Lessons from Legends

Creativity is a fundamental part of any business' success, and it's often helpful to go right to the source for tips. Earlier this year, we partnered with The One Club to develop a series that would bring the energy and ideas of creative icons to today's industry. Our goal was to explore the creative consistencies, anomalies, joys, and pains over the past century.



Last week, we hosted icons Mark Tutssel of Leo Burnett and Bob Scarpelli of DDB at Google Chicago. The theme was "Focus," featuring a candid conversation between the two creatives, ranging from influential work, Chicago's mojo, and the future of advertising. Both men discussed the work that makes them proud, creativity's power to solve problems, and the importance of emphasizing the humanity in everything that we do. Creatives from several Chicago agencies, including Leo Burnett, DDB, BBDO Energy, Euro RSCG, and SapientNitro, joined the conversation, and learned about the stories behind campaigns such as Budweiser's Wassup and Troy Library's Book Burning Party.



Our first Lessons from Legends event was held in June, with Lee Clow of TBWA\Chiat\Day kicking off the program. Just as Lee couldn't help but emphasize the importance of Los Angeles in his creative story, Chicago played an active role inspiring both Mark and Bob. We'll soon move the program to another city, and are eager to learn how the next locale inspires another group of creative talent.

Posted by Carley Ribet, Agency Coordinator

Mark your calendar: Affiliate Management Days

We hope to meet fellow affiliate managers and marketing executives at Affiliate Management Days, which is coming up on October 9-10 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Members of the Google Affiliate Network team will be attending the conference, and we'll also be participating in the following panels:

The Role of the Network

Affiliate networks have evolved to play many different roles over the years and are a key partner for both merchants and affiliates. Panelists from different networks, including Tony Nelan, Head of Account Management for Google Affiliate Network, will discuss what role the network should play in areas such as affiliate screening, fraud monitoring, program management and more.

Revisiting Innovations in the Affiliate Marketplace
Ali Pasha, Product Manager at Google Affiliate Network, will discuss how the dynamics of the affiliate industry have changed and what we’ve learned in the last six months. 

You can review the conference agenda and register on the Affiliate Management Days website. Register by Friday, September 7th to take advantage of the early bird rate, which will save you up to $700 from the onsite price.



Google Affiliate Network advertisers are eligible for a 20% discount. Simply log into your account and view the Announcements section of your dashboard.



Posted by: Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager

Google and GroupM Fill Retail & Restaurant Marketers’ Carts with Digital Trends and Insights at Spark Event

The second event in our Spark education series we co-hosted with GroupM Next was hosted today,
focusing on trends, research and digital opportunities in Retail and QSR. Launched in June, Spark is a series of custom, co-programmed events created to deliver unique education and innovation experiences in an intimate setting for GroupM clients and media agencies.

Spark: Retail & Restaurants took place in New York with brand marketers from retailers and
restaurants, and media professionals from Maxus, MEC, MediaCom and Mindshare in attendance. After a welcome from GroupM Next CEO Chris Copeland, Google’s Torrence Boone, Managing Director, Agency Business Development, and Brett Goffin, Emerging Business Lead, Mobile, as well as Pat Monteleone and Jesse Wolfersberger from GroupM Next, Bryan Gildenberg of Kantar, Steven Rosenblatt of Foursquare and Tim Zagat, co-founder and CEO of Zagat, took the stage to share insights into the intersection of retail and digital, and ways that brands in these industries can benefit from what’s taking place.

Hot topics included:

• Shopper/consumer trends
  


• Converting consumer demand and desire into action
  


• New research from GroupM Next on showrooming and how to keep buyers in-store
  


• Using digital innovatively to build brands and reach customers 1:1 through marketing

In-store shopping. E-commerce. A digital footprint. Mobile. Local visibility. Price comparison…and more. These are all things retail and restaurant marketers should be factoring in their marketing strategies to maximize traffic, engagement and revenue. With these in the forefront, retail and QSR companies will prosper in today’s digitally-driven world. For the future, as brands engage more strategically and proactively via channels and emerging platforms that enable hyper-targeting across digital media, social interaction and location-based targeting, they’ll attract and retain loyal customers, while emerging ahead of the competition.

