It isn’t your imagination that this year’s conference seems a bit more crowded, and yet spread out at the same time. As John Gustavson, president of the Canadian Marketing Association, put it bluntly, the Toronto Metro Convention Centre cannot handle an annual convention the DMA’s size.
Inconveniences for attendees–such as the fact general sessions were in one building, while the exhibition and concurring sessions were in another–means this will be the last year the show is in the city.
The exhibition hall turned out not to be quite large enough to house everyone who wanted a booth, noted DMA spokesman Chet Dalzell. There was still a waiting list for exhibitors wanting space as the show opened Sunday.
Housing was also a dilemma. Many of the 9,000 people who pre-registered, could only get accommodations at hotels near the airport. According to Dalzell, as rooms opened up in downtown Toronto, the reservations were moved to hotels closer to the Centre.
The DMA annual conference is one of the top 100 largest in North America and the DMA itself has grown about 20% over the past couple of years. Only a small number of cities have enough hotel rooms and meeting facilities large enough for a conference this size, including next year’s site New Orleans, and Atlanta, Chicago and San Francisco.
Joint Venture Customizes Offers in Real Time Spider Technologies Inc., Englewood, CO, and Minneapolis-based Net Perceptions have partnered to offer buyer-preference software, which will customize offers in real time.
The new alliance allows marketers to use SpiderDirect, a customer relationship-management software program, and Net Perception’s customization abilities to create potential buyer preference profiles. The profiles then allow marketers to contact, cross-sell and upsell to their customers based on individual wants, needs and interests, and then contact them according to their preferred channel.
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