The OMR Festival, known as the Online Marketing Rockstars Festival (OMR) is one of the world’s largest events for

digital marketing Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. Its development duri ...

and technology in 2017. Since its founding in 2011, the annual OMR Festival has taken place in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. The organizer of the event is Ramp 106 GmbH; the team of founders includes Philipp Westermeyer, Tobias Schlottke, Christian Müller and Christian Byza. The OMR Festival is organized into two parallel events: the Expo and Conference.

OMR Expo

The OMR Expo is a two-day trade fair, which in 2018 consisted of more than 300 international exhibitors from the sectors of adtech,

affiliate marketing Affiliate marketing is a marketing arrangement in which affiliates receive a commission for each visit, signup or sale they generate for a merchant. This arrangement allows businesses to outsource part of the sales process. It is a form of p ...

, analytics, marketing attribution,

consulting A consultant (from la, consultare "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice and other purposeful activities in an area of specialization. Consulting servic ...

content marketing Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online. It is often used by businesses in order to achieve the following goals: attract attention and generate leads, exp ...

, data, display marketing,

eCommerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain managemen ...

email marketing Email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It involves using email to s ...

gaming Gaming may refer to: Games and sports The act of playing games, as in: * Legalized gambling, playing games of chance for money, often referred to in law as "gaming" * Playing a role-playing game, in which players assume fictional roles * Playin ...

, HR, IT,

influencer marketing Influencer marketing (also known as influence marketing) is a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social infl ...

, marketing cloud,

mobile advertising Mobile advertising is a form of advertising via mobile (wireless) phones or other mobile devices. It is a subset of mobile marketing, mobile advertising can take place as text ads via SMS, or banner advertisements that appear embedded in a mob ...

native advertising Native advertising, also called sponsored content, is a type of advertising that matches the form and function of the platform upon which it appears. In many cases it functions like an advertorial, and manifests as a video, article or editorial. ...

, performance marketing,

programmatic advertising Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. ...

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

search engine marketing Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising. SEM may incorporate search engine opti ...

social media marketing Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for ...

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

and

video advertising Video advertising encompasses online display advertisements that have video within them, but it is generally accepted that it refers to advertising that occurs before, during and/or after a video stream on the internet. The advertising units use ...

. In conjunction with the Expo is a program of events, including stages with live presentations, a variety of 90-minute seminars on specific

topics called Masterclasses and an Expo party. In 2018, the OMR Expo welcomed more than 40,000 attendees.

OMR Conference

The OMR Conference is a one-day specialist conference focusing on

topics and traditionally takes place on the second day of the OMR Festival. In years past, a variety of international marketing experts have held presentations on the Conference Stage, including VaynerMedia founder

Gary Vaynerchuk Gary Vaynerchuk (born Gennady Vaynerchuk; November 14, 1975; , ), commonly known as Gary Vee, is a Soviet-born American entrepreneur, author, speaker, and Internet personality. He is a co-founder of the restaurant reservation software company Re ...

Pinterest Pinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information (specifically "ideas") on the internet using images, and on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboard ...

founder

Evan Sharp Evan Sharp (born 1982) is an American billionaire Internet entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and chief design and creative officer of Pinterest, a visual discovery engine. He joined the company's board of directors in March 2019. Early life Sha ...

, Youtuber

Casey Neistat Casey Owen Neistat (; born March 25, 1981) is an American YouTube personality, filmmaker, vlogger and co-founder of the multimedia company Beme, which was later acquired by CNN. In 2018, he founded ''368'', a creative space for creators to col ...

BuzzFeed BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Ken ...

founder

Jonah Peretti Jonah H. Peretti (born January 1, 1974) is an Internet entrepreneur, a co-founder and the CEO of BuzzFeed, co-founder of ''The Huffington Post'', and developer of reblogging under the project "Reblog". Education and early career Peretti was b ...

