Digital Dialogue conference focuses on consumer conversations in the digital world

What do banking, paper, healthcare and coffee have in common? They’re consumer marketing fields represented by various keynote speakers at this year’s Digital Dialogue conference March 29-30.

The event, begun eight years ago as the “Digital Non-Conference,” is an opportunity to learn about new and emerging trends in digital marketing. This year’s theme, says conference co-chair Nicole Ball, is “How to market in a world where everybody can participate.”

“Digital is so wide that it really opens it up to conversation,” Ball says. “We’re here, and we need to talk to each other.”

The keynote speakers represent a variety of industries, including Deep Focus, Leo Burnett Chicago (gave Fifth Third Bank its “curious bank” brand), MediaVest, Eric Mower & Associates (managed the digital campaign #PaperBecause for the very non-digital paper business) and Death Wish Coffee.

The conference will focus heavily on how to prioritize and engage the consumers that marketers want to reach in a digital environment where they have more and more opportunities for engagement.

That’s where one of the keynote speakers, Mike Brown of Death Wish Coffee, comes in. The small business that produces “the world’s strongest coffee” won Intuit Quickbooks’ Small Business Big Game Competition and had a fully produced commercial air during the 2016 Super Bowl. Death Wish Coffee got the most votes in the competition by effectively leveraging social media and engaging its fan base to vote, even after entering the competition a month late.

“We’ve broadended our horizons because consumer centricity is everywhere,” Ball says. “You might ask ‘why Death Wish Coffee?’ but when you hear his story you start realizing how consumer-focused it was and yet it was all on digital.”

Ball says that she and other Digital Dialogue organizers think these new stories of consumer engagement will be a major draw for the conference. Just because everyone can participate in the digital world doesn’t mean they are yet.

Digital Dialogue will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel downtown March 29-30. Registration is available here.