To see full conference website visit http://www.whatsnextdc.com/
APCO Worldwide will be our host for the opening reception of What's Next DC the night of May 5th. The reception will be at 700 12th Street, NW (only a block from Metro Center) in the Atrium on the 7th floor. You must use the 12th street entrance.
Tired of the same techniques to reach your target audience, to get them to care about your issue? Partnerships with corporate and NGO brands provide innovative ways to help you connect with a diverse constituency. Jen Kim Field, head of partnerships at the UN Foundation, will discuss how her organization has been effective and creative in collaborating with both private and nonprofit organizations to raise awareness and funds for global issues.
We’ll walk through the steps for producing three types of corporate social videos: humor, documentary and entertainment, and share cases for each that earned industry recognition. We’ll look at affordable ways to team with an agency or to produce by yourself on a shoestring budget, and how to navigate your idea through the approval process.
Increasingly overwhelmed users and bigger, better data agrees on one thing: a lot of user experience is awful.
How many clicks does it take to understand what your company actually does? How much of your messaging focuses on new products and announcements? Are your users truly getting what they need? This is a state of emergency. Your users need help.
Whether it’s email, apps or websites, businesses are leaning on better user experience to survive. Successful businesses are learning what makes users tick, and putting the user first through every tool they have - language, form and function.
In 2013, businesses with websites that are written-by-committee, firehose their users with options, or don’t get straight to the point, are in for a wake-up call.
Jordan DeVries, Design Director of LookThink, will walk through what User Experience means for marketing, what mistakes businesses are making in the eyes of actual users, and how to take advantage of research and real-world results to deliver lasting impact on the web.
Sami Hassanyeh, Chief Digital Officer for AARP and Tim McLaughlin, CEO of Siteworx, LLC will share how AARP’s digital strategy has evolved to support their 37 million members across every digital channel. From web, to mobile to social and beyond, they’ll discuss AARP’s current digital ecosystem and where they see the biggest opportunities for further innovation from a marketing and technology perspective.
Lisa Shalett is a partner at Goldman Sachs, and the global head of brand marketing and digital strategy, responsible for advertising, marketing, social media, and content creation efforts associated with the corporate brand, brand research, and the gs.com website.
In this session, Lisa discusses the importance of telling your own story through a case study from Goldman Sachs. She argues that if you don’t tell your story, others will tell it for you.
Strategy Brainstorming: Attendees break into teams to tackle one another's most important strategy issues.
Eat up and network with your fellow attendees.
Since the birth of the modern economy, the death of once-successful companies has been a fact of life. Limited by their ability to respond to disruptive change, only a select few companies have managed to survive and remain dominant in their industries over the last 50 years. Today, the key determinant of whether any established business will survive is its ability to adapt to the changes brought on by digital.
Despite the knowledge that innovation is urgent and essential, most businesses find themselves trapped by their responsibility to uphold existing business models and make next quarter’s numbers. Marketers, who have done a good job talking about and experimenting with embracing digital technology often find that they are prevented from effecting further change by structural impediments in the organization, limited budgets and uncertain results.
In this presentation, Kate Watts, Managing Director at Huge DC, will show how marketers can overcome these challenges and create a future for their companies in the new digital economy. Watts will outline the principal changes in technology, demography, and consumer behavior that will shape marketing over the next decade, the key steps required to successfully transform any organization to succeed in digital, and how marketers can use digital to drive overall performance in the organization.
Customers interact with your brand across many devices – PCs, phones, tablets and more. Successful brands have moved beyond optimizing by device or digital channel and towards a focus on responsive content that leverages all devices and channels well. Come hear trends in mobile marketing and a case study from Accenture on mobile apps and broader mobile and digital experience design.
Throughout its 40-year history, PBS has been a pioneer, taking television content to new heights, bringing audiences to the edge of the universe and back, and encouraging generations of children to imagine the vast vistas of the world around them. Now PBS is reinventing itself to meet the needs of today's digitally savvy consumers. In this presentation, Jason Seiken, SVP and GM of PBS Digital, will talk about tools that companies and teams can use to "unlock their inner revolutionary" and successfully adapt to the rapidly changing technology landscape.
Today's marketer is challenged with finding new ways to build audience and provide value to brand advocates. Learn how marketing leaders are leveraging Pandora's native advertising solutions to engage consumers around the musical essence of their brand to leave a lasting memory and emotional connection with Pandora listeners.
It’s a fact: Industry leaders build strong customer relationships by understanding their customers’ needs and delivering insights, resources and unique solutions to help them grow their business. Learn from former Coca-Cola Vice President, Industry Communications, Ira Gleser how an effective B2B communications and industry engagement strategy, and well-executed integrated communications plan, can help to achieve and sustain a “valued business partner” position for your company.
