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CMDC 2010: Media wizards, digital dragons

You have to hand it to the mediacos that got up and pitched their businesses to the blue-chip panel of agency big-wigs at yesterday's CMDC 2010 conference: that's one intimidating elevator in which to make your pitch.

In front of an estimated 800 industry professionals, the seven teams or individuals with a media idea to sell showed their stuff to a panel of experts modelled on CBC hit series Dragons' Den that included M2 Universal president Sara Hill, Starcom MediaVest Group Canada CEO Lauren Richards, 58Ninety CEO/partner Ted Boyd and Molson Coors VP marketing assets Judy Davey. Most were greeted with applause, but Nova Scotia-based Ad-Dispatch literally wowed the crowd with its augmented reality technology, which activated via any printed material (even without a glyph). Their demo elicited a roomful of oohs, ahhs and applause, but earned only an honourable mention in the end, with the winning pitch going to Cellflare's Kelvin Edmonson, who impressed the judges with his location-based mobile social network and marketing service.

The Media Dragons capped a day of insight and conversation that ranged from the harbinger of OOH to come in Vienna's subway system to the need for data-driven media agency models in the future. Data, argued Mindshare Worldwide president and CEO Dominic Proctor, will be the foundation on which agencies of the future build their success, a sentiment soundly supported by the next speaker, Google VP of global agency and industry development Penry Price.

"Massive computing power" will be required in the digital-led future of media planning, Price said, echoing Proctor's earlier sentiment that data will be the gateway through which innovation and efficiency in online strategies are reached. "There is a perfect ad for everyone," Price said, and through data and research, those ads can be delivered so effectively to consumers that they may ultimately pay to see them. Both men argued the pace of change is both overwhelming and unforeseen, and that agencies will have to rely more heavily on collaboration in order to succeed.

Collaboration was the spirit guiding the format - if not the day-to-day business dealings - of the sports-media panel that followed, featuring Scott Moore, GM/executive director, CBC; TSN president Phil King; Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment EVP/COO Tom Anselmi; and Rogers Sportsnet president Doug Beeforth. The stage was set up to look like a NFL-style pundit panel, and the mood quickly matched the format as the panellists bantered back and forth, arguing for the merits of cross-platform ("there's no going back" was universally agreed upon), the power of the live sports experience (even when you can get it in 3D at home) and whether consumers will pony up for premium content like HD or 3D as the costs of production skyrocket. It was the 3D conversation that led to the best quote of the day, in MiC's humble opinion, from the CBC's Moore, who pointed out that if 3D sports programming is not shot and cut differently than SD: "You make the wrong camera cut and people will be throwing up all over the country!" he quipped.

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