VivaKi & VivaKi Nerve Center

VivaKi and AOL “Tech-tails” at CES 2012. AOL Blog 

Forget Cannes: CES is the Place to Be and Be Seen. Ad Age

CES 2012: The world of TV is an exciting one! Newsline

Three Arrivals at VivaKi. AdMedia

VivaKi strikes exclusive deal for Xbox entertainment apps. MediaWeek UK

VivaKi Nerve Center hires Smith as head of activation. Brand Republic

Agencies, Publishers Evaluating Tablet Models. Beet.TV

Online Video Format ASq Logs More than 400 Million Impressions, 85% Completion Rates. Beet.TV

Curt Hecht, Tobin Ireland and Joe Kennedy Elected to the Mobile Marketing Association. PR Newswire

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This week social media marketers around the world are taking part in Social Media Week 2012. And VivaKi’s social media leaders are no exception. Those in NY have a multitude of options from VivaKi agencies Digitas and Big Fuel.

Acting as a Global Hub, Big Fuel is hosting a series of speakers at the Nokia stage, numerous interactive installations, a blogger/press lounge and a number of unique social events throughout the week. They are also hosting daily panels on a series of key areas for social media marketers. The full schedule of events is available here.

Meanwhile, Digitas is also hosting a number of events at their NY office as well as live tweeting and live blogging. Don’t miss any of their events (or impressive line of panelists.) Get the full line up here.

Meanwhile in San Francisco, Razorfish is hosting the Social Media Analytics & Technology Hub. This all-day event will explore current and emerging trends in data-driven social media programs. Panelists for the day include Rod Smith, VP Emerging Technologies and Fellow at IBM and Jason Tester, Research Director at The Institute for the Future. Check out all their events here.

Registration to Social Media Week events is free while space lasts.

This is the final part of our five part series of the major trends VivaKi leaders see for 2012. Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, or Part 4. For the remaining trends, please continue to visit VivaKi.com or stay up to date via Facebook or Twitter.

Cisco estimates that there will be 15 billion connected devices by 2015… and each device creating mountains of data that we are now able to collect. All this information is leading many, including our Moxie Interactive, to call this the “year of big data” in which marketers will use huge nationwide customer data to drive the quality of service and information down to the local level. These are lofty goals that hinge on the important ability to not only amass this data, but to be able to extract meaningful and actionable insights from it.

Chief Social Media Officer Michael Wiley believes that three key shifts need to occur in order to deal with the data influx:

“First, we need to hire “quants” — mathematicians and statisticians who can analyze both structured and unstructured data. Secondly, we need to continue to seek partnerships with the leading and emerging data analytics systems and services providers. Finally, we need to begin to learn from and leverage proven data-mining and analytic techniques from financial services and life sciences disciplines.”

Data management technology (DMP) is a first step in harnessing data to uncover insights and will be a powerful tool for agencies and brands looking to get smarter about how they target consumers. DMP will “transform much of the way brands look at their current audience models,” according to Mac Delaney, VP of Brand Relations for the Nerve Center’s Audience on Demand. “Though still in its early stages, DMP yields more value in audience identification and discovery for marketers than the opening of exchanges and the DSP evolution.”
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This is part four of a five part series of the major trends VivaKi leaders see for 2012. Read Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3. For the remaining trends, please continue to visit VivaKi.com or stay up to date via Facebook or Twitter.

Every year – for seemingly the past five years – has been dubbed the “Year of Mobile.” But what we’re seeing now is not the importance of the smartphone alone. Instead mobility is making our physical location and real (i.e. analog) places more important because, as Chief Strategy Officer Rishad Tobaccowala, points out “we now can go where we want and bring our technology assistants with us.”

The rise of the always-on, always-available Internet is making location planning and knowledge even more important. As consumers customize their content to fit their needs, they’ll expect it to be relevant to where they are and what they’re doing at any given time, not just who they are. “GPS technology will create the highest level of the ability to fit communication with consumers’ receptivity. The industry business model around mobile technology is still complex and lacks a user-centered focus,” says Guillermo Tafet, VivaKi Country Chair (South America).

Therefore, it will be increasingly important for us to know where our consumers are not just in their lives or purchase funnel, but physically. A message targeted to a consumer who is out and about in the world will (and should) be different than one targeted a consumer on his or her couch. “The context of the offline world is crucial for marketers so they know what kind of message to deliver and how to interact with a customer at any given time,” says Avi Savar, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Big Fuel.

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This is part three of a five part series of the major trends VivaKi leaders see for 2012. Read Part 1 or Part 2. For the remaining trends, please continue to visit VivaKi.com or stay up to date via Facebook or Twitter.

The frenetic pace of change and continued growth of multi-screen, multi-tasking entertainment options has kept our industry on its toes. To better anticipate and respond to these changes, significant shifts in the way we work and think will need to be made. And inspiration will come from everywhere. VivaKi’s Chief Innovation Officer Rishad Tobaccowala thinks that marketing’s future will be determined outside of the confines of the marketing industry: “…Adobe, IBM and many others from the tech industry will bring forth one powerful front, while names we have never heard of – from both global markets and garages – will continue to press us to stop thinking narrowly and become more open in both mindset and partnering.” VivaKi CEO Jack Klues agrees: “This year will be defined by new mash-ups and once-former competitors will learn from the benefit of cozy bedfellows.” He also thinks that proprietary technology will be outed as subpar once advertising organizations stop trying to compete with the technology companies and start to embrace an open source mentality.

Tobaccowala continues that in 2012 we’ll begin to see significant restructuring and dissolution of marketing hierarchies and leaders: “It will be messy, bloody and chaotic but the future does not fit in the mindsets or containers of the past, and what will need to be done will be done.”

Likewise, new systems, processes, tools and workflow models are needed to help streamline efficiencies and bring a focus back to innovation and client services. Kuba Benke, VivaKi Country Chair (Poland) thinks we can greatly improve our organization’s ability to effectively work on a project basis if we utilize a matrix structure that allows for various functions and specialty divisions vs. client teams who manage all responsibilities. Meanwhile, Chief Social Media Officer Michael Wiley points to the proliferation of low-to-no-cost cloud-based services being a way to help us streamline efficiencies in-house: “We need to develop an ecosystem that adopts the best practices of the social Web and mirrors the capabilities internally.”

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