We'll have plenty of space to play at the Austrian Embassy, so we decided to fill that space with a bunch of fun stations. Alan Stein of The Body Mechanix will be giving out free massages, Shirley's Catering and Founding Farmers restaurant will be handing out Horderves & Appetizers, Red Bull (an Austrian company) will be handing out some energy, Green Buzz Agency will have a video setup, and more. The Embassy of Austria is about a five minute walk from the Van Ness metro station at 3524 International Ct NW, Washington, DC 20008.
Muffins, Donuts, and Coffee provided by Dunkin Donuts!
Strategy Brainstorming: Attendees break into teams to tackle one another's most important strategy issues.
Learn 20 Digital Marketing Principles to prepare for the ever-changing tech world. From testing innovative concepts to building new relationships, you’ll discover the key to creating and maintaining a marketing strategy that will take your company’s success to a whole new level.
There are over 115 million smartphone users in the United States. 88% of those users have downloaded an application in the last 30 days and 50% of those consumers used location tags to share where they are with friends and family. However, downloading a native mobile app can cause unwanted friction with your target audience. Learn how Red Bull experimented with a geo-fenced mobile site to drive awareness of their Brooklyn's Got Wings community program and partners including the Brooklyn Nets, Modell's Sporting Goods, and NBA All-Star point guard Deron Williams. This interactive session will outline the process, technologies, and budget considerations when creating an experiential social media program focused on authentically engaging consumers both online and offline.
Communication case studies from big organizations like Microsoft, Cisco and McDonalds.
R2i will be covering the following case study from Microsoft:
When a brand launches a new product or is making a major product announcement, they should be prepared with a structured and strategic approach to managing communications around the message. Whether the outbound message is positive or negative in nature, broad customer communications present an opportunity to closely monitor and respond to customer engagements before, during and after the brand announcement.
When Microsoft’s SQL Server was announcing a pricing increase, shortly after a competitor implemented the same change, they anticipated that there could be a negative reaction to the news among their customer base. SQL Server was proactive in setting up a “war room” in which r2i developed a before, during and after strategy for monitoring, managing, responding to and triaging messages using social listening and community channels.
Network with communication professionals from the Government and Politics arena.
The revolution in data isn't only about corporations finding operational efficiencies. It's also about ordinary people understanding all the data that they create and use all the time. And social media isn't just about billion-dollar Web sites; it's also about using our phones both to access and to share the data that we create and use. In this session, Gadi Ben-Yehuda, the innovation and social media director at the IBM Center for the Business of Government, will discuss how we're using more nuanced tools--and refining the tools we've been using for years--to achieve the same level of sophistication in sharing online that we use for sharing in the analog world.
After each speaker's presentation, they spend 30-45 minutes in the Speaker Q&A area to answer attendee questions one-on-one. This area runs all day long.
Network with communication professionals from the agency side.
In order to be successful in hiring the best talent, organizations must apply the same creativity in their recruiting practices as they do in client acquisition and retention. In this session, Ryan will explain how T. Rowe Price's Client Experience team engaged with HR to re-imagine the job candidate's experience. You’ll learn how to practically apply an “outside-in” lens using customer journey mapping and how doing so can spark innovation.
Many of the world's great brands find themselves at a crossroad, facing the challenge of how to engage audiences in a new era in which content may no longer be king and paid-content models are having to be tossed or rethought. How can we adapt to drive value by changing the way that people can experience us? In this talk, National Geographic EVP & CMO, Amy Maniatis, shares insights and examples about how the legendary 125-year-old brand is reinventing its relationship with its customers and building a growing interactive community by leveraging the best of emerging social platforms. In this session #letsexplore
Network with other Advertising professionals.
Seth Goldman is co-founder and TeaEO of Honest Tea, the nation’s top-selling organic bottled tea company that he started in his kitchen 15 years ago. The company was acquired by The Coca-Cola Company in 2011, expanding the reach and impact of its mission. The company’s entrepreneurial leadership and unique marketing initiatives have helped build a “challenger brand” with a focus on innovation, transparency and health. Seth will share lessons and insights on the continuing challenges of scaling an authentic, mission-driven brand.
Is the government your main customer? Think social media doesn’t resonate in a B2G environment? Think again. Learn how Raytheon, with its conservative culture and aversion to unnecessary risk, has embraced social media for brand lift, advocacy, recruitment, and education. Corinne Kovalsky, the company’s director of Digital and Social Media, will demonstrate how Raytheon uses content marketing and social media amplification to engage and grow its online audience and reach out to key stakeholders, proving that “if you build it, they will come.”