Metallica Metallica is an American heavy metal band. The band was formed in 1981 in Los Angeles by vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been based in San Francisco for most of its career. The band's fast tempos, instrume ...

founder

Lars Ulrich Lars Ulrich (; ; born 26 December 1963) is a Danish musician best known as the drummer and co-founder of American heavy metal band Metallica. The son and grandson respectively of tennis players Torben and Einer Ulrich, he played tennis in his ...

, NYU Professor

Scott Galloway Scott Robert Galloway (born 25 April 1995) is an Australian professional football (soccer) player who plays as a fullback for Melbourne City in the A-League. Born in Perth, Galloway played youth football for the Australian Institute of Sport ...

and skateboarder

Tony Hawk Anthony Frank Hawk (born May 12, 1968), nicknamed Birdman, is an American professional skateboarder, entrepreneur, and the owner of the skateboard company Birdhouse. A pioneer of modern vertical skateboarding, Hawk completed the first documen ...

. The OMR Conference also includes the Aftershow Party. In 2018, 7500 people attended the OMR Conference.

Target audience

As a B2B trade fair, the OMR Festival is primarily aimed at CEOs, higher-ups and marketing managers from companies of all sizes, who seek information and exchange on the current possibilities and solutions in the

sector.

History

2019

2019 was a year of firsts for the OMR Festival. Instead of being scheduled in late February/March as usual, OMR19 moved to May for the first time, taking place on May 7 & 8, 2019. OMR19 also saw the first rendition of the Festival to take up six halls at the Hamburg Exhibition Center and cracked the 50,000-attendee mark (52,000) for the first time. The Expo portion of the Festival featured 400 exhibitors, 150 Masterclasses, 37 Guided Tours and 100 Side Events. Headlining the Conference on May 8 were

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

' best-selling author

Yuval Noah Harari Yuval Noah Harari ( he, יובל נח הררי ; born 1976) is an Israeli historian and professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of the popular science bestsellers '' Sapiens: A Brief History ...

, Endeavor executive

Bozoma Saint John Bozoma "Boz" Saint John ( née Arthur) is an American businessperson and marketing executive who was the chief marketing officer (CMO) at Netflix. Previously, she served as CMO at Endeavor, and chief brand officer (CBO) at Uber until June 2018 ...

Headspace Headspace may refer to: *Headspace (company), an online healthcare company specializing in meditation *Headspace (organisation), an Australian non-profit organization for youth mental health *Headspace or ullage, the unfilled space in a container ...

CEO

Andy Puddicombe Andy Puddicombe (born 23 September 1972) is a British author, public speaker and a teacher of meditation and mindfulness. He, alongside Richard Pierson, is the co-founder of Headspace (guided meditation platform), Headspace, a digital health co ...

JD.Com JD.com, Inc., also known as Jingdong (), internationally known as Joybuy and formerly called 360buy,

CEO Bowen Zhou,

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

journalist

Taylor Lorenz Taylor Lorenz (born October 21 1984–1987) is an American journalist for ''The Washington Post''. She was previously a technology reporter for ''The New York Times'', ''The Daily Beast'', and ''Business Insider'', and social media editor for ...

and British recording artist

Ellie Goulding Elena Jane Goulding ( ; born 30 December 1986) is an English singer and songwriter. Her career began when she met record producers Starsmith and Frankmusik, and she was later spotted by Jamie Lillywhite, who became her manager and Artists and ...

2018

The OMR Festival 2018 took place on March 22 & 23 in five halls, encompassing 65,000 square meters, at the Hamburg Exhibition Center. More than 40,000 people and 300 exhibitors from Europe and beyond attended the event. More than 300 speakers and presenters took part in 120 Masterclasses, on two Expo stages and at the Conference. These included

Andrus Ansip Andrus Ansip (; born 1 October 1956) is an Estonian politician, a member of the European Parliament, the former European Commissioner for Digital Single Market and Vice President of the European Commission, in office from 2014 until 2019. Previo ...

, Vice President of the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...

