Where MaRS meets Madison Avenue

If you’ve been following us on Twitter, you’ll know that we (the IT, communications & entertainment practice at MaRS, and a few of our clients) are at OnMedia NYC 2011 conference this week.

Over the past three months, we’ve been working hard to select and prepare six technology start-ups for the conference specifically aimed at the Madison Avenue exec and respective advertisers.

Who’s here?

This year’s conference focusses on the advertising industry: the established “movers and shakers” and those on the horizon, “shaking it up”. This means over 600 attendees, including investors, advertising execs, media folks and brand marketers. One of those “movers and shakers” is Tony Perkins,  Founder and Editor of AlwaysOn. Tony even spoke at our investor luncheon yesterday. Here’s a clip on YouTube.

Conferences like this are extremely important at reminding the ad industry of the importance of Internet advertising in the marketing mix. This may seem outdated, but surprisingly, even though the average consumer spends 28% of her time consuming content on the Internet,  it only nets 13% of the advertising spend.

This is the first ad industry conference in which we (and our clients) meet with adverting customers and investors in the U.S.

We have been thrilled by their performance to date at OnMedia.  Watch for updates on their results!