Forget above the line or below the line. Perhaps what we should be doing is to focus on the "direct" part of the equation. Leveling the playing field and the rise of owned media absolutely underpin the (still underutilized) potential of digital and social, but the third leg of the triangulated stool is really the power of going direct to consumer. And in a world where customer service is the new marketing, perhaps we should be rewriting that to read, "customer service is the new DIRECT marketing." In this provocative keynote, 3-time author Joseph Jaffe and CEO of newly formed innovation agency, Evol8tion, will explain and also introduce the next "big thing": branded utility in a world where the only viable marketing anymore is direct.

The audience will get a different spin on marketing in an increasingly digital, connect and social world that combined the best of the old (service, experience) with the best of the new (innovation) and a challenge to rethink some of the fundamental principles that might have worked previously, but today either are well and truly flawed or at a minimum, in need of a refresh.

When you leave my session you will...

1. Think differently about innovation
2. Consider alternative paths to monetizing attention
3. Rethink marketing as a revenue generator vs cost center

One of the most sought-after consultants, speakers and thought leaders on innovation, marketing, new media and social media, Joseph Jaffe is Founder & Partner of Evol8tion, LLC(www.startupsforbrands.com), an innovation agency that matches early stage startups with established brands to partner via mentoring, pilot programs, investment and/or acquisition.

Evol8tion launched in January 2012 with Anheuser-Busch InBev and Kraft Foods as founding clients.

In 2006, Joseph founded and ran strategic consultancy, crayon, until it was acquired byPowered in January of 2010 and again by Dachis Group in December of 2010. crayon's clients included The Coca-Cola Company, Panasonic, Kraft Foods and H&R Block. Powered, a social media agency, included Target, Verisign, Anheuser-Busch InBev, General Motors/Onstar in its client roster. Before that, Joseph was Director of Interactive Media at TBWA/Chiat/Day and OMDUSA, where he worked on Kmart, ABSOLUT Vodka, Embassy Suites and Samsonite.

Jaffe's popular blog and audio podcast, "Jaffe Juice", provides daily and weekly commentary respectively on all things new marketing. You can join the conversation at www.jaffejuice.com. His podcast was voted a Readers' Choice Award as "Best Marketing Podcast" by MarketingSherpa. You can subscribe via iTunes. In 2009, he launched his first foray into video inthe form of JaffeJuiceTV (www.jaffejuice.tv), in an effort to prove once and for all that he does not have a face for radio.

His first book, "Life After The 30-Second Spot: Energize Your Brand With A Bold Mix Of Alternatives To Traditional Advertising" (Wiley/Adweek) was released in June 2005 and focuses on how advertising is evolving in a world ruled by an empowered consumer and no longer governed solely by the 30-second spot.

His second book titled, "Join the conversation: How to engage marketing-weary consumers with the power of community, dialogue and partnership" (Wiley, October 2007) outlines the birth and rise of "conversational marketing" – a vision of how marketers can become part of the conversation, instead of constantly disrupting it.

His third book, "Flip the Funnel: How to use existing customers to gain new ones," was published in February of 2010 and presents a powerful hypothesis that retention can become the new acquisition through the strategic incorporation and elevation of customer service, customer experience and customer initiated word-of-mouth, content creation and incentive-based referrals.

Joseph's impassioned, straight-shooting and honest perspectives have found their way to every major media outlet, including the likes of CBS Evening News, ABC World News, Bloomberg, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Fortune, Newsweek, Business Week, Ad Age,Adweek and the list continues.

Joseph is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School, as well as the Society for New Communications Research. He also has lectured at NYU's Stern School, Cornell's Johnson School of Business and Syracuse University. Hailing from South Africa, he lives with his wife, daughter and two sons in Westport, CT.

Creating a better brand experience for our customers is the driving force behind everything TELUS does today.

Gone is the era of one-way conversation, when a brand could simply say what it stood for and that was the end of it. In order to make an emotional connection with customers in the new landscape, we need to take engagement to the next level, and constantly keep pushing it into new and exciting places.