Introducing Agile Creativity

Join us tomorrow, August 8th, at 10am PDT/1pm EDT for a special Google+ Hangout On Air featuring advertising industry executives in conversation with Google engineers.



Over the past year we’ve had many discussions with ad agency executives about how they are reinventing their business models to excel at the pace of digital. Many of our agency partners are applying practices inspired by the tech world in order to work faster and more collaboratively.



Tomorrow, August 8th, we will be hosting a live streamed panel called “Coders and Creatives: Two Angles on Agility”, where we'll uncover the links between agile practices at play at Google and in the advertising world. Torrence Boone, Managing Director of Agency Business Development at Google will moderate the conversation between:

• Greg Andersen, CEO BBH NY


• John Boiler, CEO, 72andSunny 


• Engineers from Google+ and Google[x], the group that developed Google Glass and the self-driving car

We hope you’ll be there and be inspired to maximize the agility of your agency with some of the concepts discussed. RSVP for the event to have it appear in your calendar. If you have a question for the panel, leave your questions as a comment on our hangout announcement post.



On August 8th at 1pm EST, to view the Hangout on Air, visit the Think with Google Google+ page, look for the “Hangout on Air” post within the stream, and click “Play” to tune in. Don’t forget to be signed into Google+!



Posted by Torrence Boone, Managing Director of Agency Business Development, Americas

Watch I/O Live!

Be among the first to see what we’ve been working on here at Google. Tune into the live stream of Google I/O 2012 to see the kickoff keynote on June 27th at 9:30am PST at http://g.co/ioLIVE2012.



We are excited to share the live stream from Google I/O, our annual developer conference where we release our newest innovations in web, mobile and social technologies. Google I/O features a keynote with product announcements, demos and a few Easter Egg surprises that’s a must-see for anyone who wants to stay on top of the latest technology.



Watch last year’s keynote and the highlights video to get a sense of what’s coming. And mark your calendars because you can watch all of I/O at http://g.co/ioLIVE2012 and read about it as Christian Haas, Executive Creative Director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners live blogs from the floor of I/O at the Moscone Center on Google Creative Sandbox.

Posted by Hope Friedland, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Google@ Cannes: Project Re: Brief Premiere, the Google+ "Winners Circle" and More

Last week, at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the global advertising community gathered to celebrate and honor the most inspiring creative work from around the world. We are committed to working with our agency partners to enable and inspire this continued creative magic. Below are a few initiatives and projects that we discussed last week, designed to do just that: 

• Project Re: Brief, the film: Earlier this year, we kicked off Project Re: Brief, our new experiment to re-imagine the future of advertising by taking some cues from its storied past. We’ve brought four of the most loved campaigns of the ‘60s and ‘70s -- Coca-Cola’s “Hilltop,” Volvo’s “Drive it like you hate it,” Avis’ “We try harder,” and Alka-Seltzer’s “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” -- back to life, this time built from the ground up for the digital age, with the partnership of the the advertising legends that originated them. But we think the ads themselves are only part of the story. Behind the scenes of our “Project,” we saw an amazing journey unfold as traditional, classically trained advertising creatives came together with technologists for the first time to collectively push the bounds of what online advertising can be. This journey is captured in “Project Re: Brief: A Film About Re-Imagining Advertising,” which we premiered at Cannes, and made widely available today on YouTube.
  


• The Google+ Winners Circle: In the same spirit of helping share inspiration from some of the world’s best advertising creatives, we're also creating the Google+ “Winners Circle.” This will be a new circle of 50 of the industry’s most honored creatives so that everyone in the industry can meet the people behind the amazing work we’re here to celebrate and see what makes them tick.
  


• Agency Edge, our refreshed training platform for agencies: One of the top requests we get from our agency partners is for more tips and training to help get the most out of the web’s myriad of marketing tools. We initially addressed this several years ago with the launch of AgencyLand, an educational platform designed specifically for our agency partners. But in the years since, the agency landscape, the range of tools available and in fact, the entire ecosystem, have shifted dramatically. So to meet the new and quickly evolving needs of today’s agencies, we unveiled Agency Edge, a place where agencies can get on-demand training, collateral and benchmark data to better serve their clients. 

