Twitter founder Biz Stone talks about “meaningful marketing”

It has been a big week on the direct marketing calendar. The DMA2011 conference kicked off in Boston bringing together eight thousand of the world’s best marketers. This was followed by the International ECHO Awards recognising the best direct marketing campaigns from around the world – including three winning campaigns from Australia.

The event started with a tremendous keynote address from DMA CEO, Larry Kimmel providing his insight into the future of direct marketing. This was followed by a rare keynote from Twitter Founder, Biz Stone talking about his early days creating Twitter and his future vision of "meaningful marketing”.

Speaking from his home in Silicon Valley, Biz gave a rare insight into the early days of Twitter, a phenomenon he says was never intended as a marketing tool but that was very quickly commandeered by the marketing community as a tool to start having real-time conversations with customers on real issues. Twitter, he says, has become a global phenomenon that has played a role in some of the most significant world-changing events of recent times. Now his vision is for Twitter to be used for ‘meaningful marketing’ – a new and futuristic form of marketing that has a benevolent or altruistic purpose at its core, but that ultimately benefits both the organisation and recipient. Certainly a good thought for the future.

Tuesday night saw the 2011 International Echo Awards. The best in show Diamond Echo Award was presented to BBDO New York for the AT&T “Last Text” campaign. Wunderman and BMF were the only Australian Agencies to win at the Awards - a huge accolade to the two globally recognised agencies. Wunderman won Silver for the Microsoft “Share House” campaign and BMF scored a Silver for the Weightwatchers “Approved by Life” campaign and a Bronze for the BMF “Wow Sit Down Thing”.

The full Echo Winners Book can be viewed here.

Ernan Roman, President & CEO of Ernan Roman Direct was inducted into the DMA Hall of Fame for his continuous and ongoing contribution to the direct marketing industry.

ADMA will be including case studies, interviews and conference sessions from DMA2011 in ADMA Dialogue so that you can be part of this global event even if you weren’t able to attend this year!

Jodie Sangster
Email: jodie.sangster@adma.com.au