#HaveYouHeard that Habari Media’s Tuongee 2014 featured hot digital topics by innovators, creators and propeller heads alike? Aptly titled ‘Back to the Future’ the conference delivered on the past, present and future of digital.

 

Tuongee means ‘let’s talk’ in Swahili and is Habari Media’s annual digital symposium that presents non-biased online information to the media and marketing industry by industry experts, with the aim of sharing the latest online developments and international trends.

 

“More importantly the purpose of the two day conference is to bring further education to the marketing world, especially the often misunderstood world of digital,” says Wayne Bischoff, Managing Director at Habari Media.

 

Not only were delegates treated like royalty, but they also received their own time machine, which, in a custom built box, included Augmented Reality (AR) software (delivered on a USB stick cleverly built into an old stiffy drive), AR cards, flashing LED lights and Habari Media’s very own 3D partner wheel, designed to showcase Habari’s partner brands in an organic, activity based format.

 

Over the course of the two days, delegates heard from a diverse range of digital specialists that included Andre van Assche and Tej Rekhi from Sizmek, Lunga Ngcime from Unilever, Byron John from Habari Media, Cobie van Jaarsveld from Cadreon and Mike Sharman from Retroviral.  During this time, some golden threads of information emerged over the sessions.

 

Video is most definitely on the rise! Even marketing giants like Unilever believe that the future of digital marketing is in video content. As the age old saying goes, “A picture speaks a thousand words”, but with the meteoric rise of video across digital platforms, a video speaks a million words.

 

Another golden thread emerging is that marketers and brands need to stop thinking about ‘digital marketing’ and start thinking about ‘marketing in the digital world’. Real progress must be equated to advertisers and marketers blending the simple web cookie to web analytics that profile users and predicts a return on investment. Being mobile first means you must be where your audience is actively looking for information and close the divide between the digital and the physical experience.

 

Further video insights showed that quality video content balances information and entertainment while blurring the lines of time. Another important takeout is that too many advertisers use their standard television commercial online and believe that this is ‘doing the job’. Video content must be entertaining and informative.

 

“Not only do we thank our speakers, but we would like to thank everyone who attended and gave up their valuable time to join us over these two days,” concludes Bischoff. “I firmly believe that everyone who attended will take valuable insights back to their respective companies and be able to use them to make digital advertising more exciting and more innovative than ever before. Where else can one try so many new ideas so easily and efficiently?”