Cannes is one of my favorite events of the year, precisely because of the amazing mix of innovation and creativity on display. We think, though, that even more dazzling projects lay just over the horizon. Through initiatives like these, we hope to help bring them into view. 




Posted by Torrence Boone, Managing Director, Agency Business Development

Join us at IAB Marketplace: Advertising Technology this Thursday in NYC

On Thursday, Jun 21, 2012, IAB is hosting its Advertising Technology Marketplace at the Crowne Plaza Times Square in New York City, and DoubleClick will be there! This event looks to address the developments, opportunities, and impact of technology on the digital media ecosystem, and we have a number of Google leaders contributing to both the advertiser and publisher sides of the conversation. We look forward to seeing you at the event--in particular the sessions we are leading below!

Building Brands with Programmatic Buying: A Case Study with Kellogg’s

9:30 am, Mainstage

Presented by:

Chip Scovic, Head of Sales, Strategic Partner Management for Google

Bob Arnold, Associate Director, Global Digital Strategy, Kellogg’s Company

Demand-side platforms are transforming how digital media is bought and sold, bringing new levels of precision and reach to digital marketing campaigns. And although the technology is still largely relegated to the realm of "direct response," this is quickly changing. RTB is poised to transform not just performance-oriented campaigns, but also brand-building efforts, as marketers are turning to the technology for the advantages it offers. The ability to reach a precise audience, in real time, and increasingly through engaging new formats, metrics and inventory are all trends that are promising new opportunities for marketers. In this session, Google's Chip Scovic partners with Jon Suarez-Davis from Kellogg's to take us through ways in which advertisers are beginning to blend art and science to build their brands online.

The Next Generation Ad Buying Platform

10:25 am and 11:05 am, room 406

Presented by: Stephen Yap, Head of Emerging Products & Markets, Google

In these sessions DoubleClick seeks to answer the question: What is the next generation ad platform? From ad serving and creative, to ad buying and reporting. From mobile and video to search and social. With a clear vision of the future, we will explore the functionality and performance required to advance the industry and meet the evolving needs of digital marketers.

The Publisher Opportunity: Devices & Ad Formats

10:05 am and 10:45 am, room 406

Presented by:

Shane Peros, Managing Director, Americas Sales, Google

Bill Murray, Vice President, Digital Advertising Operations at The Weather Channel

In these sessions, Shane Peros, Managing Director for Strategic Publisher Partnerships at Google will be joined by a top-tier publisher to discuss cross-format opportunities in mobile, video, rich media and the operational efficiencies and benefits of using the DoubleClick suite of products.

Posted by Emily Wright, Product Marketing Manager

Google and GroupM Next Launch SPARK Education Series

Today we’re kicking off a partnership with GroupM Next, the innovation unit of GroupM, called Spark, a series of custom, co-programmed events focused on delivering unique education and innovation experiences for brands – specifically, clients of GroupM media agencies. We created this initiative together to cultivate education and dialogue for verticals that are under-represented in the broader digital media space in terms of data, research and opportunity. This partnership is the first of its kind for both Google and GroupM, in that it’s a series dedicated to client-focused education and is designed to address topics that directly impact brand opportunity and performance.



The first event, Spark: CPG, is taking place this afternoon in New York with nine leading CPG companies in attendance. In addition to discussions led by Google and GroupM Next execs, Kantar, Buzzfeed and Amazon are joining us as we, collectively as marketers, share insights, research and digital opportunities brands in the consumer packaged goods category can take advantage of.