Nasty Gal Nasty Gal is an American retailer that specializes in fashion for young women. The company has customers in over 60 countries. Founded by Sophia Amoruso in 2006, Nasty Gal was named "Fastest Growing Retailer" in 2012 by '' Inc.'' magazine. Nasty ...

founder

Sophia Amoruso Sophia Christina Amoruso (born April 20, 1984) is an American businesswoman. Amoruso was born in San Diego, California, and moved to Sacramento, California, after High school, soon after relocating to San Francisco. Amoruso founded Nasty Gal, a wo ...

, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, Fitness influencer and entrepreneur

Kayla Itsines Kayla Itsines ( ; born 21 May 1991) is an Australian personal trainer, author, and entrepreneur with Greek heritage. She is the creator of a series of fitness ebooks titled ''Bikini Body Guides'', and a meal-planning and workout app, ''Sweat wi ...

En Marche Renaissance (RE), previously known as La République En Marche ! (frequently abbreviated LREM, LaREM or REM; translated as "The Republic on the Move" or "Republic Forward"), or sometimes called simply En Marche ! () as its original name, is a l ...

campaign manager Guillaume Liegey, blogger

Tim Urban Timothy Joseph Urban (born May 1, 1989) is an American singer who was the seventh place finalist on the ninth season of ''American Idol''. Following his participation in the series, he released two EPs: '' Heart of Me'' in 2010 and ''New York ...

(

Wait But Why Wait But Why (WBW) is a website founded by Tim Urban and Andrew Finn and written and illustrated by Urban. The site covers a range of subjects as a long-form blog. Typical posts involve long-form discussions of various topics, including artificial ...

), Scott Galloway, L2 founder and professor the

NYU Stern School of Business The New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business (commonly referred to as NYU Stern, The Stern School of Business, or simply Stern) is the business school of New York University, a private research university based in New York City. I ...

Zalando Zalando SE is a publicly traded German online retailer of shoes, fashion and beauty. The company was founded in 2008 by David Schneider and Robert Gentz and has more than 50 million active users in 25 European markets. Zalando is active in a vari ...

founder Robert Gentz,

Axel Springer SE Axel Springer SE () is a German digital and popular periodical publishing house which is the largest in Europe, with numerous multimedia news brands, such as '' Bild'', ''Die Welt'', and ''Fakt'' and more than 15,000 employees. It generated to ...

boss

Mathias Döpfner Mathias Döpfner (born 15 January 1963) is a German businessman and journalist. He is the CEO and 22% owner of media group Axel Springer SE, and president of the Federal Association of Digital Publishers and Newspaper Publishers (BDZV). Early li ...

, influencer twins

Lisa and Lena Lisa and Lena Mantler (born June 17, 2002) are identical twins from Stuttgart, Germany. They make short videos, especially of lip syncing, on social media outlets such as TikTok, Instagram and Twitter. Career Lisa and Lena started making vi ...

, star statistician

Nate Silver Nathaniel Read Silver (born January 13, 1978) is an American statistician, writer, and poker player who analyzes baseball (see sabermetrics), basketball, and elections (see psephology). He is the founder and editor-in-chief of ''FiveThirtyEight' ...

, investor

Frank Thelen Frank Thelen (born 10 October 1975) is a German businessman, investor and author based in Bonn. Career Thelen was a co-founder of companies such as ip.labs and doo. As of 2014, he is the CEO of venture capital firm e42, now Freigeist Capital, ...

, TV presenter Lena Gerke,

Douglas Douglas may refer to: People * Douglas (given name) * Douglas (surname) Animals *Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking *Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil W ...

CEO Tina Müller, Fashion Designer Magnus Walker,

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

VP Ads & Business Platform Mark Rabkin and Chief Content Officer at

Refinery29 Refinery29 (R29) is an American multinational digital media and entertainment website focused on young women. It is owned by Vice Media. History Justin Stefano, Philippe von Borries, Piera Gelardi, and Christene Barberich co-founded Refinery29 i ...

Amy Emmerich.

