Day 3 of the 2014 AdForum Worldwide Summit in New York City

Day 3 of the 2014 AdForum Worldwide Summit in New York City was a spectacular day where we, as consultants, were exposed to work of a world-leading quality in our industry. It is extraordinary how talented the advertising community is and how adaptable.
DDB
Mark O’Brien, global CEO of DDB, treated us to an hour-and-a-half of fabulous DDB work from around the globe, and commented upon a few things:
• Agencies these days need to come up with much more than just advertising
• Advertising these days is a world of partnerships and collaborations, and this is a new skills set that agencies must acquire
• DDBX is the mobile division of DDB which was started in Chicago and will be rolled out around the world
• Key trends:
o Talent
o Activation
o Technology
o Storytelling
o Culture
The visit to DDB was low key — they are a humble crowd — and high quality. Magnificent work.
O’Brien also commented on the importance of Africa to them and that they see Africa as their next major growth area. Very heartening.
Crispin Porter & Bogusky
Next up was Crispin Porter & Bogusky, which apparently has a relationship with our very own Joe Public — but just an association — no more than that at this stage.
CP&B, which I first met four years ago in Copenhagen, is micro-network, highly talented, deep digital. Superb work. Its mission is to create work that is talked about. Some wonderful case studies and a “real-time” client-tracking board so that it can keep up with its clients hourly and daily — a fabulous tool.
OMD
The very impressive OMD ended the day — the first time we have seen this agency ever on AdForum — and it is so much more than just a media agency.
OMD’s data and sales processes are way ahead of anything I have seen before, with a great deal of information at its fingertips and a unique operating system that has taken the place of any PowerPoint presentations. Clients can also be part of the operating system and this has been rolled out to all OMD offices worldwide. Another world.
And that was the day — lots of content, lots of input, and some stellar work. As consultants, we were completely inspired.