A quick rundown of discussions on the docket at Spark: CPG in the context of marketing for CPG brands includes:

• Making the web work for CPG brands – our take on how the consumer, and world around us, has changed


• The digital enhanced path, exploring the ever-changing connection between consumers and brands and opportunities that exist through understanding new consumer behaviors and the role of technology


• Marketing and messaging innovation across multiple screens


• The power of video and building brands with the power of sight, sound and motion


• Developing ‘content gifts’ in the social world and capturing opportunities by engaging your brand’s super sharers


• How mobile commerce can connect shoppers to the places and CPG products they love


• Fostering fluid innovation across marketing and process to enable agencies and brands to meet the pace of change in consumer dynamics and technology

In most cases, Spark will provide brands with insights and education they wouldn’t have access to elsewhere. Additionally, through ongoing collaboration between our companies, GroupM agencies and clients, we’ll identify areas of interest and need for brands across digital media, and foster opportunities as they emerge.

A digital marketing platform to win the moments that matter

Editor's note (Tuesday, June 5, 2012, 6:15pm PST): We have updated the YouTube link to show a recorded version of the DoubleClick Insight livestream event.

Today, at the DoubleClick Insights conference, we’re unveiling DoubleClick Digital Marketing: the first modern ad platform built for the modern digital world. The improvements we’re announcing today represent the biggest ever overhaul of our DoubleClick ad platform and are the result of a great deal of hard work over the last few years. This fully integrated, unified platform and its components will be rolling out to partners over the coming months.

You can click here to watch a recording of the livestream of the event:

A platform for today

Today’s consumers work, play and share, moving seamlessly between formats and devices. However, for agencies and advertisers, the process of connecting with consumers is anything but seamless. It’s hard to reach the right audience at the right moment with the right message when every channel requires its own system and you’re patching together, and switching, between ad platforms that aren’t in sync. In fact, in a recent survey of 300 clients, marketers and agencies, they told us their team members are spending almost two days a week working across various digital platforms, often on manual workflow tasks. They estimate an integrated digital platform could liberate a third of that time. That’s an extra month every year that each team member can invest in other campaigns and new business.

Based on what we’ve heard from our customers, we challenged ourselves to re-invent ad buying with a unified platform:

• Can we build an ad management platform that’s comprehensive, so that clients can manage all channels in one place, across all formats and devices?
  
  
• Can we build a seamless platform, so that clients can easily optimize, tailor, measure and compare all elements of their campaigns, using a common language and interface?
  
  
• Can we ensure that it’s customizable, so that marketers can easily plug in their own technology, data and third-party suppliers?
  
  
• Can we make ad buying faster, to dramatically speed up data analysis and slash manual campaign management activities?

A platform that works better together DoubleClick Digital Marketing is our answer. The new platform comprises the following components, which will be fully integrated and work together to enable seamless ad campaign management for agencies and advertisers:

• DoubleClick Digital Marketing Manager, our upgraded DoubleClick ad server, used by thousands of marketers and agencies worldwide to manage directly bought ad space.
  
  
• DoubleClick Bid Manager, our new demand-side platform, rebuilt on our DoubleClick technology, making it faster and more flexible. Many Invite Media customers are currently in the process of being upgraded to the new DSP. Last year, spending on Invite Media grew by about 50%, and we believe these new investments will create even more momentum for the exchange ecosystem.
  
  
• DoubleClick Search, our cross-engine search management platform that was completely rebuilt last year and is natively integrated into the DoubleClick platform. DoubleClick Search is used by 6 of the largest 10 agencies, and is creating efficiency gains of up to 65%.
  
  
• DoubleClick Studio, our rich media creative solution, now with Teracent’s dynamic creative technology built in, which powers engaging and intelligent ad units. In 2011, rich media ads accounted for 10% of all display ads, doubling in volume over 12 months.
  
  
• Finally, Google Analytics, which will enable attribution modelling, conversion reports and site traffic reporting to be incorporated seamlessly into ad campaigns.

We’ve invested significantly in this area, because we believe that such a system would dramatically improve digital marketing—growing the pie for publishers, funding great online content for users, and helping marketers grow their businesses.

What are we making possible? With the DoubleClick Digital Marketing platform, we’re enabling:

• Smarter creative that works with your media buy and that dynamically responds in real-time, with the audience in mind.
  
  
• More responsive campaigns that can “learn” the channels where consumers interact and quickly respond with the most appropriate creative, message and offer across all screens (for example, using a single set of frequency capping, remarketing and creative optimization signals across the entire campaign, helping to deliver the right ad as users move through the marketing funnel—from awareness to conversion).
  
