5 Take Aways from the ANA's 2010 Masters of Marketing Conference

Last year, I had the pleasure of attending my first Masters of Marketing event in Phoenix, AZ (recap here). The thing that blew me away at that event and convinced me not only to come back, but also to sponsor this year, was the amount of talent amassed in one place at one time. Unlike many other conferences, the speakers all stick around and network... for three days. This leads to unprecedented access to people like:

• Mark Baynes - CMO, Kellogg Company
  
• Marc Pritchard - CMO, Procter and Gamble
  
• Erin Nelson - CMO, Dell Inc.
• Keith Pardy - CMO, Research in Motion
• Ralph Santana - CMO, Samsung Electronics NA
• Jim Speros - CMO, Fidelity Investments
• Joseph Tripodi - CMO, Coca-Cola Company
• Ted Ward - CMO, Geico Auto Insurance
• Mary Beth West - CMO, Kraft Foods
• Michael Francis - CMO, Target Corporation
  

What's amazing is that the ten CMOs I've listed above only represent about 1% of the senior marketers attending the event. Given the talent and experience the Masters of Marketing event attracts, you can only imagine the quality of the 3-day marketing "MBA" you receive after attending. And that's assuming you only make it to 50% of the sessions. Even more impressive is that many of the marketers seemed to be singing off the same song sheet. To that end, here are my five key takeaways from this year's event:

Top Take Aways

1. Companies are getting back to basics when it comes to defining what their brand stands for. Several speakers talked about the importance of a brand having purpose and there seems to be a greater awareness of a need for the brand to be better connected with its customers.
2. While the topic of social media came up in almost every presentation, it's still not a top priority for most brands. What is encouraging is that if social wasn't on last year's CMO's "must do" list, it definitely is this year, even if it's priority number 8, 9 or 10.
3. As a follow up to point number two, most marketers are at least "social curious." As someone that lives and breathes social media, I had at least a dozen very interesting conversations with marketers who wanted to know more about things like Twitter, location-based marketing and developing a social strategy.
4. While many of the presenters included clips of their 30 second spots, it felt more integrated versus "showcased" in comparison to last year's event. In fact, Coca Cola CMO, Joe Tripodi, only showed video clips from Youtube and customer research projects. By the way, with the exception of Seth Greenberg of Intuit, Joe seemed to be the most socially savvy CMO of the bunch.
5. The uptick in the economy this year was reflected in the event itself. First and foremost, there were easily 50% more attendees this year. Also, the quality of the receptions and entertainment were ratcheted up a notch or three. To me, that's a good sign that marketers are feeling comfortable (or at least cautiously optimistic) about spending again.

Another thing I included in last year's wrap up post were some of my favorite tweets from the event (many were quotes from the speakers). You can see all the tweets from the event that were tagged with #ANAMarketers but once again, I've selected my top ten (in no particular order) out of the hundreds for your viewing pleasure:

• @ANAmarketers: Friend casting on Facebook has no media cost. Friend casting was 4 more times more effective then a banner ad for #Intuit #ANAmarketers
• @StepByStepMktng: AmEx CMO John Hayes: build a narrative around the WHY of what you do inside and outside the company. #ANAMarketers
• @betterads: #ANAmarketers: @Starcom Laura Desmond - "Paid Media gets the party started, Owned & Earned keeps it going all night long"
  
• @ANAmarketers:Very cool: #Target’s take over of the Standard Hotel in NYC http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ_v_WrahrM #ANAmarketers
  
• @WellsMelanie: Social media can do a lot--but it can't solve brand problems, say top marketers. #ANAmarketers http://bit.ly/dtylTj
  
• @lisarosenberg: Univision's Graciela Eleta: There is no average American. 46% of all people under 18 are minorities. #ANAmarketers #PNID
  
• @cindygallop1: All CMOs speaking @ #ANAMarketers showing work - PLEASE give your agency shout-out by name. Best new biz opportunity they will have all year
  
• @StepByStepMktng: Dell CMO Karen Quintos: we love data. We measure everything. we're mining through data all the time. #ANAMarketers
  
• @aaronstrout: Laura Desmond also talks about curation, content, conversation. Did she read @JaffeJuice's #FliptheFunnel book last night? #ANAMarketers
  
• @maryleesachs: Joe Tripodi of Coke talks about moving from measuring impressions to expressions, from loyalty to advocacy. Makes sense. #anamarketers
  

Oh, and while this isn't really of value to anyone but me, my response on Twitter from the lovely and talented, Leann Rimes, was hands down my favorite tweet during the event. In fact, I did a quick podcast a couple of days later on what brands could learn from how Leann engages with her customers (and prospective customers like me).

• @leannrimes: @AaronStrout thx! It was fun!!!!

All in all, this conference felt like a big success. As I mentioned earlier, my company, Powered, was a sponsor and our goal was to meet some smart people, create some additional brand awareness, demonstrate our thought leadership (we gave out copies of colleague, Joseph Jaffe's latest book, Flip the Funnel, to 500 of the ANA's members) and managed to collect a few business cards in the process. While sponsorship wasn't inexpensive, I would definitely do it all over again if I had to sign on the dotted line today.

As an added bonus, there were some great performers at the event including the Goo Goo Dolls (remember them)? If you liked the song Name, here is a live recording (thank you iPhone 4) of the performance. I have to say, the sound quality is actually pretty good.