If you didn't get a chance to head out to Omniture Summit 2011, here's a look at the highlights of the Adobe event that took place March 8 through March 11 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Tim Kopp, CMO of ExactTarget, looked like the happiest man in Utah last week. This was due---in no small part---to his company having just won the Genesis Partner of the Year award and his 15-minute time slot leading up to the Michael Eisner keynote before the packed grand ballroom of The Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City.

During Kopp's presentation, he highlighted some new research from a 7-part series based on 1,500 consumer interviews. One interesting fact centered on Facebook, like so much of the content this week. He listed the three main reasons consumers leave brands on Facebook (meaning unclicking the "Like" button): 1.) your communications are too frequent, 2.) your communications are too boring, and 3.) your communications are flat-out not relevant.

Eisner followed Kopp with probably the signature speech the event, stressing over and over again that success in any medium new or old comes down to great content. He cracked up the room with his slide labeled “Gutenberg to Zuckerberg” that followed the history of printed media, stressing the key role that content has always played. Along the way, Eisner showed the L.A. charm that no doubt won him many deals in a town and industry that pivots on personality, including dropping many Tweetables, such as:

• “Sometimes, you do something because you can’t not do it.”



• “Failure is essential for any company to achieve success.”



• “An intelligent stumble, even a $200 billion one, isn’t to be ashamed of.”



• “Mediocrity will destroy a company.”

The $200 billion comment was from an anecdote he shared when, in the late 1990s during his "Running Disney" tenure, he came across the idea of developing this new concept of “paid search.” He says he recommended it to the then-president of the online group, a man who was constantly followed around by a raft of consultants, “like ducklings behind a mother duck.” These dimwits apparently urged against exploring paid search, and, after great reluctance (one wonders how much subsequent history and the obvious success of Google colors this memory), Eisner said “OK, we won’t.” His punch line was that each of those 2 letters (“OK”) was a $100 billion mistake, e.g. the subsequent revenues from paid search they left on the table.

The buzz at the Summit was palpable the whole time, from the regularly packed “Partner Showcase” (aka Exhibitor Room) to the sessions large and small to the many social activities. The highlight of the latter had to be the private concert Lenny Kravitz put on in the Salt Palace. Kravitz performed a great set with full enthusiasm, despite playing in front of what was no doubt not his usual fans. Meaning, the ratio of screaming young females to middle-aged marketers and yawningly attired analytics nerds was clearly atypical. In a touch of irony, the slick Insignia digital cameras Adobe had given out to all attendees upon registration were being shut off all night by Palace security goons. The relentless tweets (see hashtag “omtrsummit” for all event tweets) about this odd situation were not missed by Adobe management. The next morning, Aseem Chandra, Adobe’s vice president in charge of Omniture, joked from the grand ballroom stage that more piracy occurred during that concert that evening than in all of China.

Responsys and ExactTarget were the two big platinum sponsors. According to trusted sources, the price tag to be platinum was north of $130,000. In return, along with the biggest booth spaces, they each had their CMO speak for 15 minutes to the full ballroom ahead of the respective keynotes. In other words, it was just $8,666 per minute. And when you factor roughly 2,500 attendees, you reckon approximately $3.50 per attendee-minute of speaking time.

Yes, thought leadership can be (made to look easily) affordable.