PR measurement has always been rife with numbers—impressions, hits, tone, etc. Now, with social media, there are more ways to count than ever before. But, has anyone really stopped to ask, ”Are we any smarter about how we track and evaluate PR?”
In this session, you’ll learn the single most important question to ask in PR evaluation to make an evaluation program link to strategy. Dare we say it, you may even resist efforts to cut evaluation budgets at the end of a campaign! You’ll see how we use this approach to provide real-time, actionable insights – as well as long-term outcomes and ROI – for our clients. And you’ll learn how to stop drowning in 100-page evaluation presentations and focus on what’s most important to your work and your brand.
Whether a novice or expert, come to this meet up to discuss video marketing with other communication professionals.
Silicon Valley is the center of innovation for the U.S. "Failing fast", working "lean" and "iterating" are business terms that have migrated from the startup world to the world of business -- and even government. But the way government does its work or interacts with citizens is not always conducive to quick "disruption" or sudden shocks. Former Congressional staffer, Marci Harris, now the co-founder and CEO of POPVOX, describes how their team blends Silicon Valley startup practices with the institutions and processes of Congress to "politely" disrupt how citizens communicate with government.
Eat up and network with your fellow attendees.
Advocacy isn't just about influencing public policy here in DC. You have to engage your best customers and turn them into advocates for your brand. By creating meaningful brand experiences for your customers, you will not only create new exciting content to share, but also amplify your brand message. We look forward to sharing some of our best practices that have been put to work for our clients like Chevrolet, Texas Tourism, and The National Guard.
Network with other Public Relations professionals.
Lost in the big data buzz of 2012 is the fact that most entities already have more data than they know what to do with. While entities today are grappling with how to use data and integrate it into their organization's efforts to make smarter decisions, the real challenge will be preparing to generate content at the necessary scale to deliver the right message to your audience in 2013 and beyond.
Whether a novice or expert, come to this meet up to discuss mobile marketing with other communication professionals.
Whether a novice or expert, come to this meet up to discuss SEO with other communication professionals.
Michael Chasen is the founder and CEO of SocialRadar, a new mobile venture harnessing the power of social location services. Previously, Michael was the co-founder and CEO of Blackboard, a company that he sold for $1.7 Billion. During this session, Michael will share lessons learned in leveraging social media to connect with your community and how marketing messaging and communication has changed over the past several years.
Nonprofit organizations are faced with the complicating challenge of punching through marketplace clutter with their messages of hope and inspiration. Yes far too often they lack the budget needed to execute. Join us for a conversation about effective ways for nonprofits to engage the entertainment industry to amplify messages in a meaningful way that generates buzz.
Employees are often an untapped social asset for a company. In this session you will learn how to build a program to empower your employee base to serve as advocates for your brand using social media.
Art museums (and arts organizations in general) are facing a dire future: competition from other leisure activities, a struggle for relevancy and an aging patron base. Learn how the Freer|Sackler, one of the world’s premier Asian art museums and a “hidden gem” on the National Mall, is revamping its communications, events and media strategies to give the galleries a new life—and a new group of supporters—amidst the increasing challenges of a global market.
How does mobile consumer behavior vary by time of day, place and type of device? What are some of the pitfalls of engaging them through this channel?
In this session, we will explore the ever changing space of mobile and what details you need to know about the modern mobile consumer’s behaviors, interests and more.
Develop ways to build trusting relationships with your audiences by engaging with them directly to discover key messages, how those messages are best delivered, and who the right messengers are to deliver them.This case study of the Hillsborough County (Tampa) School District's efforts at engaging teachers and parents will highlight the impact that listening to your target audiences can have on building a better communications strategy from the ground up. It's a story of audience segmentation, message development, public opinion research and change management under challenging circumstances.
This country is inundated with charities, nonprofits and social programs trying to do the same thing — get their name out and raise enough funds to propel their mission forward. This talk is focused on how one DC-based organization molds a communications and marketing strategy that aligns with its work in the community, is low-cost, and resonates with clients, donors and funders alike. Learn from Executive Director Amy Nakamoto of DC SCORES on what it takes to make the organization's name a familiar one, a value-add for corporate partners, and unique in a city that prides itself on its large do-good community.
In a groundbreaking study, AOL and BBDO partnered with InsightsNow to answer the pressing question “What should we be doing on mobile?” To get beneath the surface and unearth the underlying motivations of mobile users, we deployed a groundbreaking three-pillared approach that combined mobile, metered data, a primary ethnography study and a quantitative survey. This research provided strategic clarity into why consumers behave the way they do and uncovered several insights that run counter to the traditional view of the mobile space. In this session, we’ll describe this innovative approach and counterintuitive findings that emerged.