  
• Creating greater value for your business and campaigns, enabling a better understanding across channels and formats (e.g., how does rich media perform versus video?); and facilitating real-time, smarter optimization decisions to reduce cost and increase campaign performance (for example, should you reduce bids on your search keywords and exchange buying while increasing your bids to run more video ads?).

A big step forward We’re often asked about the future of digital advertising. We’re passionate about this industry. It’s the fuel that powers the digital world and a powerful engine of growth and employment. Over the last decade, a remarkably successful industry has been built via humble web banners, repurposed pre-roll video ads, desktop computers and a patchwork of ad buying tools. However, for marketers, the combination of re-imagined creative tools, reinvented measurement solutions and re-vamped ad buying platforms can propel digital advertising into a $200 billion industry that funds and supports great content.

In the coming days on this blog, and on the DoubleClick Publishers blog we’ll provide more details of the new buying platform and discuss other announcements from our DoubleClick Insights event, including new solutions for our DFP and Ad Exchange partners.

Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President, Display Advertising

Future of Advertising Event - DoubleClick Insights

There has been explosive growth in ad technology over the last 20 years. From each of our perspectives -- whether you are an agency, an advertiser, publisher or a technology provider -- we can all still see unprecedented opportunities as the digital world continues to grow and diversify.



We believe that as an industry, we’re on a common digital journey and that the next wave of innovation in ad tech will come from us all working better together.



However, like all great opportunities, there are challenges and questions, such as:

• How do we unlock the next $50 billion of opportunity for digital advertising? 


• How do we deliver those immersive, interactive experiences to today’s empowered consumer demands? 


• What do we, as part of the ad tech ecosystem, need to build to create even more value for our clients and consumers?

On June 5th we’re hosting DoubleClick Insights to start exploring some answers to these questions. Senior leaders from top agencies, advertisers and publishers will help lead the conversation -- and you’re invited to join via the live stream! Register here.



The agenda will include topics such as:


Adapting to the Empowered Consumer:

Neal Mohan, Vice President, Display Advertising at Google will be joined by David Kenny, Chairman & CEO, The Weather Channel Companies, and James Pitaro, Co-President, Disney Interactive Media Group, to discuss how technology is being used to deliver new content and advertising experiences to consumers.



If We Build It, Will They (Consumers) Come?

Terry Kawaja, CEO and Co-Founder, Luma Partners (and creator of the now legendary LUMAscape chart) will lead a conversation about the ad tech ecosystem, and what it needs to do next to add value for agencies, publishers, marketers – and ultimately consumers. Terry will be joined onstage by:

• Omar Tawokol, Chief Executive Officer, BlueKai


• Greg Stuart, Global CEO of Mobile Marketing Association


• Kurt Unkel, President, VivaKi 


• Shishir Mehrota, Vice President of Product Management, YouTube

Outside the Box: Technology = Creative Friend or Foe?

Technology is supposed to make the life of a marketer easier. For our final conversation, we’re going to focus on the question of: Is this technology exploring resulting in better marketing? Or, is it just resulting in mediocre creative and complexity for both consumers and marketers? Karim Temsamani, Vice President - New Products and Solutions, Google moderates the conversation with leaders from creative agencies, iconic brands and publishers including:

• Brad Ruffkess, Global Connection, Coca-Cola


• Mike Lowenstern, Managing Director of Digital Advertising, R/GA


• Peter Minnium, Head of Digital Brand Initiatives, IAB 


• John Caldwell, Chief Digital Officer, National Geographic

The live stream will start on June 5, 2012, at 9:00 am PDT, and you’ll
be able to watch from your computer, tablet, or mobile device. To learn
more about our highlighted speakers go to the Speakers page on our site.



Please register for this virtual event by visiting the DoubleClick Insights Live Stream page.



DoubleClick Insights

Tuesday, June 5th 2012

9:00am - 1:00pm PST

Set event reminder today



Following us on Google+ or Twitter (@DoubleClick and @DoubleClick_pub)? Use the #dclkinsights tag as you're watching the event to ask questions or share comments during the event?


