Norwegians tackle ad industry delusions

Over 450 Norwegian industry leaders gathered in Oslo for the annual ADTECH: Programmatisk conference organised by the Norwegian Association of Advertisers (ANFO).

The programmatic event is part of ANFO’s umbrella concept “Adtech”. Launched four years ago, the initiative is designed to help brand owners and the industry at large to understand programmatic buying and keep on top of recent developments.



Bob Hoffman (“The Ad Contrarian”) headlined the event with a presentation on how marketers have lost touch with consumers. He addressed three advertising delusions:

• The digital delusion: over-exaggeration of the importance of digital and the belief that people want to engage with brands online


• The brand delusion: the belief that people care about brands, especially on social media


• The age delusion or “marketing with a selfie stick”: being too concerned with grabbing young people's attention and ignoring the over 50s.

This year’s speaker line-up also featured digital and programmatic experts from Norway and beyond. Speakers included Thomas Wrobel, Head of Americas at Trivago, who shared insights on the brand’s “do’s and don’ts” for programmatic advertising and Johnnny Ryan, Chief Policy and Industry Relations Officer at Brave Software, who talked about the current challenges in the ad tech space including issues around net neutrality and GDPR. He emphasised that digital platforms and ad tech companies still have a long way to go before they are fully compliant with EU data protection rules.

Senior leaders from Zenith, Adform, AppNexus and Storebrand also debated on the pros and cons of in-house programmatic.

For more information, please contact ANFO.