IZEA in the Music City

Digiday Brand Summit Recap by Account Director Kelsey

Kristen and I had the pleasure of attending the Digiday Brand Summit “The Rise of Content” in late April. At the summit, we learned how brands are interacting with their audiences in a more authentic way through their content creators. IZEA is excited to continue to work with this digital editorial because it is a great way to reach many brands and agencies that are regular readers. In fact, we’ve already published two sponsored articles on Digiday (shameless plug).

Anyways, back to the conference. The venue was the Omni Nashville, which is connected to the Country Music Hall of Fame! I’m a huge fan of country music, so I was basically in heaven. Kristen was probably embarrassed of my constant singing, but she joined in with the songs she knew. I could get “discovered” while singing here in Nashville so…sorry I’m not sorry! #highhopes

During the first day of the conference, we heard from Shoe Carnival and Nissan. We loved both of the presentations because Kristen and I work on these brands at IZEA. It was great to see what the brands had been up to and where they are looking to be in the near future.

We got an awesome dinner suggestion from Erich Marx, the Director of Social Media Marketing at Nissan. We wanted something that would be “local” and not necessarily “touristy.” He suggested that we go to Merchants on Broadway and we couldn’t have enjoyed it more! The ambiance was awesome because we were in one of the oldest buildings in Nashville. Since we were only in Nashville for a short while, we decided to “YOLO” and order the risotto (which was prepared with scallops and squid ink). It was delicious, although these photos totally don’t do it justice.

It was great to attend the Brand Summit because we were able to meet with a number of brands face-to-face instead of cold-calling like usual. I met with execs from TaylorMade, Chobani, Shoe Carnival, Target, Overstock…the list goes on and on!

This was my first time attending a conference like this so it was quite a culture shock. When we attended the 10-Minute Meetings, we met with eight brands. That was the fastest hour and 20 minutes ever! Additionally, we were able to socialize with a few brands and other people in the industry. To the right are are a few photos from our fun time in Nashville. Pictured with us are our friends from LiveIntent, BabyCenter and Laureate.

We learned a lot from this conference. Here are a few key points that were made:

• Humans have shorter attention spans than goldfish.
• Mobile has a cookie problem.
• Someday Google+ will matter.
• Big brands need to act more like startups.
• Real-time is great, but don’t force it.

Oh and forgot to mention that we became famous on the Digiday recap email… so we’re kind of a big deal!

We can’t wait for another opportunity to connect with great brand marketers in such a fun and informational setting. Thanks for setting it up, Digiday!

-Kelsey