IAB Forum 2013 – the after-story
IAB Romania organized, on October 1st, the 3rd edition of IAB Forum Romania, an event of reference for Romanian advertising industry. This year, Romanian and foreign speakers specialized in online advertising brought in the spotlight subjects of interest for the industry, focusing on 3 main themes: context, content and tech.
As Romanian online advertising market is estimated to have an annual value of Euro 23M, Krystyna Bebenek (Expert Online Audience Measurement Gemius) presented the results of the study “The Romanian Internet Users under the glass”, analyzing the habits of Romanian internet consumer. Among the highlights: Romania ranks 5th in the top of CEE countries with most internet users with 8.9M internet users, from which 2.4M (27%) are aged 25 – 34 years old. More information from the study is available here.
Caroline Henne (Regional Business Development Director, GfK) underlined the fact TV isn’t anymore a sufficient channel to guarantee the efficiency of a communication campaign and it needs to be used together with other mediums, such as online and social media.
Case studies on Facebook as a central meeting place between consumers and brands were presented, during IAB Forum, by Alexandra Olaru (Communications Manager, McDonald’s Romania) and Raluca Barbu (Social Media Coordinator, Piraeus Bank).
At their turn, Gabriel Patru and Stefan Andrei (Media Direction and Exact CC) spoke about paid, earned & owned media and presented the results of a recent study made with help from consumers and marketers. According to the study, 28% consumers don’t consider banners and ads intrusive, while most marketers say the opposite.
Customization as key element in the interaction with users was also discussed by IAB Forum’s speakers, that also identified as important trends computers’ ecosystem, social computing and apps content. This theme was discussed by Ionut Gaota (Windows Business Group Manager, Microsoft), Mihai Pocorschi (CEO& Co-Founder, mobuy), Stefan Chiritescu (Director of Innovation, BBDO) and Patrizio Zanatta (Sales Director EMEA, Rubicon).
Patrizio Zanatta’s presentation had the purpose to try to convince the local publishers present at the event to give an increased attention to RTB (real-time-bidding) technologies, focusing on the benefits obtained by monetization at a convenient value of the unsold inventory through classical methods. As the subject is more than generous and the presentation made by Rubicon Project today generated a lot of interest, I think a distinct event dedicated to RTB is needed or, expanding a bit the frame, “programatic marketing”, which IAB could organize in the near future
Cristi Petriceanu,
President IAB Romania.
The importance of content and creativity as driver for results were the core of the case studies presented by Marius Ursache (Chief Creative Officer, Grapefruit), Dimitris Karpouzas (Head of Digital, MSPS Greece), Cristina Bazavan (Blogger www.bazavan.ro) and Vasile Alboiu (Creative Director, SeniorHyper). Dimitris Karpouzas showed how users generated content can be integrated in brands’ communication campaigns, focusing on the importance of capitalizing more creatively the valuable content in order to disseminate brand’s message.
The event offered also the opportunity to launch more new products and services: Dan Virtopeanu (Managing Partner, Breeze Mobile) announced the 1st mobile marketing guide in Romania, made with help from a workgroup from IAB Romania, Calin Rotarus (BCCCR) announced the classes for obtaining Digital Sales Certification (also via IAB Romania), while Marius Ursache (Chief Creative Officer, Grapefruit) presented the platform Bravatar.me, an exclusive communication channel between brands and consumers.