In our quest to increase the likeliness to recommend TELUS, we need to connect with consumers at every single touchpoint.

We live in a world where communications come to customers in countless different ways. In order for our message to truly break through, it's imperative that we find an engaging way to talk to customers that's right for the medium - in each and every medium.

The presentation will focus on how TELUS has evolved our marketing communications to be much more customer-centric and increase brand engagement. I'm also going to share with you examples of how our Direct Mail creative has shifted from purely tactical message to pieces that connect with people on an emotional level.

Anne-Marie LaBerge is all about passion. Whether it's championing TELUS' future friendlybrand, creating innovative marketing communication strategies, giving back to her community or talking about her family, one meeting with her and you'll understand.

As Vice President, Brand & Marketing Communications, Anne-Marie is responsible for overseeing TELUS' award-winning brand and drives the alignment of consumer wireless and wireline marketing communications with the company's national growth strategy. Her portfolio includes the Brand Office, advertising, in-store design, digital, direct and experiential marketing, social media, client communications and all strategic marketing initiatives for consumer segments.

Anne-Marie began her career in telecommunications in 1996. She played a key role in successfully launching Clearnet's, and subsequently TELUS', PCS and Mike services. Not only is she one of the original architects of the future friendly brand that has been one of Canada's most recognizable and beloved brands for over a decade, but also a passionate advocate of its brand promise as one of the key tenets for TELUS' success.

In 2011, Anne-Marie was named Strategy Magazine's Marketer of the Year. The award was presented to Anne-Marie for demonstrating outstanding leadership, creativity and innovation, and taking the TELUS brand to new heights. She was also honored as one of 10 winners of the 2011 Quebec Women in Business award. Presented by the Quebec Business Women's Network, these awards honour outstanding women who have contributed significantly to the growth of Quebec society.

Anne-Marie lives in Montreal, works in Toronto and supports a team across the country. She has been married for 19 years and is a proud mom of two children: Andrew and Victoria. She serves on two boards: Association of Canadian Advertisers and the TELUS Montreal Community Board of which she is a founding member.

A recent Forrester study showed that marketers led their organizations with 45% of big data initiatives, beating out sales, customer service, and finance. How can this be? Direct marketers, to improve targeting and message relevance, have traditionally placed a heavy emphasis on high performance analytics and scalable CRM tools. With consumer adoption of digital, mobile, and social channels, marketers increasingly turn to decision management technologies to deliver real-time responsiveness and drive offer performance. In this session, we will explore the role played by offer and interaction management technologies, review case studies, and discuss the implications of allowing machine intelligence to determine ever larger swaths of customer experience. Audiences will gain an understanding of the marketing technology landscape, adoption trends in big data and decision management technologies, and see examples of how these technologies can be applied within their organizations.

When you leave this session, you will:

• Understand the lay of the big data and customer decision management landscape.
• Possess a set of case studies for how the technologies are applied by marketers in several industry verticals
• Know how to incorporate these tools into marketing technology strategies and roadmaps

Rob services Customer Intelligence professionals. He is a leading expert on how businesses can use marketing technologies to build customer relationships and create competitive differentiation. As a senior analyst with Forrester, Rob provides research and consulting to clients on technology strategy, roadmaps, readiness, benchmarking, and organizational design.

Rob's research focuses on marketing technology trends, forecasts, best practices, requirements planning, organizational models, and ROI assessments. He covers marketing technology products and vendors in campaign management and marketing automation, customer decision management, real-time optimization, and marketing resource management.

Audi Canada's growth over the past five years has created a unique challenge for us. Dealers are placing more and more orders for new, customized vehicles. And since all Audi vehicles are built in Germany, some customers may wait for an extended length of time while their Audi is built and delivered.

We needed to find a way to keep Audi customers excited about their vehicle during this sometimes lengthy waiting period.

