There were two floors of exhibitors clamoring to connect with Ad Tech New York’s 8,300 attendees. Trying to navigate the exhibitions compared in, noise and crowd levels, with a rush hour ride on a Manhattan subway.
For the most part the tsotchkes were boring: stress balls, scores of pens, sticky note pads, and the requisite t-shirts and hats. There was a lot of what looked like leftover Halloween candy too. I got 14 pens on the first day of the show. The coolest, although not a new idea, was the lava lamp pen from Revenue.net.
There was a clever idea here and there, like the ValueClick passport that had to be stamped by all of the company’s eight brands so one could enter to win a free cruise. Too much work for me.
I did not walk away with a single t-shirt, a first for me.
The few standout tsotchkes included Revenue.net’s clever LED-enabled personal fan that spells out the company’s name.
Were the tsotchkes so ordinary, and paltry, because times are so good that nobody thought they had to try too hard? Or is there a dearth of tsotchke creativity among the online set?
Hey one good thing, you won’t have to buy a pen for several years! Did you miss the offer to get in costume and have your picture taken?
I know, the Tsotchkes were terrible! The one exception was the beer tap installed into one of the booths. The company wasn’t very exceptional, I can’t even remember their name, but the beer kept me coming back. Also, what was up with the DoubleClick clowns? Kind of weird and sad, but at least they tried.
BTW, the company names could have used some creative help as well. These are supposed to be the companies at the forefront of advertising, and they still have names like Global Resource Solutions.
I went to Ad Tech for a consultation with a Google Adwords “wizard.” The wizard turned out to be a bouncy 21 year old, who didn’t have much insight into the subtle mysteries of Adwords management and rankings.
Needless to say, I was not too impressed with the floor, but it sounds like the sessions were much better. Too bad I didn’t have the time to attend. Maybe next year.