4 Dmexco Trends

4 Dmexco Trends

This year’s dmexco was a successful one. It broke all previous attendance records, attracting over 50,700 visitors. In line with its 2016 motto Digital is everything — not everything is digital, the show presented the trends and developments that will shape the industry of tomorrow. The Internet of Things, connected devices, wearables and drones were mentioned quite a lot, and will undoubtedly resurface at the next edition of the digital marketing event.

However, we have chosen to present the top trends, as seen by the Tealium team during the two days of dmexco. Tealium specialises in tag management, digital marketing and unified marketing, big data and data management. The company is the leader in real-time unified marketing solutions, and our customer since 2011.

These long-term trends will remain in the eye of the industry:

Data

Data is a recurring topic for dmexco. Businesses collect vast amounts of data but challenges seem to lie in finding what’s actually important. Not all measurements are created equally so it’s vital that marketers take the time to evaluate which metrics matter and which measurements can be used to create actionable insights.

With many businesses understanding that no one dataset provides all the answers, aggregating your data is key. From this, you can identify key measurements and trends that demonstrate customer behaviour and intent.

The final point on data from dmexco was that any data insights need to be actioned for the customer in a true value exchange . Customers have no objection to being targeted, it’s poor and irrelevant content they find annoying, so use your data wisely!

Experience

Experience was another key theme from the event this year. Customers now evaluate brands through the experiences they have; the products are there for the ride. Rich and intent moments matter and it’s critical that you can identify these moments to be able to deliver on them.

People expect more than ever before from brand experiences. One way Red Bull are looking to achieve this is to make sure they connect with people’s emotions in every experience. This sentiment was echoed during the event with a reminder that any experience should also be authentic and reflect the business delivering the experience.

Great customer experiences raise customer expectations. To manage this marketers need to constantly review the actionable insights being collected in order to elevate their customer brand experiences. Failure to deliver a great experience results in dire consequences.

Game Over.

Creativity

Creativity was an interesting topic that seemed to shape many conversations. It’s recognised that digital marketing principles go company wide but companies need to take note: creative is much more about driving your business brands, so sit up and take responsibility!

In the digital industry there’s a heavy tech focus and a lack of creativity which often leads to ambiguity regarding the function of a platform or product. If companies were a little braver and listened first, a greater insight would likely help to refine many of the propositions in the marketplace. Simplifying technical aspects would help businesses reach a wider audience and inspire creativity. The easiest way to make an impact is to define the story , then work out the best way to tell it. With a story in place, the more creative amongst us are then able to start to visualise an emotional experience in stages.

Digital Marketing

Inevitably, at a digital marketing conference, there was also talk of digital marketing. Programmatic advertising has grown significantly in the last year. For example, in Europe alone, two of every three ads served are now viewed from a Smartphone following the 70.3% growth in ad spend during 2015. Despite adblocking concerns , recent EU ruling from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) stated that adblocking contravenes net neutrality legislation. To top this, day 1 of dmexco saw Google confidently launch their latest video format ad platform, Trueview. From this, advertisers can now serve ‘actionable’ elements within an ad such as a call to action Get a Quote Now.

Video was also widely discussed, as many marketers look for ways to provoke an emotional response from their audience, the use of short film has increased. Facebook talked about their preparations for a rise in video content - from the launch of Facebook Live last summer to the launch of Instagram Stories last month. Consumers are now viewing over 3 hours of content a day and the video percentage is rising. Facebook already serves 100 million hours of video content each day and they are getting ready: by 2020 they estimate 75% of all mobile data will be video.

The closing feature has to be the talk of the future and virtual reality (VR). Featuring in Facebook’s 5-10year plan, the use of VR has increased over the last year. VR is not as expensive as it once was with most of the content now being stitched in the cloud. However, as costs fall, it becomes less about who uses the best technology but rather who tells the best story. VR has largely been received well but even some early adopters are opposed to the goggles necessary for the experience. So what happens next? There have been a couple of releases but the use of augmented reality (AR) is anticipated to grow over the next 12 months. Are you ready to merge virtual reality with actual reality?

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The Value of Dmexco

Dmexco is one of the most important events on the Tealium calendar. Meeting new and exciting digital innovations and trends, it also offers the chance to share experiences and opportunities with our customers and partners.

Martin McDonald, Country Manager Dach, Tealium

The company attended to demonstrate how it unifies physical and digital data. This digital innovation was an example of how Tealium aligns data from multiple touch points that can provide a single customer view, facilitating high converting customer experiences. Data management forms a foundation for all customer insights from daily interactions to visionary engagement and echoes the dmexco motto.

Dmexco came back this year to show a maturity we’ve not seen before. The exhibition itself has grown with over 1000 exhibitors taking up a whopping 1 million square foot of floorspace. There was a clear step forward in terms of content: talks were no longer focused around What Digital Marketing is but rather How we create best practice for our endeavours. The two days in Cologne were packed full of insight and innovation.

Looking Forward to the Next Edition

The upcoming dmexco is scheduled on the 13th and 14th of September 2017 , and promises to be bigger and more exciting than ever. And although the focus and key themes of dmexco aren’t exactly clear yet, many professionals are already planning their stay in Cologne next year. Will your company be there?

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