Thousands of advertisers will descend on the Penn District in Midtown Manhattan for Advertising Week New York this week to join their peers and hear the latest in thought leadership on trends including generative artificial intelligence (AI), commerce media and sports marketing. The annual confab, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, is once again hosted in the former Manhattan Mall, a sprawling, multi-story space that last fall saw snaking lines — and some delays — into the marquee panels.
Organizers have restructured the venue to facilitate travel but still warn that attendees will need to bring their own festival gear as attendance is on track to exceed 17,000, up from 15 in 2023. Below, Marketing Dive has compiled a guide to organizing the four-day gathering.
“We changed the floor plan a little bit. This year we decided, we hope, to make it an easier place for people to walk because it’s bigger,” said Ruth Mortimer, global director of Advertising Week.
Travel in Penn District
The Penn District entrance for Advertising Week can be found at 100 West 33rd Street in New York between 6th and 7th Avenues, right around the corner from Herald Square and a few blocks from Penn Station. Advertising Week quizzes and indicators are there to point people in the right direction. Mortimer suggested that visitors download the Advertising Week app, check it out beforehand and bookmark the programs they want to attend. The app also has a Slido function panel that allows audience Q&As.
The Penn District is a large, multi-story building
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Within Penn County, each level is assigned a designated area that indicates the lecture halls and recreation areas that can be found there. There are 28 content entries in 2024. The top, or second, location of the Penn District is the Leadership Zone that hosts the Great Minds and Insights events, as well as the CMO Lounge for brand vendors.
“Our Great Minds stage has doubled in capacity this year in response to the overwhelming demand for entry,” said Mortimer.
The CMO Lounge, which was tested last year, has been expanded to better accommodate senior salespeople who need to keep up with their day jobs while at the conference. The lounge has private meeting rooms, a wellness center and even an AI-powered wine tasting.
“The idea is: If you are a marketer, you can come to Advertising Week and both relax and do your job better,” said Mortimer, who explained that the sister conference Advertising Week Europe recently saw a 75% increase in brand advertisers.
The lower level of the Penn District houses a podcast studio and registration area while the first lower level is designed to be an Entertainment Zone with a Creativity Stage and a Media Stage. An Excellence! Lounge sponsored by Boka Black and Equality Lounge presented by The Female Quotient can also be found below. On Thursday, the last day of Marketing Week, there will be a Podcast Zone for audio marketers and media people.
On the second floor, or ground floor, is the Trends Zone, which features The Marketplace Stage, The Tech Stage and The Innovation Stage, as well as a press room that receives press announcements. New this year is the Scale Up Lounge which is all about growing personal brands and businesses.
“This year, we’ve included more network locations in Advertising Week,” said Mortimer. “There’s a lot of content but the thing we thought people wanted the most from us was a reason to stay in business.”
What to put in
Chats with celebrities such as Drew Barrymore, Terry Crews, Lil Jon, Al Roker and Michael Strahan line the schedule and are sure to draw large crowds. Aside from grabbing a $1,499 Super Delegate pass, which gives you access to reserved seats, the best guarantee of getting into the conference is to get there early — and get ready to turn around when something is at capacity.
AI, which dominated the 2023 exhibition, is not as strong on the agenda this year, still taking talks from brands such as Under Armour, Moët Hennessy and Hershey.
“AI, as an independent thing, is not so much as a trend. It is increasingly coming into reality. Commercial media, I would say, is big for us this year,” said Mortimer. “Honestly, I’d say this is the year that anyone with a website that has a lot of people realizes that they can be in marketing.”
Most of the programs in the Trends Zone are based on media networks from both vendors and other verticals that have raised their digital money making bets, such as ride-hailing apps (Uber and Lyft) and transportation firms (several conversations from United Airlines) .
“We stopped calling it ‘retail media’ because there were a lot of businesses that weren’t in stores,” said Mortimer. “I definitely think there’s going to be a lot of fuss about him.”
Talking about the upcoming elections will be another hot topic, according to Mortimer. Advertising Week is publishing research in partnership with Cint that examines consumer sentiment regarding politics and its impact on advertising.
Special dates will be devoted to topics such as business marketing (think M&A) and Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) contracts for college sports. The new NIL+ project on Tuesday, jointly developed by Black Group, Greenwood Ave and Lockstep Ventures, has a game design market to connect student players with commercial partnership opportunities.
In addition to the program, Advertising Week is holding several events, including private parties and wrap parties at Terminal 5 with performances from Eladio Carrión alongside Latin Mafia and Alex Sensation. Future’s Women’s Awards, sponsored for the first time by Spotify, are on Monday night at the Cutting Room. Advertising Week is once again working with the Ad Club of New York to offer two new scholarships for women.
If all of that sounds overwhelming, this year’s festival is graced with what Mortimer says are “more dining venues than ever before.” Snapchat, Viant, Epsilon and Cint are behind some of the food carts and cafes scattered around the Penn District.
20 years in business
Increasing the presence of trade media, NIL and other tips emerging at Advertising Week speak of a chameleon-like personality (trade media did not have their own dedicated space until last year). Advertising Week, which was acquired by Emerald Holding two years ago, operates in an event sector that has grown in size over the past two decades and has seen a proliferation of niche offerings in areas such as programming, social, marketing and AI.
“There is more in the market than ever before, especially for retailers,” said Mortimer. “What Advertising Week tries to do, and maybe in a slightly different way than what we’ve done in the past, is to bring together the idea of ​​educational entertainment.”
Advertising Week also has its own legacy to lean on. The organization is publishing its 20th anniversary book celebrating the pop icons and mascots that have helped launch the annual celebration since 2004.
“Advertising Week, over the last 20 years, has always been about looking at what’s next,” said Mortimer. “I think that’s an important symbol to have because it means you’ll never be different.”
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