Posted by Stephen Kliff and Scott Brown, DoubleClick Marketing

Future of Advertising Event - DoubleClick Insights

There has been explosive growth in ad technology over the last 20 years. From each of our perspectives -- whether you are an agency, an advertiser, publisher or a technology provider -- we can all still see unprecedented opportunities as the digital world continues to grow and diversify.

We believe that as an industry, we’re on a common digital journey and that the next wave of innovation in ad tech will come from us all working better together. 

However, like all great opportunities, there are challenges and questions, such as:

• How do we unlock the next $50 billion of opportunity for digital advertising? 


• How do we deliver those immersive, interactive experiences to today’s empowered consumer demands? 


• What do we, as part of the ad tech ecosystem, need to build to create even more value for our clients and consumers?

On June 5th we’re hosting DoubleClick Insights to start exploring some answers to these questions. Senior leaders from top agencies, advertisers and publishers will help lead the conversation -- and you’re invited to join via the live stream! Register here.



The agenda will include topics such as:



Adapting to the Empowered Consumer:

Neal Mohan, Vice President, Display Advertising at Google will be joined by David Kenny, Chairman & CEO, The Weather Channel Companies, and James Pitaro, Co-President, Disney Interactive Media Group, to discuss how technology is being used to deliver new content and advertising experiences to consumers.



If We Build It, Will They (Consumers) Come? 

Terry Kawaja, CEO and Co-Founder, Luma Partners (and creator of the now legendary LUMAscape chart) will lead a conversation about the ad tech ecosystem, and what it needs to do next to add value for agencies, publishers, marketers – and ultimately consumers. Terry will be joined onstage by:

• Omar Tawokol, Chief Executive Officer, BlueKai


• Greg Stuart, Global CEO of Mobile Marketing Association


• Kurt Unkel, President, VivaKi 


• Shishir Mehrota, Vice President of Product Management, YouTube

Outside the Box: Technology = Creative Friend or Foe?

Technology is supposed to make the life of a marketer easier. For our final conversation, we’re going to focus on the question of: Is this technology exploring resulting in better marketing? Or, is it just resulting in mediocre creative and complexity for both consumers and marketers? Karim Temsamani, Vice President - New Products and Solutions, Google moderates the conversation with leaders from creative agencies, iconic brands and publishers including:

• Brad Ruffkess, Global Connection, Coca-Cola


• Mike Lowenstern, Managing Director of Digital Advertising, R/GA


• Peter Minnium, Head of Digital Brand Initiatives, IAB 


• John Caldwell, Chief Digital Officer, National Geographic

The live stream will start on June 5, 2012, at 9:00 am PDT, and you’ll be able to watch from your computer, tablet, or mobile device. To learn more about our highlighted speakers go to the Speakers page on our site.



Please register for this virtual event by visiting the DoubleClick Insights Live Stream page.



DoubleClick Insights

Tuesday, June 5th 2012

9:00am - 1:00pm PST

Set event reminder today



Following us on Google+ or Twitter (@DoubleClick and @DoubleClick_pub)? Use the #dclkinsights tag as you're watching the event to ask questions or share comments during the event?



Posted by Stephen Kliff and Scott Brown, DoubleClick Marketing

Mark your calendars for DoubleClick Insights on June 5th

From our vantage point, we see unprecedented opportunity as the digital media world continues to grow and diversify. What does this mean for the future of buying and selling ads online?

Tune in and watch Google's Neal Mohan, VP of Display Advertising, sit down with industry leaders to explore the digital ecosystem's swift evolution, and how advertisers and publishers can work better together to chart a path to capitalize on every opportunity, while simultaneously addressing the challenges we face.

The live stream will start on June 5th, 2012, at 9:00am PST, and you’ll be able to watch from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.



Please register for this virtual event by visiting the DoubleClick Insights Live Stream page.



DoubleClick Insights

Tuesday, June 5th 2012

9:00am - 1:00pm PST

Set event reminder today



Following us on Twitter? Use the #dclkinsights as you're watching the event.



