ADTHINK 23: A Night of Inspiration and Solutions
With the year wrapping up, we held our last ADTHINK event of 2018 at Subculture, an intimate, underground theater-style urban oasis, hosted by The ADVERTISING Club of New York and Gina Waldhorn, President of Quirky. This year’s culminating event, ADTHINK 23 – focusing on the latest in emerging technology — was an exciting evening showcasing four emerging startups that are helping to move our industry forward.
In a ‘Shark Tank’ style format, what makes this event different is that ONLY the Founders/CEOs of established start-ups are given the opportunity to present. A fun five minute pitch is followed by a five minute rapid-fire round of questions and round of feedback from a group of expert panelists.
This session’s industry disruptors included:
Pollfish – Founder and CEO, John Papadakis presented the hybrid-service survey platform that delivers surveys online and via mobile apps worldwide. It specializes in targeting consumers who are legitimately interested in the product/brand, versus a paid research study, through real-time data collection.
Reply.ai – Clara de Soto, Co-Founder of Reply.ai, captivated the crowd with a clever chatbot that can “botify” a companies’ frequently asked questions through real-time learning.
PurPics – Founder and CEO, Aneesh Dhawan, introduced PurPics, a platform that connects student organizations with businesses to raise funds for nonprofits.
Outernets – Omer Golan, CEO of Outernets presented the digital out of home shopping experience that utilizes glass storefronts for a 24/7 experience.
Following the pitches, the expert panelists participated in a short discussion around each of the startups’ solutions, sharing insights on how their businesses could effectively apply their products/services to make a real impact within the industry. Those experts included:
- Lauren Brown, E-Commerce Marketing, PepsiCo
- Vanessa Cartwright, CEO & Managing Partner, FLUID
- Elyssa Gray, VP, Brand, BETTERMENT
For over five years, The ADVERTISING Club of New York’s ADTHINK programming has supported the startup and emerging technology communities with this enlightening series. To date, ADTHINK has provided over 80 companies the platform to share their business solutions onstage, which has opened up opportunities and facilitated further success, including the acquisitions of several startups by companies like Pinterest, ContextLogic Inc., and Rentrak.
We look forward to kicking off our 2019 season and introducing our members to the next generation of thinkers and doers! For more information, visit https://www.theadvertisingclub.org/page/Events.