12,000 Expected to Attend Adobe Summit in Las Vegas This Week
- Updated on: 2018-09-22
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LAS VEGAS – Adobe expects 12,000 attendees at its annual digital marketing conference here week, double the crowd from just two years ago. The Adobe Summit begins today at the Palazzo and Venetian hotels on the Las Vegas Strip.
Expected attendance is up 2,000 from last year's conference — the first in Las Vegas — and double the number who attended the 2015 conference in Salt Lake City. An Adobe official said the 12,000 this year includes Adobe employees but could not provide specifics.
Adobe, based in San Jose, Calif., has 15,700 employees. It's consistently a leader in analysts' reports on marketing technology.
At Adobe Summit, the company will touch on themes of “connected experiences” through multiple touchpoints to “power that customer experience,” according to Mathieu Hannouz, senior evangelist for Adobe Marketing Cloud.
“Last year we discussed how brands and organizations need to evolve,” Hannouz told CMSWire. “If you’re a marketer today you’re dealing with a lot of different channels to reach out to. You need to figure this all out and make sense of all this data you’re collecting for a variety of channels. I’m having these conversations every day with marketers. They want to figure it all out.”
Adobe will play off that theme again this year and also plans to discuss, as usual, innovations to its eight-pillar Adobe Marketing Cloud. In addition it will touch on partnerships with Microsoft and get in depth on its integration with TubeMogul.
In addition to its customary flashy lineup of guests — including actor Bradley Cooper, former NFL star Peyton Manning and Saturday Night Live actress Kate McKinnon, not to mention Grammy nominee One Republic — Adobe executives like CEO Shantanu Narayen and General Manager and EVP Brad Rencher will also take the stage.
Adobe’s Marketing Cloud made $1.63 billion in revenue for the company in 2016, according to its 2016 annual report. It represents 20 percent growth from the prior year.
Adobe officials in its annual report attributed the Marketing Cloud growth to continued adoption of the Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) web content management offering and increases in Adobe Analytics and Adobe Campaign revenue.
Adobe also has a Creative Cloud and a Document Cloud. In its latest annual report, for the year ending Dec. 2, 2016, the company reported revenues of 5.9 billion overall.
Hannouz said Adobe is well-positioned to lead marketers through the journey to connect with customers on multiple touch points because of its all-inclusive marketing cloud.
Marketers have been buying point solutions for a decade, trying to stitch together different technologies for different marketing channels.
“Marketers have to make sure all pieces are connected with one another,” Hannouz said, “and we have brought technology in an holistic way. We were the first to understand that.”
Beyond the hype, Adobe will also have about 150 hands-on labs for attendees that want to get their technical hands dirty during the week.
Adobe will also be showcasing technology in its “sneaks” session at Summit. Adobe fielded nearly 100 submissions from its developers in their quest to debut their innovations on the Summit main stage.
It’s only selected about a handful to be showcased. These are ideas that may or may not be selected for integrations with the Adobe Marketing Cloud. They need to support integrations with at least two Adobe Marketing Cloud solutions.
“We ask them to give us their most crazy idea they're working on,” Hannouz said. “A lot of them on will be on AI, virtual reality and analytics. The common thing is how can we help marketers deliver a consistent, personalized customer experience with tools they have today. We have no idea if these ideas are going to end up on the final roadmap selection.”
Staff reporter Dom Nicastro will be onsite at Adobe Summit. Connect with him @domnicastro and follow our twitter feed for Summit news @cmswire.
