Last week students from the Humber College Internet Marketing class were invited to attend the IAB Mixx Conference downtown Toronto. The annual conference welcomed the students to learn about the trends within Digital Marketing from respected industry professionals. The full-day conference focused on the areas of: innovations in efficiencies, creative ideas and consumer experiences within Digital marketing.
The event featured innovative and insightful information from six industry professionals covering all areas of digital marketing. The presenters included:
· Jeff Rosenblum, Documentary Filmmaker "The Naked Brand", Co-President and co-founder, Questus
· Geoff Ramsey, CEO and co-founder, eMarketer
· Randy Weyersberg, Vice President Marketing, Canadian Tire
· Steve Mykolyn, Chief Creative Officer, Taxi
· Sheldon Owen, CEO, Unified,
· Wendy Robertson, CEO and Co-founder, Kneebon
Throughout the day, all of the presenters touched upon key areas within the world of Digital Marketing. The importance of transparency, social responsibility, trust and creativity were highly stressed by each presenter. In order to touch upon all of these areas I would like to refer to the presentation from Randy Weyersberg on the Canadian Tire House of Innovation.
The House of Innovation
Last year Canadian Tire purchased a four-bedroom, two-bathroom fixer-upper home in Toronto. The purchase made Canadian Tire the first major brand to ever own a home in Canada. Upon purchasing the home, Canadian Tire launched their ‘Bring it on’ campaign, which focused on trying to better understand the struggles and duties that typical Canadian homeowners face. The campaign kicked off with a large banner advertisement on the homepages of Youtube and Facebook along with a micro site, which contained twenty videos featuring various products that are available for sale at the massive Canadian retailer. The goal was to feature the various products as they made everyday repairs and replacements to the home. Canadian Tire pledged that once the home was completely fixed up, they would sell it and donate all of the proceeds to their national charity ‘Jumpstart’.
I wanted to share this example as I feel that the House of Innovation covers all of the key areas of: transparency, social responsibility, trust and creativity. Not only did Canadian Tire make their brand truly transparent and trustworthy by replicating a level of similarity between the average Canadian homeowner and the brand; but also they were extremely creative in their approach to target and educate the average homeowner. In addition, they even pledged to be socially responsibility by donating all of the proceeds to their charity.
The entire conference was filled with extremely valuable and insightful information. The House of Innovation was only one of the many examples that helped unify all of the main points throughout the event. Again, I would like to extend a very special thank you to the IAB Mixx Conference and Humber College for not only inviting the students but for also making opportunities such as these available. I truly believe that keeping up-to-date with industry trends is an essential ingredient for success; I highly encourage all students to take advantage of the various networking and conference opportunities that are available to them.
Check out this video for more insight into the Canadian Tire House of Innovation:
-Tim
-Tim
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