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About 300 of Toronto’s advertising and SEM professionals gathered Tuesday night at Muzik for the official launch of MSN adCenter Canada. Kyle Murray, Assistant Professor, Marketing Director, Ivey Behavioural Research Laboratory hosted the event with speakers including Blake Irving, Corporate Vice President Windows Live Platform, Kevin Lee, Executive Chairman, Did-it.com and David Jakubowski, General Manager, Microsoft adCenter. The new advertising platform plays into the companies vision of offering unparallel solutions to advertisers as they integrate adCenter into other solutions being offered from Microsoft including MSN, Windows Live, XBOX 360 and Office solutions. Microsoft never one to provide all the bells and whistles retained their PR firm High Road Communications to create a top notch launch event, complete with food, drink and Montreal’s Sam Roberts on hand to provide some entertainment. There has been a war that has been waged on the Internet and the launch of adCenter earns Microsoft a few more points in the right direction.
A few other attendees have shared their thoughts on the event and adCenter overall including non-linear creations inc. on their blog, Andrew Goodman, and Ezra Silverton on the 9th Shpere blog. Also below are some points that we took away from the three presentations:

Blake Irving

• Software is a $130B business, compared to $570B in the Advertising business, and only 4% of that is online ($22B)
• Advertisers are getting more comfortable using the online tools
• $115B in potential online advertising, and that is why Microsoft is interested in advertising
• Canada is a very unique place for Microsoft, 94% reach with MSN Instant Messenger, 64% reach with MS Spaces, 60% of the Canadian population interacts with a MS product on a daily basis
• “We feel we have a differentiate that will (targeting, reporting) that makes the online value proposition for online paid search different then what exists today”
• adCenter launched in the US in May 2007 and now we bring the solution to Canada
• it is not just about advertising, but knowing your audience, knowing who is clicking and why they clicked which can help you evaluate the worth of the click
• “We are not in this business because it is a fade or marginally interesting, we are in this business because we think it is key to the long term future of out business”

Kevin Lee

• By being in early a lot of other advertisers will get the opportunity to get a much higher ROI rate through increased conversation rates
• Targeting is really the big key to this solution and targeting is really the Holy Grail of advertising, and of course the consumer is happy because they see more relevant advertising

David Jakubowski

• 60% of the Canadian population use a Sympatico/ MSN service once a month (19.2 million people)
• adcenter will allow you to target by age, gender, location, time of day, day of the week
• The data that comes from a solutions like adCenter will help to drive the SEM industry forward
• “Live at Five” - 5 minutes and $5 will get you live on adCenter

The following day Microsoft’s Jason Daily joined us for one of our monthly Power Breakfast Seminars, As the World Searches.  Here’s a few other industry folks we ran into at the launch event.

Steve Taylor - 24/7 Canada & Brandie Kelly (Sympatico/ MSN)

Bill Sweetman (MacLaren MRM) & Rob Gerlsbeck (Marketing Mag)

Bill Sweetman (MacLaren MRM) & Jeff Quipp (Search Engine People)

Adam Hadley (World Vision)

High Road Communications - great job on the event ladies!

Categories: Event Review