My Favorite Quotes and Facts from the AdAge Digital Conference 2012

Here is a round-up of things heard at the AdAge Digital Conference that resonated with me in some way, shape or form:

• "Snow White" was the first full length feature animated film. It was also the most financially successful film when it came out. ("Gone With the Wind" beat it next year.)
• Stop thinking about the technology and instead think about the purpose.
• Go back to your startup mentality. What was it that excited you? Don't think about digital as something you do to stay relevant; think instead about how to communicate your message.
• Every marketer mines data. It is how you use the data that makes the difference.
• People would rather give up their toothbrush than their mobile phone.
• People look at their mobile phones an average of 40 times a day.
• Over 50% of Facebook users are accessing the network via mobile device.
• Social is not a what, it is a where things happen.
• We have to scale platforms for two-way engagement with consumers.
• Consumers now have the power of media and a consciousness of marketing. Consumers talk about how they know what a brand is doing with its marketing. Keep this in mind.
• Don't reduce the whole world of social networks to two or three social networks.
• Consumers talk about brands as "they" rather than "it." Brands have to figure out how to behave as people. Brands are positioned as people on social networks, so they should act like people.
• 80% of consumers are using their phones to shop smarter, sometimes on the spot, at the shelf.
• Learn what people are engaging with and build content to match.
• People don't change their TV very often, only every five to seven years. A tablet probably gets upgraded very 18 months.
• Customers are lazy, stubborn and loyal. Don't force them todo things they dont want to do.
• 500 million people listen to music online illegally.
• Viral ads are no longer a happy accident. Every campaign today needs to be interesting enough to be passed around and shared on digital networks.
• The definition of content has changed. It used to take money and power to distribute content. Now the cost is practically none. Content distribution is happening in mass scale. It is about empowerment and democratization.
• The challenge is now the curation of content. How do we find what is meaningful to us? We are increasingly using Facebook and other places like it: we turn to friends for what to read, listen to, watch, eat, buy, etc.
• Social technologies change the way the stories are seen and shared.
• Consumers are 50% more likely to remember an ad when they see a friend's name associated with it (socially annotated ads).
• Technology is enriching and enhancing our experiences.
• Beer is the original social network.