Next month I'll be speaking as part of opening night at the IAB's Annual Leadership Meeting in Palm Desert, and I'm particularly intrigued by the theme of the conference: "The Next $50 Billion." Having been on the IAB board back when we celebrated our first million (with an m) dollar year, I can tell you that $50 Billion was not something any of us could have visualized. Yet here we are.
No doubt there will be talk about how the industry prepares to ingest all that new money and about where it will come from. We'll debate how much will be run programmatically and how data and personalization will drive and shape the spending. But I've got a simple question to overlay on the theme: How will we earn the next $50 Billion?
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Anyone who is simply counting on the realignment of advertising budgets to create that number will be sorely disappointed. While many of us romanticize advertising by binge-watching MadMen and staying glued to all the Super Bowl commercials, the reality is that to marketers advertising is a cost center: that's why procurement gets called in to help manage that cost down. As I wrote earlier this year in my essay for the University of Florida's Captivate program, we will unlock the next $50 billion "...only by confronting the truth that advertising in a digital world matters most when it least resembles advertising." Brand want to come in out of the cold, damp world of 'advertising' and to bask in the warm sunlight of the consumer's full attention. We have the keys in our hands to unlock that scenario. But first we must unlock our own imaginations.
The other thing I believe about the next $50 billion is that it will be spent with the companies and individuals who consistently operate "left of budget." As the perceived importance of advertising shrinks, those waiting to feed at the trough of the ad budget will go hungry. Those who organize their work around major business, marketing and sales issues will be fed by a wide variety of budgets: sales promotion, CRM, public relations, research and more. To paraphrase Alec Baldwin's soliloquy in Glengarry Glen Ross, "There's money out there gents. If you earn it it's yours. If you don't, I got no sympathy for you."
Are you a sales leader going to the Annual Leadership Meeting? Save your spot at the first ever Sales Leadership Summit at IAB ALM, Tuesday January 26th, lunch through dinner. Then save your company's seats at each of the 2016 Seller Forums by purchasing your season pass. Put the wisdom of the crowd to work for your company and your sales team.
