Seth Godin goes 'full cheetah': Day one at #IMW13

Some of the world's best modern digital marketers converged on the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City yesterday to celebrate and discuss joined-up marketing and what the future holds for our industry at Integrated Marketing Week.

Here is a recap of the running starts provided by Seth Godin and our CEO Ashley Friedlein. The show lasts two more days, so don't forget to follow along with #IMW13

Opening Keynote. Seth Godin: "Invisible or Remarkable? New Rules for Marketing in a New Economy

Seth Godin has been blogging and speaking about marketing for years and it shows. The best-selling author and pro stage presence got things started by asking some great questions to the packed house: 

How do you market in a recession and with the underlying global shift toward a knowledge economy?

Answer: TripAdvisor made more money than American Airlines because info about planes is more valuable than the planes. There are an infinite number of channels. Mass is not important.

Edges are important and you should take advantage of social and the connection it creates, not industrialism.

A very memorable moment/phrase came when Godin was deep into expaining how creativity and art will prevail and that marketers should not be afraid to deviate from the flight path.

Does a cheetah worry about how it looks when it runs? No. It runs intuitively

Leaving the talk we as marketers were encouraged to go "full cheetah," and to embrace failure when it comes, because according to Godin: "the man who invented the ship also invented the shipwreck."

Ashley Friedlein: "Manifesto for Modern Marketing"

Also kicking things off, our CEO Ashley Friedlein accompanied by VP of Research of Econsultancy US Stefan Tornquist.

Supported by a recent survey conducted by Econsultancy US, the two walked us through eleven simple points that explain marketing with a clear set of principles derived for the new world of integrated marketing. 

According to recent research by Gartner, in four years, CMOs will spend more on IT than their counterpart CIO. Everywhere you look, marketing is increasing in importance and sophistication, with budgets proving it.

While this is great news for marketers, marking a sort of golden era in fact according to Friedlein, a new focus on customer experience, and the impact of social have left many in the dark. He points to required reading from Harvard Business Review on the Experience Economy as well as laws for a world gone digital from Ajaz Ahmed.

You can read and "sign" the full Modern Marketing Manifesto here.

Pointing to some brand and marketer case studies that truly "get it," Friedlein highlighted an app made by a boutique shoe store called Meat Pack which was truly great in its personalization, dirving offline/online sales, and trackability.

Check out the video below:

 Other highlights from Friedlein on what the future holds:

We'll begin to see more responsive teams and truly agile marketing. The correlation between TV and the heartbeat of social (Twitter) is one of the major indicators, and Oreo's work during the Super Bowl sets a trailblazing path.

VP of Research Stefan Tornquist then ran through some high level findings of our recent survey which shows that the kind of organization that is superior at integrated marketing posess exactly the kind of ethos put forth in the manifesto. Specifically: 

30% of respondants will be spending more than $5m a year on marketing budgets.

Also, while only 12% of organizations have capability in unstructured data, we were left with the encouraging stat -- 74% say integration has sparked creativity and better business within their organization.