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Ad:tech ASEAN delegate numbers down and sponsors complain but there’s a sense of revival

Ad:tech Asean at Suntec, Singapore, yesterday lunchtime

Ad:tech Asean at Suntec, Singapore, Wednesday lunchtime

Ad:tech, one of the longest-running digital marketing events in Asia, saw a significant drop in attendee numbers at its ASEAN event in Singapore this week.

Delegate numbers were down by around 200 on last year, according to organiser DMG Events.

A number of exhibitors complained about the turn-out and a lack of agency and marketer delegates they wanted to target at the event, which was held on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week at Suntec Exhibition Centre.

One exhibitor told Mumbrella that the majority of visitors to his stand had been other tech vendors.

However, another exhibitor shared that sponsoring Ad:tech ASEAN had cost half the price (which ranged roughly from $6,000 to $10,000 for a stand) that they’d paid for Ad:tech Australia, and had delivered a much higher return in terms of engagement with delegates.

A long-time exhibitor at Ad:tech, of the 10 that Mumbrella spoke to, said that the days of collecting thousands of business cards at their stand seem to have passed, with only a handful gathered in one afternoon.

Big publisher sponsors such as FT and Yahoo have made way for smaller tech vendors as sponsors of Ad:tech ASEAN, which has been squeezed by the flood of rival events entering the market, and the natural drift away from an event that has been around in Asia – first in China and later in Singapore – for a decade, they suggested.

Exhibitors this year included SEO, web analytics and UX firm AdVantage, the Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation, programmatic mobile ad firm Pocketmath, and mobile marketing platform Vserv.

One exhibitor said that Ad:tech was not helped by an event on the fastest-growing sector in advertising held the day before. ATS Singapore, an event tailored to programmatic, was held on Monday of this week, and was well attended by agencies and clients.

Break out session at Ad:tech

Break out session at Ad:tech

Another said that they would consider sponsoring more tailored events in future – for instance on e-commerce or programmatic – that went deeper into specific topics in digital, which in their view is now too broad and complex an industry to run a single conference on.

A tech vendor suggested that the launch of Ad:tech roadshows in Jakarta, Bangkok and Manila in May had given delegates from those markets less reason to travel to Singapore for Ad:tech ASEAN two months later.

One exhibitor pointed to the success of Ad:tech in other markets, particularly India, which was hugely oversubscribed, as a reflection that the Ad:tech model works best where the digital market is more nascent.

At Ad:tech New Delhi in March, there were long queues to talk with exhibitors, with stands luring punters with mini golf, dart boards and giveaways, one exhibitor shared.

However, there was a sense that with a new events team in place this year, Ad:tech had turned a corner, and while the event lacked a major international heavyweight speaker, the programme showed more ambition than in previous years, one delegate said.

Talks by P&G on collaborating with beauty bloggers and interviews with YouTubes stars were well received, according to delegates Mumbrella spoke with, and sessions on ethnic, sexual orientation and gender issues showed an event with a nose for topicality.

In a session featuring YouTube artists Night Owl Cinematics, Ryan Tan and Sylvia Chan warned brands against the overuse of data, said that clients “hinder” the creative process, and revealed that Tan was once banned from meetings with their client Singapore Police Force after a heated disagreement.

Stuart La Brooy, global brand manager, content and collaboration, for P&G’s SK-II beauty brand, said in his session that brands had nothing to worry about bloggers trashing their products, because it doesn’t tend to happen. Consumers are interested in the best products, not the worst – so creators are less likely to talk negatively about a brand on their platform, he said.

Preethi Sanjeevi, Carmen Benitez, Eveline Lye, Roshni MahtaniOne of the liveliest sessions came at the end of day two, when there was disagreement on an all-female panel on gender equality, called ‘How bad-ass women are (and will be) winning in digital in Asean’, on whether it was Asia’s non-confrontational culture that was holding women back from pursuing their careers, or genuine discrimination in media and advertising in Asia.

DMG says the total attendance, excluding exhibitors and speakers, was 1,586 this year – down by about 200 on 2014. Of the total, 454 were from agencies, 401 from brands, 323 solution providers, 251 publishers and 114 from investors, start-ups and government agencies.

DMG said they acknowledged that footfall was lower than last year, but were buoyed by feedback from many of their exhibitors.

The company also acknowledged from feedback the team that ran the previous event had passed on, that there were too many vendors and had “worked really hard” to bring in brands and agencies.

They also said that those exhibitors that used the “business matching service”, a break-out session to bring together vendors and clients, were getting the best traffic to their stands, and that many had said the level of engagement was better this year.

DMG said they plan to release data to exhibitors from the business matching post-event, to ensure they get “the best value for their exhibition and sponsorship dollar.”

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