This exciting event let us gather with an insightful panel of CMOs to share ideas and compare best practices from the past year. Attendees could hear productive and unique reflections throughout the event, alongside exciting expectations for 2024. 

The panel held important discussions about marketing and leadership, tackling the state of CX, and how leaders can enhance the customer experience – a major priority for CMOs. Is the rapid development of tools and technology making it easier for marketers to create more engaging campaigns, or is it complicating processes too quickly for them to keep up? 

It was incredible to see so many strong leaders delve into the details of their favorite strategies for advancing contemporary marketing while analyzing the tactics and trends that made 2023 a success. Examinations of what worked and what didn’t grew into conversations about future trends and impactful changes. Where are leaders pushing their digital media strategies in 2024? Where are they investing? What patterns are worth paying attention to? Every conversation at BIMA was worth a listen. 

Alongside moderation from illumin’s own Seraj Bharwani, there were engaging appearances from Justin Holmes (Head of Marketing, Zipcar), Nancy Tao Go (CMO, Devoted Health), and Mekea Harvey (Director of Marketing, Greater Boston Food Bank).

To see more from illumin, be sure to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn where we share interesting news and insights from the worlds of ad tech and advertising.

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Advertising Week New York was home to several special events, providing the advertising industry with both fun and engaging networking opportunities. It was such a rewarding way to connect and exchange ideas. Not to mention, attendees also had the opportunity to be a part of Advertising Week’s Future is Female Awards for its fifth year. 

Advertising Week is always a blast, but this year it truly was an event to remember. 

How it went

Not only was Advertising Week New York a great chance to share ideas from across the industry, it was also an exciting week for illumin as we announced our latest product integration with Meta. 

We got to spend the whole week meeting with industry experts and peers over a fresh iced-coffee at our activation space, brewed in partnership with Caribou Coffee. It was also great to share ideas at our session with Erin Newkirk, CMO of Caribou Coffee and David Edelman, former CMO of Aetna/CVS (a current Professor at Harvard Business School), getting an inside perspective on the future of programmatic. 

Just down the street, we also participated in the Brand Innovators sessions, where we hosted a mini-Studio, showcasing the power of journey advertising. We also hosted an on-stage interview, diving into the travel industry with Jim Mollica, CMO at Bose, and Matt Dacey, VP of Marketing at Tripadvisor. 

Advertising Week New York was not only incredibly insightful, it was a ton of fun and we can’t wait for next year. 

To see more from illumin, be sure to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn where we share interesting news and insights from the worlds of ad tech and advertising.

Follow @illuminHQ

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This year POSSIBLE was held in Miami, Florida at the Fontainebleau hotel from April 17 to 19. So, April 17 we touched down in Miami (except for a few of our team members who are lucky enough to live in the heat all year round). The gorgeous Fontainebleau was all decked out for POSSIBLE, our beautiful staircase included. We were ready to soak in the sun and see everything this event had to offer. 

The next day was spent making sure our booth was set up and ready to go for a week of journey activation. Well, we also spent a fair bit of time exploring the garden, beach, and of course, our illumin yacht. Seeing our booth come to life was magic. Watching hard work come to fruition is always a beautiful experience and this was no exception. 

Day one of the conference was amazing. Our masterclass with CSO Seraj Bharwani went off without a hitch and hearing them share key insights and valuable experience was, as always, a real treat. 

And we can’t forget the yacht! The yacht turned out to be one of the best places to relax and learn about everything illumin can do for brands and agencies. With the water waving and the music pumping it was easy to sit back and get excited about the future of journey advertising. 

POSSIBLE ended with a bang. The final evening of the conference was not just spent partying, however, we also took the opportunity to turn our booth into a full-out demo space – sharing our state of the art journey advertising platform with as many people as possible (pun intended). 

We want to thank everyone that helped bring this event to life and everyone who came by our booth to say hello. We can’t wait to do it all again next year. 

Portada events have always been a fantastic opportunity for peer-to-peer learning and this year provided a wonderful, hybrid (online and in-person) opportunity for some of our thought leaders to connect and grow. In addition to seeing the illumin team shine, they also came back with new ideas and inspiration that we can take with us into our next chapter. 

Check out this video to see more from Portada Mexico and to hear more from our CSO, Seraj Bharwani.

1. Trust comes from making consumers feel comfortabl

Curacao not only targets the Hispanic American community, but its organizational DNA is representative of the market it serves. It is a company that was built by immigrants for immigrants—with Latino’s making up 87% of shoppers and close to 90% of employees. Throughout the 40+ years they’ve been in business, this core purpose has never been lost.

Creating a relatable, cultural experience is essential to their success, according to Nerubay. Relating to customers on a cultural level builds a level of human connection that you can only have when you’re authentically part of the same community. This allows customers to feel comfortable with your brand and builds trusting relationships.

2. First-party data is essential for meeting the evolving needs of consumers

Over 90% of Curacao’s customers shop with their own private-label credit card, providing Curacao access to a tremendous amount of first-party data.  This vital information offers Curacao immeasurable insights into the habits of their shoppers, allowing them to make sure the brand can evolve with the changing needs of consumers. 

But with great data, comes great responsibility. Nerubay also highlighted the importance of privacy and stressed that because of the strong emphasis Curacao places on security, there has not been a single data breach in the company’s history. Understanding consumers through the use of data is crucial, but must go hand in hand with prioritizing consumer privacy to keep consumer trust. 

3. Partnerships offer mutual growth opportunities for brands and more options for consumers

To expand growth beyond the four walls of its brick and mortar stores and extend on its data capabilities, Curacao sought out strategic partnerships with major companies like Disney and Apple, offering customers the ability to use Curacao credit to make purchases. The company also has a full-service travel agency, offering Curacao credit for travels to Latin America, Europe, and just about everywhere else in the world—giving Curacao customers more credit options than other big-box retailers.

Curacao remains committed to the Hispanic community, and illumin is here to help

To expand the three-state footprint of Curacao into a more national one, the brand will need to build strong relationships with both new consumers and brand marketers. Nerubay emphasized that Curacao’s relationship with illumin will be an integral part of their geographic and product expansion strategy by helping advertisers reach the broader US Hispanic audience using illumin’s national US Hispanic media footprint bundled with Curacao’s first-party data. 

Nerubay was also proud to admit that the original goal of Curacao has not changed during its 40-year history; the brand will always be about creating value for their customers.

Advances in journey automation solve advertisers’ greatest challenge: “scaling consumer journeys on a platform that doesn’t require extensive training”. For the first time, marketers can test multiple ad sequences with 100% visibility into the consumer journey and the power of programmatic advertising.

AcuityAds’ Chief Strategy Officer, Seraj Bharwani sat down with IAB’s VP of Measurement & Attribution, Angelina Eng to discuss the implications of major behavioral shifts among consumers in the last 12 months and how automation will dramatically change the marketing landscape moving forward.

IAB There

Click here to watch the full presentation on advances in journey automation, and listen to Seraj and Angelina discuss:

• Key lessons learned from 2020
• Programmatic hot topics that are fueling innovation
• The biggest trends and game-changers to expect in 2021
• The importance of consumer identity
• The strength of Connected TV in a streaming world