2017

The OMR Festival 2017 took place on March 2 and 3, 2017 in three halls at the Hamburg Exhibition Center. Over 200 international exhibitors and approximately 26,000 visitors attended the seventh edition of the OMR Festival. Speakers and guests included former Minister of Economics

Brigitte Zypries Brigitte Zypries (born 16 November 1953) is a German lawyer and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Between 2017 and 2018, she served as Minister for Economics and Energy in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel; she was the fir ...

(

SPD The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the ...

) from Germany, entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk (VaynerMedia),

Iron Maiden Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band formed in Leyton, East London, in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. While fluid in the early years of the band, the lineup for most of the band's history has consisted of Harri ...

singer

Bruce Dickinson Paul Bruce Dickinson (born 7 August 1958) is an English singer who has been the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden from 1981 to 1993 and 1999–present. He is known for his wide-ranging operatic vocal style and energetic stage ...

, Youtuber Casey Neistat, old-school German rappers Beginner,

Trivago Trivago N.V., marketed with lowercase styling as trivago, is a German technology company specializing in internet-related services and products in the hotel, lodging and metasearch fields. The company is headquartered in Düsseldorf. The American o ...

founder Rolf Schrömgens, Facebook executive

Andrew Bosworth Andrew "Boz" Bosworth is an American business executive who has been Chief Technology Officer of Meta since 2022. After graduating from Harvard University in 2004, he worked as a developer on Microsoft Visio for almost two years, then joined Mar ...

and

Cambridge Analytica Cambridge Analytica Ltd (CA), previously known as SCL USA, was a British political consulting firm that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It was started in 2013, as a subsidiary of the private intelli ...

CEO

Alexander Nix Alexander James Ashburner Nix (born 1 May 1975) is a British businessman, the former CEO of Cambridge Analytica and a former director of the Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) Group, a behavioural research and strategic communications ...

2016

In 2016, the OMR Festival took place in two halls at the Hamburg Exhibition Center for the first time. 16,533 trade visitors attended the Conference and Expo on February 25 and 26, 2016. Approximately 4900 Conference attendees saw marketing professor Scott Galloway, skateboard legend Tony Hawk, "My Little Paris" founder Fany Péchiodat,

Ströer Ströer SE & Co. KGaA is a German out-of-home advertising, online advertising, billboards and street furniture company with headquarters in Cologne. Markets Ströer SE & Co. KGaA is a out-of-home advertising, online advertising, billboards and st ...

COO Christian Schmalzl,

Growth Hacking Growth hacking is a subfield of marketing focused on the rapid growth of a company. It is referred to as both a process and a set of cross-disciplinary (digital) skills. The goal is to regularly conduct experiments, which can include A/B testing, ...

expert Neil Patel and musician

Jan Delay Jan Phillip Eißfeldt (born 25 August 1976), known professionally as Jan Delay, is a German rapper and singer whose stylistic range includes mainly hip hop, reggae, dub and funk. An accomplished solo artist, he became known to the public as ...

and

Udo Lindenberg Udo Lindenberg (born 17 May 1946) is a German singer, drummer, and composer. Career Lindenberg started his musical career as a drummer. In 1969, he founded his first band Free Orbit, and also appeared as a studio and guest musician (with Micha ...

speak on stage.

2015

From February 26 to 28, the OMR Conference was expanded to include the OMR Expo, with 50 exhibitors taking part in the format’s first ever rendition. The OMR Conference took place over two days at the Stage Theater im Hafen, while the Expo was held at the

Millerntor-Stadion Millerntor-Stadion () is a multi-purpose stadium in the St. Pauli area of Hamburg, Germany. Best known as the home ground of Association football, football club FC St. Pauli, it is on the Heiligengeistfeld near the Reeperbahn, the red light distr ...

