MIXX Canada Conference 2013

On March 21^th the IAB MIXX Canada 2013 Conference took place in Toronto, and Humber's Internet Marketing students were fortunate enough to attend - thank you IAB Canada for inviting us! I, Siddique Baksh, had the opportunity to live-tweet from the event for the class, keeping those that could not attend updated from @MktgHumber. From beginning to end, the conference was informative and fun. Speakers from Google, Terraform Media, Sapient Nitro, comScore and many other distinguished companies were present. All of them shared their knowledge of marketing, as well as insights as to what to expect next, as technology advances.

The first speaker, Alan Schulman gave the show an amazing start. He focused on something called “Storyscaping”, which is creating a world in which many different types of media carry your advertising message, and said, “to be part of the story, we must create worlds, not ads.” After him, speakers from Casale Media, The Weather Network, and Juice Mobile took the stage and presented their recent innovation in the marketing field. After a break, the speaker from Environics Analytics talked about Canadian demographics and about their PRIZM segmentation system, which I think every marketing and business student at Humber has used at least once. comScore then came up, and talked about the growth rates in smartphones and tablets, which brought to light some very interesting statistics. Terraform Media then talked about how important the T.V. video business is, and how some people are “cord cutting” which means they are trading in a traditional T.V. cable connection in favor for an internet based T.V. experience. Then, Tim Reis, the head of mobile and social solutions at Google was up. Mobile marketing was his focus, and he talked a lot about how the potential for mobile marketing has not even begun to be touched yet. He also showcased a video of how powerful and influential the connection can be between mobiles and Google+, you can watch it below. Lastly, Candy Chang took the last speaker spot, and talked about how useful and informative public communication can be. Allowing the public to post up their ideas and hopes in different places around the city is a fun and interesting way to gain insights into what people are thinking. And just like that, the conference was over.

As I was tweeting along with IAB Canada, Google Canada, and others about the conference and what was being said, I found myself to be enjoying the experience quite a bit. In addition to what the presenters were talking about, the interactions I was getting on twitter with these huge names in marketing, was also part of the fun. Getting retweets from Google Canada, FounderFuel, FFWD AdvertisingWeek, and some others gave me some sort of drive that enabled me to keep going. Although I was not able to keep up with the heavyweights, I believe I held my own and gave out some useful information to the followers of MktgHumber on twitter.

Of course, I would not have been a part of this experience if it were not for the IAB inviting the Humber Internet Marketing students, Christina Clements giving me the opportunity to live-tweet, and the support of my classmates helping me out while I was tweeting. Thank you to all and I look forward to future MIXX Canada events

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1Uv7as5ZmI