ad:tech Bangalore - The Good, The Bad and The Meh

If you are a business which wants to tap into the digital medium and were not present in yesterday's ad:Tech Bangalore, you should be kicking yourself today. Attended by hundreds of people, the event was a roaring success. Not only were the panel and presentations enriching, the networking sessions and the expo hall were a great place to meet and interact with fantastic people, especially startups.

While the expo hall was a mix of 'coooool' and 'meh', there were some which were really really good. As a social media guy, I personally liked Unmetric and Crowdnub. While the former is into competition analysis and benchmarking on social media, the latter enhances the effectiveness of your digital campaigns.

Key Takeaways from ad:tech Bangalore

Mobile is the future

Yes, we know this topic has been done to death. But probably the best line for the day came right in the beginning, in the first keynote presentation by Shiv Kumar of Nokia when he said: "A smartphone is defined by consumer, not by specification"

While it is true that touch phones have revolutionized a lot many lives, a huge part of the world still uses feature phones. And one must tap into that segment in order to increase his/her reach.

Also, apps, videos and location based services are what will drive the mobile economy in the future.

Social Media is yet To revolutionize retail

Yes, social media has influenced the retail industry but it is yet to get revolutionized. Except for customer service and user engagement with brands, social media hasn't added much to retail. I would have loved if the panelists had delved deeply into social shopping and tapping into the user's social graph instead of just a passing mention.

A deeper discussion on technology instead of strategy and communication is what I was looking for.

Flash is dead, HTML5 killed it

Faster, richer, effective, contextual and easier - HTML is everything that Flash is not. This is what will power the future websites and if you are a developer/designer, you better start moving to HTML5. As a brand, HTML5 is what you will need to provide a richer experience to your users.

App marketing is not as daunting as it looks

Yes, there are millions of apps out there and standing out and getting noticed is challenging. But you just need to be smart. If you're building an app, build it for your users and not for yourself. And let your users market your app via viral campaigns. And make sure that you update your app regularly as this makes the users check out your app.

Also, as a developer you should use the Android app market for testing purposes as there's no curation out there. Test it, improvise it and then release it for iOS!

Conclusion

While the sessions were really good (some were great!), I was disappointed by poor internet connecctivity at the Sheraton. A digital event without internet is something that one cannot digest. Also, it did seem a bit crowded during the coffee breaks and lunch.

But overall, it was a huge success and I am sure the wealth of information shared during the event will be valuable to every brand and startup out there.