From blown out sneakers to enterprise level technical support, social media is changing the way customers feel about corporations. Are you engaging your users in a way that Delights them?
How do you know?
Your customers are out there talking about you. Sometimes they say nice things. Sometimes they are not so nice. You need a plan to join the conversation, take your lumps and do the work that will make them want to work for you.
Join Matt Stephenson in a peer to peer session talking about the role of social media in delighting your customers and turning detractors into promoters.
Today it is imperative that non traditional “retailers” act and think like traditional retailers and market in engaging ways to captivate their customers. This discussion will focus on Travel, specifically hospitality. A brief history of Travel marketing will be presented, followed by juxtaposing today's Travel marketing with retail/fashion marketing. Opportunities that exist for hospitality will be presented along with highlights of a few companies who understand what it means to "retail travel."
Although we say that storytelling is an art, it is also a science in aligning employees around talking points, statistics, social media, boilerplates, advocacy messaging and more. This session will explain how Achievement First, a non-profit network of 22 public charter schools, not only defined its narrative, but also introduced tools, resources, workshops and onboarding systems to gain buy-in from its team members and ensure they are equipped to tell one “AF story” in front of diverse stakeholders. The session will also show how Achievement First has infused storytelling into every aspect of its work, from videos to web profiles to its annual report.
It's a fact: Public sector institutions are slow to adapt to new technology, particularly in social media. Yet that's where they need to be to reach today's youngest audiences. How can they create compelling social content on new platforms that stays true to their brand, tells engaging stories, and respects their legal restrictions...all with minimal resources? This session will review how the World Bank did just that using Tumblr. The ideal audience for this session is B2B marketers, social media strategists and content specialists who deal with academic, scientific and/or policy-related content.
The marketing landscape is changing. More and more businesses of all sizes are relying on special events to distribute their message and promote their products and services, BUT are they doing it the right way? In the digital age attention spans are shorter and expectations are higher - how you wow attendees can make or break your campaign. Event Expert & Media Maven Rachael Glaws gives you the nitty gritty on how to engage on any budget.
The death of the newspaper has been a favorite topic for about a decade now. Never has money been tighter, outside competition more real and the need for quality journalism more pressing. Learn how adding a disruption layer to the Washington Post is fueling a cultural shift, from a once-a-day paper, to a 24-hour news service.
In January 2013, NASCAR Digital Media launched a new, world-class digital platform and mobile app portfolio, providing NASCAR fans with the most engaging digital experience possible and a vehicle that will help drive future growth of the sport. In this session, NASCAR Director of Optimization Tim Clark will review how they built a platform that could appeal to a passionate fan base with different touch points at different times with different devices- we'll discuss how one experience most definitely does not fit all.
How integrating PR, marketing and social media makes you more marketable. Learn what it takes to be a triple threat by working across multiple communications disciplines.
The best video marketing tells two stories: One is the plot of the video, the other is the story of your organization. Explore excellent examples of this dual storyline in action, and walk away with ideas and inspiration you can bring to your next video marketing piece. Nick is botht the founder of Limbertwig, as well as the resident blogger on video marketing for Green Buzz Agency.
When you are responsible for marketing many products and solutions to a variety of different industries and companies, a sprawling corporate website can become overwhelming and confusing to website visitors. This session will show you how to transition from a one-size-fits-all approach to a targeted one and explain how you can personalize your website for specific audiences. The presentation is a case study outlining the process, key technologies and other factors to consider when personalizing your website. The ideal audience for this session is the B2B marketer who is responsible for corporate websites that do not include e-commerce functionality.
In his former position as Executive Director, Marketing and Communications at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Ira was the architect of a groundbreaking brand identity campaign to retell a 130-year old brand story for the business school with a focus on the digital age. During this session, he will discuss crucial learnings about the process of formulating a brand platform and then the execution of that platform. Answering the question, how do you bring stakeholders together to unearth the core essence of the brand to deliver differentiated and modern messaging on a new creative platform?
Facebook is the most scaled and targeted advertising platform for marketers. Come learn how to connect with your audience more effectively on mobile, engage at the center of their Facebook experience and influence them to drive your brand and business goals.
Poland’s Embassy in DC was one of the country’s first diplomatic missions to develop a robust social media program – one that is now followed by Polish Embassies and Consulates around the world. Our work in five words or less? Poland is cool and interesting. How that is conveyed through social media channels will be presented in more than five words by the Embassy’s Public Diplomacy Adviser, Justine Jablonska.
For the second year in a row the What's Next DC closing reception will be held at the British Embassy. This year we will be in a new space, the just remodeled Rotunda area. The party will be hosted by our good friends Huge Inc.
