TAAN Paris Recap – a Few Quick Thoughts

Greetings TAAN Members I just returned from beautiful Paris. What a wonderful city, and what a great place to hold a meeting. Those of you that were unable to attend truly missed a fabulous experience. On behalf of the entire network, I want to thank Bruno and Donovan, along with the entire teams at Mister Joe and Opinion Valley, for all their hard work to make this meeting a success. Here are a few highlights to share with everyone. Ron Baker, a fine replacement for Tim Williams, presented a thoughtful perspective on how to take client compensation agreements toward value-based contracts. He definitely pushed some buttons and sparked quite a few conversations. This is what we need, to push this area further. For each of us to see more opportunities to engage in agency-client relationships beyond the vendor position that has become common in the industry. The Thursday Client workshop proved to be valuable for those who attended. Including the clients. A great turnout from the client side gave us some insight into how the marketers view their future, and how we all can develop stronger ways to address their needs. Donovan, Bruno and AOL started to open some thoughts on where the new media tools can help marketers think about how to utilize the opportunities that exist now, and what is coming. Each of the members presented the current state of their agency. It was good to see that most of the news is good. Always more to do and to grow, but moving in the right direction. Mark Vitullo presented the updated versions of the new web site, and gave a good report on the necessary steps for us all to get it done and running. You will hear more from Mark in the near future as his group pushes ahead. Asif Ansari gave us a show of what is being produced around the world that is classified as the best creative. Some very moving work. We elected two new members to TAAN. From Russia and Iceland. I will send you details in the next day or so. Our two group dinners showed us two very different and uniquely French perspectives. And Donovan took advantage of the clock being turned back one hour on Saturday night. Using the “free” hour to give us a bus tour, while he entertained us with song, stories and the beautiful scenes of the city. Overall, we learned, we pushed new ideas, we laughed, and we made new friends. There was much more from our three days together. I just want you all to have a taste of the highlights. Thank you to all that attended for making this a great meeting. I wish you all the best, Peter