COLOGNE – Now that AppNexus is part of the AT&T advertising, content and communications universe, AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley says that making advertising matter is the overarching mantra. Central to that theme is relevance to consumers, and the world will learn exactly what that means when AT&T convenes its Relevance conference in California later this month.
One of the big reveals at the conference will be the new name for AT&T Advertising & Analytics. “Relevance is going to be a great conference,” O’Kelley says in this interview with Beet.TV at the annual DMEXCO conference.
Among the featured speakers will be AT&T CEO Randal Stephenson. “He’s been very articulate about his hopes and expectations for how we put these pieces together and I think it’s going to be a great conversation,” O’Kelley adds.
“If you look at the assets that AT&T has assembled, they have this incredible connection to consumers, especially in the U.S. and Latin America,” says O’Kelley. “Now with Time Warner they have some of the best TV assets on the planet and I’m incredibly excited about the idea of taking all of our technology and plugging it in with the media and data and leadership that they have.
“I think we can do something that really no one’s ever done before, which is create a new kind of television advertising that should be transformative.”
According to O’Kelley, relevance is the confluence of creative, an emotional connection and the right medium to deliver messaging. He doesn’t think that’s particularly been the case with banner ads and “a lot of the mobile advertising we’ve seen can’t convey that emotional impact.”
This video is part of a series leading up to and documenting the AT&T Relevance Conference in Santa Barbara. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
