Ad Conference Poised to Set New Attendance Record

October 11, 2012, 9:00 am

By STUART ELLIOTT

The Association of National Advertisers, whose members are the senior marketers at America's largest companies, expects to set another record for attendance at its annual conference.

The conference began on Wednesday evening in Orlando and is scheduled to continue through Saturday morning. Registration for the 2012 conference was closed at the 2,050 mark, Robert D. Liodice, president and chief executive of the association, said in an interview this week.

That figure is well above the attendance last year, of 1,650 to 1,700 people, and in 2010, when about 1,600 people attended the 100th anniversary meeting. About 1,200 people came to each of the conferences in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Asked how so many people will be accommodated at this conference, Mr. Liodice joked, “They're going to stay in one place and not allowed to move around for three days.”

Of those scheduled to attend, about 950 will be members, Mr. Liodice said, with the rest from advertising agencies and media companies. It is the presence of and participation by such a large group of marketers that stimulates interest in attending the conference among the advertising and media executives.

Another reason that attendance has been increasing is the decision by the association to recruit speakers from among its members who oversee large ad budgets for blue-chip companies.

The conference “has gained a reputation as the place where the C.M.O.'s are the speakers,” Mr. Liodice said, sharing case histories of how they try to grow sales and market share.

“I'm not going to exaggerate and say we're Cannes-like,” he added, referring to the annual festival in France for creativity in advertising. “What differentiates this conference are conversations about how your brands, your companies, achieve growth and how we as an industry need to fuel and incentivize growth.”

“As I'll say in my opening remarks, great marketing isn't great marketing if it doesn't come with results,” Mr. Liodice said.

Among the scheduled speakers are senior marketers from companies like Allstate, BP, Coca-Cola, Ford Motor, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg, MasterCard, McDonald's, Subway and Unilever.

Could attendance at the conferences next year and beyond grow even more?

“This has to be it,” Mr. Liodice said, because future sites for the conference will not allow the group to register any more people.

One idea would be to consider other sites, but there are some that Mr. Liodice has already ruled out.

“We're never going to go to Vegas,” he said, because in Las Vegas “people are easily distracted† and would leave the conference hotel, and conference events, for other attractions.