. The Conference and Expo attracted a total of 2500 industry professionals. On stage were, among others, founder mayor of Hamburg

Olaf Scholz Olaf Scholz (; born ) is a German politician who has served as the chancellor of Germany since 8 December 2021. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party (SPD), he previously served as Vice Chancellor of German ...

experts Gary Vaynerchuk, Pinterest founder Evan Sharp, Thales Teixeira, professor for business administration at Harvard School and Benjamin Bak, founder of Lovoo.

2014

In 2014, the Online Marketing Rockstars Conference took place on February 21 at the Stage-Theater im Hafen and was attended by 2000 people. The agenda consisted of 20 speakers, including BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti, who spoke for the first time in Germany. Additional speakers included

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

professor Ben Edelman, legendary German hip-hop trio

Fettes Brot Fettes Brot () is a German hip hop group that formed in 1992. History Band name Fettes Brot means ''fat bread'' in German. "Fett" is a German slang term for "excellent" and brot is slang for "hash". The band took the name from a fan who ca ...

, poetry slammer Julia Engelmann,

Selfmade Records Selfmade Records is a German hip hop music, hip hop label, which was formed 2005 by Elvir Omerbegovic, better known under the pseudonym Slick One, and Philipp Dammann. The studio is located in Düsseldorf. Philipp Dammann left the label at the ...

founder Elvir Ombergovic and

John Battelle John Linwood Battelle (born November 4, 1965) is an entrepreneur, author and journalist. Best known for his work creating media properties, Battelle helped launch ''Wired'' in the 1990s and launched ''The Industry Standard ''during the dot-com bo ...

, founder of

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

magazine.

2013

1200 industry visitors attended the third Online Marketing Rockstars Conference on February 22 at Großen Freiheit 36. Youtuber Sami Slimani, former adviser to US President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

Julius van de Laar, legendary German musician

, Mister Spex managers Mirko Caspar and Harvard Professor

Jeffrey Rayport Jeffrey F. Rayport is an academic, author, consultant, and founder and chairman of Marketspace LLC, a strategic advisory practice that works with leading companies to reinvent how they interact with and relate to customers. Marketspace was a unit o ...

gave presentations on the latest developments and trends in

2012

The second OMR Conference took place on February 24, 2012 at the

Große Freiheit 36 Große Freiheit 36 is a music club on Große Freiheit street in Hamburg's St. Pauli district. The Kaiserkeller is in its basement. History Already in the 1940s, the address was home to the "Hippodrom", a club that had been made famous in the fi ...

venue and was attended by 600 persons. Keynotes were held by Daniel Schiemann, former Marketing service provider of

YouPorn YouPorn is a free pornographic video sharing website and one of the 100 most accessed websites in the world. Since launching in August 2006, it grew to become one of the most popular pornographic website on the internet, and, in November 2007 ...

, Hamburg Media School professor Dr. Sabine Trepte, Dr. Florian Heinemann (formerly of

Rocket Internet Rocket Internet SE is a German Internet company headquartered in Berlin. The company builds startups and owns shareholdings in various models of internet retail businesses. The company model is known as a startup studio or a venture builder. It ...

) and

SEO Seo or SEO may refer to: * Search engine optimization, the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines Organisations * SEO Economic Research, a scientific institute * Spanish Ornithological Society (''Socied ...

expert Marcus Tandler.

2011

The inaugural Online Marketing Rockstars Conference was held on February 11, 2011 at the

Bucerius Law School Bucerius Law School (pronounced ) is a private law school located in Hamburg, Germany. The school is the first private law school in Germany. It admits approximately 100 undergraduate students per year. Origins and structure Bucerius Law Schoo ...

in Hamburg. Approximately 200 guests attended the premier event. Speakers on stage included

Idealo idealo internet GmbH is a German price comparison service launched in Germany in 2000, and since bought by the Axel Springer AG publishing company. The headquarters are in Berlin, Germany. The idealo website allows users to compare prices on a ran ...

founder Martin Sinner and founder of upscale matchmaking service ElitePartner Arne Kahlke.

External links

References

{{Reflist, 30em Technology conferences Business conferences Web-related conferences