Continuing with the conference's theme of transformation, Darren Huston, CVP of Consumer and Online, Microsoft shared his thoughts what agencies and advertisers can do to stay ahead of the transformation. He compared it to the much needed forest fire that clears the old trees to give room for the new growth.

Creating the movie "Avatar", which took 5 years and hundreds of millions of dollars, is one recent example of ground-breaking transformation. Movie producers and directors partnered with Microsoft to create a data storage and processing system (5 petabytes of data sounds like a LOT to me!). Marketing for Avatar was also transformative - Microsoft helped launch the campaign across 20+ countries, multiple screens like mobile, gaming and PC and leveraging technologies such as LookingGlass and Microsoft Tag. For example, Avatar-branded Windows 7 Desktop was a #1 download in December generating over 2.5M downloads. There is going to be a case study published, so check back later for the final stats and performance of this campaign.

While not every company wants or needs to be the trailblazer, it's important to stay ahead of the pack and not to fall behind. How do agencies and advertisers create and deliver scalable solutions? How do they maintain profitability? One way is by partnering with other companies.

Thanks,

Rimma

P.S. On a side note, Darren has had a long history of transformations - he introduced wi-fi cards at Starbucks ahead of any competitor and is one of the driving forces of the Bing success where Microsoft is aiming to transform search.

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