Digital & Social Committee, Southeast Chapter

Digital media has become a part of consumer's daily lives and they have become accustomed to viewing content and connecting with people wherever and whenever they want. Social media, mobile marketing and viral videos have especially exploded in the last few years. Despite this rapid growth, clients have many questions and their issues include measurement, agency selection, internal org structure, and relinquishing control to the consumer while trying to influence the dialogue.

The Digital & Social, Southeast Chapter Committee is for members who lead digital, social, and/or mobile marketing and/or initiatives at their organizations.  We will drive industry thought leadership, share best practices and expertise, and facilitate discussion and topics to inform better decision making. The committee will provide a forum for members to elevate themselves and their respective organizations via interaction with their peers as well as an outside perspective from invited guests.

The Digital & Social, Southeast Chapter Committee, based in the Atlanta area, is the "sister" committee of the Digital & Social (NY-based), Digital & Social, West Coast (West Coast-based), and Midwest Digital & Social (Chicago-based) Committees.

This committee helps program the annual ANA Digital & Social Media Conference, July 18-20, 2022. Presentations and event recaps from the 2021 Digital & Social Media Conference can be found here.

Committee Chair: 
Ben Quigley, Sr. Director – Pro Customer Experience, The Home Depot 

The ANA staff members managing the Digital & Social, Southeast Chapter Committee are Leah Marshall and Mark Stewart.

Discussion Topics

• Emerging Social Media Platforms
• Data & Measurement
• Different Roles of Social Media including Reputation Management, Customer Service, Brand/Product Awareness, Fundraising, Legal/Human Resources, etc.
• Digital Content
• New Digital Technologies (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, etc.)
• Influencer marketing
• E-Commerce
• Privacy and Security Issues
• Agency and vendor management/relations
• Gaming

Leadership Initiatives

Data Sources for Media: A Buyer’s Guide
A tremendous amount of money is spent on data for media buying decisions, specifically third-party audience data. This paper recommends criteria for advertisers to focus on when evaluating data and provides a checklist to use when considering a new data partner. This is an initiative from the Trust Consortium, launched by the ANA in partnership with Reed Smith, the ANA’s outside legal counsel.

2018-2019 Bot Baseline: Fraud in Digital Advertising
For the fourth time, ANA and White Ops have partnered on a study to measure the among of fraud in the digital advertising ecosystem. Fifty ANA member companies participated in study. Results show that the war on ad fraud is succeeding and measures designed to block fraudulent impressions are working. Economic losses due to bot fraud are expected to total $5.8 billion globally in 2019, but for the first time even more fraud will be stopped than will succeed. The monetary losses, while significant, are an improvement over the $6.5 billion reported in the previous study released in 2017. The 11 percent decline in two years is particularly noteworthy considering that digital ad spending increased by 25 percent between 2017 and 2019. The report includes a number of recommendations for marketers.

How ANA Members Are Using Influencer Marketing
The term influencer marketing was cited from eMarketer and defined as "marketing that identifies and activates individuals who can sway the brand preferences, buying decisions, and loyalty of the broader population using their own opinions, beliefs, and/or marketing channels. The ANA released new research in April 2018 on how ANA members are using influencer marketing, which revealed that 75 percent of member companies currently employ the discipline and of those respondents not currently using influencer marketing, 27 percent indicated they plan to do so in the next 12 months.