ANA Conference: Final Recap

The final days of the annual ANA Masters of Marketing taught us some incredible and hilarious things! We learned how worm poop can inspire an entrepreneur to create an ecologically intelligent business model, that a vending machine can do wonders for selling carrots, and how Jay-Z's "99 Problems" can help increase purchase intent.

Saturday

One of the first speakers on Saturday was Bryan Reese, Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer for Bolthouse Farms. Bolthouse decided to take a different approach with the marketing of their baby carrots. Instead of telling consumers the benefits of eating healthy produce, they encouraged them to eat carrots like they would junk food. They placed traditional looking vending machines in high schools in target demos, and the carrots continually sold out!

Following Reese was Ann Lewnes, SVP of Global Marketing for Adobe, who presented the problems they faced as a brand. Overall, customers knew about specific Adobe products and had an attachment to them, but they didn't understand all that Adobe offered. They found that in order to really get people talking about their products, they needed to open them up for free to the developer community. And it worked! People from all over were talking about the products and uploading media they made with new beta products to show off the many possibilities.

Then came Albe Zakes, VP of Media Relations for TerraCycle. TerraCycle began on the Princeton college campus as a way to ecologically and cheaply bottle fertilizer (worm poop) the founders were selling. Instead of creating new bottles, they simply re-used old plastic soda bottles. This sparked an idea in the TerraCycle team. Fast forward a few years, and TerraCycle is the go-to company for big CPG corporations that allows them to both save money and create less waste by re-using and upcycling their own materials. And this is done with little to no paid media!

Sunday

What better way to start out a Sunday morning than with coffee and donuts? As you can see in the photo, we had the priviledge of sponsoring the Sunday morning coffee break, which went perfectly with the morning's presentations!

We had the wonderful treat of hearing from Dwayne Chambers, CMO of Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corporation. Krispy Kreme is a brand that has been around for nearly 75 years. As you can imagine, a lot has changed for the company since then, but the basics still remain. Families still go to Krispy Kreme for a doughnut and a coffee on weekend mornings, and the "Hot Doughnuts" sign is one of their most effective sales efforts! One of the biggest takeaways from Chambers' presentation is that the company does not own its brand, the consumers do. Brands should encourage their consumers to have their own unique and special relationship with it.

Laura Miele, GVP of Marketing EA Games and Wes Nichols, Co-Founder and CEO of MarketShare, let us understand how data and analytics play a huge role in their gaming marketing. By employing a group of young "Jedi Analysts" they created a formula to understand how the creative and placement of their marketing efforts makes a direct impact on their sales numbers. She showed us the latest ad for their upcoming "Battlefield 3" game, a direct competitor to "Call of Duty." The ad features Jay-Z's "99 Problems," a song that's sure to make a cautious exec squirm, but actually makes the brand more credible and relevant to their target demo.

What did you think of this year's ANA conference? Who was your favorite speaker? Tweet at us with your feedback at @AOLAdvertising! 

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