This session will highlight how Audi Canada has turned the waiting time on its head, transforming it into a positive brand experience known as "the Audi Vehicle Tracker." It gives customers real-time updates on the status and location of their Audi, accompanied by exclusive and engaging content about their specific vehicle. Ultimately, this reinforces to customers that they made the right choice, leaving no doubt in their minds that their Audi is worth the wait.

This highly personalized, real-time CRM program was recognized by Audi AG as one of the top project ideas globally in 2011. As a matter of fact, they are now looking to emulate the Canadian pilot in Europe.

Alannah David is responsible for the digital marketing and CRM strategy for Audi Canada. She oversees all digital and mobile platforms for the brand, as well as the customer lifecycle program and acquisition strategy. Recently, Alannah has expanded on her role by assisting on developing a social media strategy for the brand. A recent focus of hers has been to emphasize customer delight and find innovative new ways to enhance current customer communications.

A graduate of the University of Toronto, Alannah has spent her career steeped in luxury brands that market to affluent customers. She has become an expert at finding hand-raisers within this hard-to-reach segment, converting them into leads and eventually into lifelong customers.

Alannah began at Holt Renfrew in a Campaign Management role, providing data analytics and reporting for direct marketing campaigns. She then moved on to Mercedes-Benz Canada as a Marketing Analyst and Consumer Insights Specialist running loyalty and acquisition programs for the Mercedes-Benz and smart brands, before finally landing at Audi Canada.

Socialization has changed the way we market. It's no longer about carefully crafting a message and entering in a one-way dialogue with the consumer. It's about brands finding meaningful ways to engage in active conversation with their communities through exceptional service and unique customer experiences.

And in a world where social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are available to anyone who wants to use them, every emotional customer has the power to share his or her story with a mass audience to great effect. It's powerful, it's instantaneous, and it can be a brand's greatest ally or its worst nightmare.

Mary-Lee Swales, Vice President, Customer Experience and Engagement Junat American Express, will discuss how a company, known for great service in Canada for over 150 years, evolved its brand strategy to be relevant in today's service-oriented marketplace. She will also provide insight on how to build relationships with customers through positive brand experiences and affinity rather than simply transact with them.

When you leave this session, you will:

• Gain a new perspective on how to use customer experience as a powerful marketing tool
• Look at the evolution of some of American Express’ most well-known marketing campaigns such as Front Of The Line to understand how direct marketing strategies have changed in response to social media
• Discuss how to leverage social media to amplify a direct marketing campaign

Mary Lee Swales is the Vice President, Customer Experience and Engagement for at American Express in Canada. She is responsible for the development of a broad range of customer and digital strategies to entrench Cardmember loyalty. Her team also works in partnership with the Operational Service teams to delivery on the overall service experience of Cardmembers.

Mary Lee joined American Express in 1992 and has been a key member of the Canadian Consumer Card leadership team for over 11 years. Most recently Mary Lee was Vice President of Consumer Card Acquisition where she was responsible for a digital and offline acquisition strategies to drive billings growth. Prior to that, Mary Lee held various leadership positions within Commercial Card and Consumer Card, including responsibilities for the Lending portfolio, the Digital Strategy, and managing American Express's co-branded Card partnerships. She was also the Director of Strategic Planning where she managed the annual planning process for Amex Canada.

Direct Marketing has evolved and along with it the complexity of relevant communications, the days of sending the same message across different channels are over. It is not just the right channel, but the right message, the right frequency and the right focus. To achieve this goal, marketers are looking at new ways of measuring success, at giving more control to customers and at using analytics to measure key metrics such as lifetime customer value.

The need for relevant communications has never been greater. Customers are in the driver's seat, using all available channels to communicate and have a growing expectation that they be treated as an individual. 1:1 communications are becoming the norm and marketers who make the mistake of continually bombarding customers with irrelevant, unrelated communications are damaging the brand and negatively impacting lifetime customer value.

Smart marketers are challenging the way we think about campaign success. No longer viewing campaigns as a one-time events, but rather looking at each campaign as a continuation of an iterative conversation between a brand and its customers.

