers in fresh ways ... Consumers love fewer brands, and reject or merely accept more than they used to."

On driving digital innovation, he suggested the following steps:

1. Fight to be a loved brand %u2013 at the master and product brand level.
2. Focus on driving meaningful innovation for your consumers, invest in product.
3. Recognise that your brand will be made through a 'conversational interface'.

Other high-level speakers include Gloria DeCoste, Head of Digital Strategy at Nestlé who gave a presentation on making mobile work for the brand, Kenny Mitchell, Head of Consumer Engagement at Gatorade on how the brand connects with athletes through digital and social innovation, and William White, VP Marketing at Target on how the brand approaches branding in the digital age, to name a few. Michael Donnelly, SVP Global Digital Marketing at MasterCard, played host for the conference.

You can watch the speaker presentations here.

For more information, visit the event page or contact the ANA.