Q&A advertising & marketing.

• Position: Industry Outlook

Dave Bascom

Fit Marketing

Jason Harrison

Freestyle Marketing

Matt Horlacher

Holland & Hart

Patrick O'Donnell

YESCO Outdoor Media

Lance Black

Eli Kirk

Pauline Ploquin

Struck

Chris Thomas

Intrepid

David Blain

Saxton Horne

Kelly Shelton

Boostability

Torie Welsh

DUO Group

Adam Chase

Chase Marketing

Tim Simmons

MRM // McCann

Paul Dishman--moderator

Utah Valley University

Jason Coulam

Avalaunch Media

Tal Harry

Ftichter7

James Keddington

American Marketing Association, Utah Chapter

Leslie Snavely

CHG Healthcare Services

The digital world is keeping today's marketing and advertising executives on their toes. From predicting the next big social media platform to maintaining a balance between data and creativity in their campaigns, ever-transitioning media has posed many opportunities and challenges to the advertising and

marketing industry. Area experts discuss how they are keeping up with this changing world.

We'd like to give a special thank you to Paul Dishman, Ph.D., chair of Utah Valley University's marketing department, for moderating the discussion.

Q & A

What does our profession do best?

What our profession does best is communicate the relationship between the market and the buyers, and where those intersect. That way, people find connection, they build relationships, and they can make trustworthy purchases.

~James Keddington

SHELTON: We help consumers find the products and services that they are looking for and then help the businesses make sure that their products and services and information that they want out there is in front of people that most want it.

CHASE: We represent the social mirror. In the Superbowl, for example, we get to have a really good look at what's important to Americans. In 2000-2001 you saw a lot of dot-com ads. As we take a snapshot of what was important to Americans in 2015, we saw seven or eight movies promoted. Cars are obviously a big deal to us. We like to drink. You get a really good snapshot of not just what products matter to us, but also how we like those products delivered. We are an excellent source of being that social mirror.

THOMAS: What we do best is help to advise and influence business. If we are brought to the table at the right time, we play a key role in how decisions are made and help to influence the greater business objective, if we are doing our jobs right. If we are being listened to when that collaboration takes place, we would provide tremendous value to business in general.

HORLACHER: As a trademark attorney, I work a lot with brands. Every brand has goodwill. You can't get rid of a trademark or assign the trademark to someone else without that goodwill going with it. Your profession defines what the goodwill is. I was thinking about the Superbowl commercials and there was the one with the puppy. Did you hear about the GoDaddy commercial that made fun of it and they had to pull it because there was a public outcry? That hurt the goodwill. What your profession does is help define what goodwill is and promote or make the brand more palatable.

WELSH: Instead of just getting company messages out to the consumer, it has created a two-way communication between them. It's easier for consumers to talk to companies. From a marketing standpoint, it's very important to make sure you are listening to the consumers.

SNAVELY: On the inside of a company, daily my job is to generate revenue. And my team's job, when they are at their best, is to connect what we do to sales growth and make it go faster.

BLAIN: We provide, from my perspective, a look at the problem from a different angle, and we bring creative solutions to solve that problem. I still believe fundamentally that creative thinking is a valuable commodity that we provide.

O'DONNELL: I have always thought of advertising and marketing as the catalyst for the free market system. The product that we deliver creates that opportunity for entrepreneurship with people that ultimately creates jobs and grows our economy.

COULAM: To simplify it for us, it's the demand generation. Ultimately every business is in business to drive revenue. Revenue is a factor of the traffic you have coming in the door. You have to create the traffic, and then it's the conversion of that traffic. Ultimately what we do is create demand.

HARRY: Whether you're in sales or the owner of a company, a lot of times you are so close to the product that you fail to really understand the great opportunities that exist within not only the minds, but the emotions and hearts of the consumer. When we are at our best is when we are helping to discover those.

BLACK: We are conversation starters. We help the human connections. Brands, more so than ever, need human connections. It's about coming up with emotional, benefit-driven messages that drive revenue.

Q & A

Do you have clients that are scared of the two-way communication that emerged through social channels?

I wouldn't use the word "scared." I would say realistic. One of the companies we do some work for is a destination location. They have been a client for over 10 years. They have turned the tables from ignoring what the customer might say to more of seeing the customer is driving the conversation and embracing, for example, TripAdvisor. They realize the consumer has so much power. And there are so many tools to embrace the power of the user, to where they feel part of the conversation. When they are part of that conversation, they feel they're part of the brand experience, and they're loyal.

~Lance Black

WELSH: We have a better idea of audiences for different industries with social media. Every different Facebook page has its own audience and you can easily figure out what your audience is after. You can get a faster result with a Facebook post than with placing ads. Sometimes things really resonate with people, and you are able to get better results and better serve people and create engagement with them.

Online stuff can be very overwhelming to clients sometimes, just because they are tied up in what is in their industry and they don't realize all the changes that are going on in other industries. It's hard for them to get on board sometimes. They know that they need to do it, but they don't know where to start.

BLAIN: We work for 55 auto dealerships, and that's a business that has operated in the shadows a little bit. Consumers are much more educated today when they walk on the lot. They know what they want. They probably know more about the car they want than the person selling the car to them. That's an intimidating factor for that client. Understanding that the consumer is in charge, that they have more information than they have ever had, and they know what they are going to pay when they walk in, changes the game. If they are unhappy, they can go tell 1,000 of...