As small businesses and corporations embrace social media, the evolution and revolutionary natures of social media are often overlooked. Social media has been a factor in human communications for a long time though the Internet has enabled extraordinary growth in technology, accessibility, interaction and personal involvement. By failing to recognize social media's longevity and the rapid pace of change in communications technologies, modern social media adopters are implementing measurement methodologies that simply don't provide accurate or meaningful measurements. Alan will examine methods and modern tools for measuring the success of social media campaigns, specifically, what the tools measure and how can that be linked back to strategy and then actioned.

Jeff Nicholson is responsible for the global product marketing strategy and messaging for Pitney Bowes Software's customer analytics and interaction solutions. Regarded as a thought leader in his field, Jeff works closely with industry analysts including Gartner and Forrester and is a frequent presenter upon topics including event-triggered marketing, predictive customer analytics, opt-out management, multi-channel campaign management, and customer-centric CRM strategies.

Ten years after the introduction of the Direct Category at Cannes, the category continues to grow, with over 2300 entries for 2012. Robin Heisey, CCO of DraftFCB Canada, and former Cannes judge, takes you on a tour of the winners, the shortlisted work, and some lost gems that the jury passed over. On the way, you’ll see what it takes to win a Lion, and get a sense of the evolving creative trends in the world of Direct.

When you leave my session, you will learn:

• An understanding of the value of the Cannes festival for Direct Marketers
• Current Trends In Direct Creative
• At least one “I wish we had done that” moment

A graduate of OCAD and the University of Toronto, Robin began his career in market research and account management before moving into copywriting. He joined FCB as Executive Creative Director in 2000 and was appointed Chief Creative Officer of DraftFCB Canada in 2007. Robin has worked in a wide range of private, public sector and NGO categories, for clients like TD Bank, the WWF, Molson Coors, Coca-Cola, Ford, Ontario Tourism and many more. Robin’s work has won awards at major domestic and international festivals, including the Cassies, the CMAs, the One Show and Cannes. Robin has served on juries for Cannes, the London International Awards, the Marketing Awards, the Digital Marketing Awards, the Crystals, as chair of the Bessies and on the board of the Advertising and Design Club of Canada. He currently serves on the boards of the Canadian Marketing Association, the National Advertising Benevolent Association, TheatreFront, as a member of the AGO’s Print and Drawing Curatorial Committee, and as an advisor to the Humber College Advertising BA Program.

Aeroplan is a true omni-channel marketer focused increasingly on 1:1 communications.

TC Media (formerly ThinData) has worked with Aeroplan since 2004, deploying complex, dynamic messaging to their ever-expanding network of consumers. Using TC Media's Email Marketing System (EMS) platform, plus custom technology solutions built to meet their rich data and communications needs, Aeroplan targets their consumers with increasingly granular marketing strategies utilizing many different channels to engage in a targeted dialogue where and when consumers want to hear from them, and more so in the past months, via the device that's right, based on each consumers' preferences.

This session will cover topics such as:

• How Aeroplan's communications have evolved over time to arrive at the point where Aeroplan has real 1:1 communications with consumers across many different channels
• What channel segmentation means to Aeroplan – how Aeroplan targets offers by channel, catering creative, content and offer to consumers, based on the deep data they're able to collect (via your own programs, partner programs, etc.)
• Importance of the renewed focus of AIMIA on millenials, and how

The audience will gain insight not only into how a multi-million dollar, international company continues to strategize on their marketing communications needs, and stays up-to-date and leading edge in the industry, but also, how two top-tier companies can successfully work together to drive innovation and reap the benefits of the 4 Pillars of Marketing, via omni-channel, targeted marketing strategies.

When you leave my session you will...

1. Have greater insight into the importance of strategy and research in a major national/international brand's communication evolution
2. Have greater insight into the hard questions we must ask ourselves about our branding message and value, as marketers, as partners and as consumers
3. Have a better sense of how to integrate 1:1 communications via an omni-channel approach for your brands, utilizing key opportunities and innovations in the marketplace

As General Manager, Digital Solutions at TC Media, Scott aligns TC's business processes with growth strategies. At the same time, he stays closely connected to clients to ensure that TC Media service offerings and levels reflect clients' evolving needs.

