Last week I attended the ad:tech conference in Chicago and thought you might like a summary of what I picked up there. Here is the quick, abbreviated, blog version of my notes, which I think you'll find interesting if you didn't have the chance to be there in person. By the way, do you like Cheetos? Read on...

• Surprisingly well attended
• 2009 has been rock bottom for the ad business. 2010 is expected to show improvements
• Ad budgets have been cut by 30%. Although there was a dramatic shift toward digital media, TV remains king, getting 90% of available budgets
• Biggest growth is anticipated in social media (big surprise), followed by search and mobility. Plug! Check out Digimarc Mobile!
• Social media is not effective if you don’t have a superior product to get people talking (another big surprise)
• Mixed views on Twitter; people either love it or think it’s pointless
• Newspapers: To be or not to be, that is the question. One thing’s certain, they must transform, but into what? Lots of opinions on that one. The big question is will we pay for quality news content on the web?
• Marketers are moving from traditional ads to high value content in hopes of luring customers (Hey wait, isn’t that what we’re doing?)
• Retailers, such as Walmart, have begun to sell ad space on their web sites, resulting in HUGE amounts of traffic
• The industry is unable to effectively monitor and measure the web and give attribution appropriately; they call it poor "Attribution Management" (hey wait, isn’t that what we do?)
• What’s the right form of advertising for video? Overlay? Pre-roll? Consensus is neither, but we don’t know what it will be yet. Likely something we haven’t seen yet
• When is the "Year of Mobile?" Probably 2011 or 2012, but we’ve been hearing that for a decade now, right?
• iPhone mania lives on and companies are scrambling to get apps out the door, even though the users are still a very small slice of the overall pie
• Consumers choose to remain unaware until they decide to inform themselves, and then they turn to the web to find what they are looking for
• Consumer attitude: "If you want to market to me, know me and be relevant; be able to find me and know what I did with your product yesterday... and last month; predict what I want and give me information where and when I want it."  (Sound familiar?)
• Word of mouth works wonders; find the key influencers and get them talking

The best session of the week was the case study on Cheetos. Anyone see the new ads? You gotta love ‘em! Very bold move on their part, but apparently it's paying off. They had an 11% growth in sales. Apparently, people love to lick the orange stuff off their fingers! Who knew? One thing was consistent – quality images continue to be the primary means of communication and expression for advertisers!  So keep doing what you’re doing. In the coming weeks, I’m off to DigiDay Mobile and Advertising Week in New York. Stay tuned for more updates!