Posted by Stephen Kliff and Scott Brown, DoubleClick Marketing

Mark your calendar: Affiliate Management Days

We hope to see many of you at Affiliate Management Days on March 8-9 in San Francisco. Affiliate Management Days is a professional forum for affiliate managers and marketing executives responsible for their company’s affiliate marketing strategy, program management and related operations.

Two members of the Google Affiliate Network team will be speaking at the event:

• Kristin Hall, Head of Publisher Development
  
  Publisher Segmentation & Key Optimization Levers
  
  
  
  


• Ali Pasha, Product Manager
  
  Trends & Innovations in the Affiliate Marketplace

You can review the conference agenda and register on the Affiliate Management Days website. Register by Friday, January 20th to take advantage of the early bird rate, which will save you $500 from the onsite price.



Posted by Erica Sievert, Product Marketing Manager

BlogWorld 2011 Recap

As we mentioned last week, some members of the Blogger team from Google HQ in Mountain View, Tokyo, Dublin, and Sydney (see group photo below) headed to Los Angeles to attend the 2011 BlogWorld & New Media Expo.

One of the primary reasons we attended the expo was to meet Blogger users 1:1, and to gain a better understanding of what we can do to improve the product to better meet your needs.



In addition to these discussions, we conducted surveys with many conference attendees to collect more in-depth feedback. Thank you! We really appreciate the valuable and candid responses.



In the survey results and our 1:1 discussions with you we heard a few common themes:

• You’re hoping to widen your audience with Google+


• You’d like more opportunities to customize and use gadgets with Dynamic Views


• You’re looking for tips and best practices for how to make more money from your blog with AdSense

Your requests have been shared with the broader team and we’re hard at work making them happen for you. Stay tuned to the Buzz Blog in the coming weeks for follow ups, and in the meantime, check out some other photos from the expo below.

Bruce and Mara of MlovesM

Sabrina and Michael in the Blogger photo booth

Sabine and Lisa host a Google+ Hangout with bloggers from around the world

Posted by Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager

BlogWorld 2011: We’ll see you in LA!

Update: For those of you who can’t attend the conference, we’ve added a schedule of Google+ Hangouts below.



It’s not often that we get to meet up with Bloggers in person, so we’re very excited to invite you to join us next Thursday, November 3rd, when a bunch of Blogger team members head to Los Angeles to attend the 2011 BlogWorld Expo.

To kick things off on Thursday, Jennifer Bahk from the Google Adsense team will be hosting a session called “Get More Bang and Make More Bucks with Blogger” at 3:45PM, where she’ll share expert advice on how to optimize your blog to make money with AdSense.



On Friday and Saturday, the team will be hanging out at booth 314 on the exhibition floor, where we’ll be giving live demos, answering questions, and giving away Blogger swag, including photo printouts from our very own Google Photobooth. And for those of you who are traveling from abroad, Sabine Borsay, our Consumer Experience Specialist from Europe, will also be in attendance to chat with international bloggers about your blogging experience and needs.



From 1-3PM on Saturday we’re hosting a meet-and-greet at our booth with Ari Seth Cohen, a fashion blogger from New York City whose blog, Advanced Style, has inspired a book that will be debuting in 2012. Come by to say hello to Ari and hear the story of how he took blogging from a hobby to a successful, sustainable business.



It’ll be an action-packed few days, so if you’re interested in attending, as a member of the Blogger community you can use this special code for 20% off of any registration package at BlogWorld 2011: BLOGGER20.



If you can’t attend the event, our Community Manager, Lisa Ding, will be hosting a series of video chats with Google+ Hangouts on her Google+ profile, covering a wide range of topics on Friday and Saturday, at the following times:



Friday, Nov 4:

• 11AM - Hangout: New UI


• 1PM - Hangout: Hangout: Dynamic Views


• 3PM - Hangout: Monetization on Blogger

Saturday, Nov. 5:

• 11AM - Hangout: Google+ & Blogging

If you want to participate but don’t yet have a Google+ account, visit plus.google.com to create one.



We hope to see you there--or at least in a Hangout!



Posted by: Michael Bolognino, Product Marketing Manager