With over 15 years of experience as a senior executive, Scott has continued his focus on digital marketing strategy and implementation, defining and managing services and strategic practices for leading brands across several complex industries, including Media, Consumer Packaged Goods, Software, Automotive and Financial Services. He has also held senior roles with a number of leading North American email service providers, and has advised many of Canada's largest interactive agencies.

Scott is a recognized authority in the digital marketing industry, as a member of the AIMS Email Experience Council. Additionally, he is a frequent speaker at marketing and technology conferences across North America, including Marketing Sherpa Email Summit (Las Vegas) and Workshop (Chicago), as guest lecturer on Digital Marketing at the UOIT, and at OMS (Chicago, Toronto and Houston).

David Klein joined Aeroplan in May 2006 to direct Aeroplan's Marketing Planning and Campaign Management teams. David is responsible for ensuring the development of, and delivery on, the marketing requirements of Aeroplan's member and partner value propositions. David leads a growing internal Marketing Services team focused on creating member and partner marketing plans and is charged with planning and executing all Aeroplan marketing and brand-related communication activities.

David brings over 20 years of Direct Marketing and communications experience to Aeroplan. Most recently, David was Vice President, Strategic Services at FCB Direct, a direct marketing agency where David led the strategic development and execution of database and communications programs for numerous clients, including Air Canada, Aeroplan, and CIBC. David's thorough knowledge of direct marketing, along with his dedication to financial accountability, position him well to address Aeroplan's marketing requirements.

David holds an MBA and a Bachelor of Science, both from McGill University. He has lectured on Marketing at McGill University and has spoken at industry conventions and seminars.

Digital marketing does not end at the click-through of an ad. Driving interested consumers to your site is just the first step to closing a sale. Dave Ragals, VP Global Client Services at IgnitionOne, will show how by leveraging user-level data and understanding both the cross-channel touchpoints as well as the on-site behavior, marketers can better understand interest and propensity to buy. This information can be used to target users at the ideal moment with messaging to help close the deal, show the most relevant content, and improve marketing efficiencies. Dave will present a telecommunications case study where by using this method, the average close rate at the call center doubled and user experience improved through driving existing customers to the correct landing pages.

Dave Ragals serves as Vice President of Global Client Services for IgnitionOne, where he oversees the company's global client services operations. Mr. Ragals has more than 13 years of online experience. He began his online career with CNN, where he served as V.P., News Features at CNN Interactive, managing the creation of highly-customized content as well as several large business relationships with advertisers and partners. In addition, he developed the paid search marketing strategy for the American Cancer Society, where he was in charge of Web Marketing. Mr. Ragals graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree.

The hype around data is prescient: we're procuring so much information about the social behaviors of consumers that marketers are practically drowning in it. There are many new avenues for creativity and insight in social databases that also bring new challenges to innovative marketing campaigns. But there's a growing divide in the marketing mindset between deciphering data and telling stories: how much can we really take away from data analysis? And how much should we be sticking to what we already know (or should know!) about brands and behaviors? PhD researcher Alex Leavitt will discuss digital iterative branding, mapping information flows, networked storytelling, machine learning algorithms, and the future of data that has yet to be invented, and how this unfolding ecosystem of information is and will continue to converge in the marketing industry.

Alex Leavitt is a PhD student and researcher in the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California, where he is advised by Prof. Henry Jenkins. Alex studies participation and online communication across networked technologies, particularly social media platforms, emergent online communities, and the information practices of media subcultures. Prior to his PhD, Alex was a researcher at the Comparative Media Studies department at MIT on the Convergence Culture Consortium project, and a research assistant to Danah Boyd at Microsoft Research New England. He is also a Research Fellow at the Annenberg Innovation Lab, a Fellow at the Futures of Entertainment Consortium, and a Consulting Instructor for HyperIsland.