Page 13 - ARUBA TODAY

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Monday 10 June 2019

E-Seminar Aruba:
Connecting Island and the International Marketing Community

ORANJESTAD — E-Aruba Business Seminar took
place last Saturday, at the Renaissance Con-
vention Center in Oranjestad, and this edition
was sold out again, just as the three previous
years. Over 700 attendees listened to interna-
tional top speakers from Google, McDonalds,
YouTube and Guinness Record/TV talk about
how to catch the customer. The event produc-
tion is led by Mark Benson from Infinity Media
Aruba and Diederik Kemmerling from The Lab
Digital Marketing Agency.

After the opening by sponsor Digicel Business a
presentation on social media update and tips
and tricks that drive business results was done
by Ivy Lacle and Kemmerling from The Lab. Did
you know Aruba has 46,000 LinkedIn accounts?
A great opportunity for local business to con-
nect with the customer, moreover as Facebook
is still the main focus on the island at this mo-
ment. Also voice over-internet (VoIP) is gaining
terrain when it comes to search on the internet
according to data of The Lab.

Start-Up Winners
Some interesting facts came from Maciej Szcz-
epaniak, he leads Global Strategy & Commer-
cialization for Offline Measurement at Google.
He states that start-up companies are on the
path of outperforming the giants within the in-
dustry, reason being is the traditional approach
of ownership focus is being replaced by the ex-
perience towards the result. Good examples of
this are Uber and Spotify. Customers, nowadays
care more about the outcomes, not the own-
ership. Funny fact is that the new generation
is getting more obsessed with mundane things
like the type of toothbrush or olive oil used rath-
er than the car they drive. His presentation was
troubled a bit by streaming difficulties, provok-
ing his joke that fiber connection is very much
welcomed on Aruba. His advice to businesses is
to keep operating as a start-up, keep on testing
and take risks and get to know your customer
by collecting data. Currently people check out
purchases on internet, but 85 % still buy in physi-
cal stores.
At the end of each presentation a panel discus-
sion led by Benson took place with local pro-
fessionals and the speaker with the opportunity
for the audience to ask questions. It was a full
house event where many students clearly took
the chance to upgrade their knowledge of
marketing and get insights of the industry. There
were special reduced ticket prices for them,
a good thing to stimulate education. As the
name obviously suggests, the well-organized
event is entirely focused on online marketing.
The dynamics between and the stats about tra-
ditional marketing lacked which might be an
interesting topic for next year’s event, if it was
only for the comparison. More news about the
other three speakers in this week’s editions of
Aruba Today. Stay tuned! q