• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 9, 2010

Today, Digitas will host its third annual "Digital Content NewFront"in New York, an event designed to stimulate branded digital content deals between Hollywood producers and talent and Madison Avenue and big marketers. On the eve of this year's event, Digitas chief Laura Lang reflected on the evolution of the NewFront, and where she thinks it may be heading.

Online Media Daily: Why do you do it?

Laura Lang: It started three years ago. We took a look at the marketplace and saw that this was going to be an incredibly important part of how brands built their relationships with consumers. And there was absolutely nowhere to develop the relationships between the people who created the content and the brands that use it. There was absolutely nothing. It was an absolute white space. There was nowhere to have these discussions, and to make it happen.

The first year was just to make the industry know this was going to happen. We had a couple of big brands do some deals. Fast-forward to 2010 and it is mainstream, and it is critical to how brands connect with consumers. In the first year, we had to seek people out. This year, it was a total avalanche of people: Celebrities, content creators. We had to turn people away.

The keynote the first year was Michael Eisner, who was just launching his own digital production company. The participants were not household names. This year, it's every A-list producer and thinker. We've got everyone from Lisa Kudrow to Terry Hatcher.

OMD: What do you hope to take away from these events?

Lang: Last year, we had Paula Dean, who is a huge celebrity on the Food Network. And Kraft ended up doing their partnership for 'The Real Women of Philadelphia,' the community of real women who blog about their recipes.

This year, we have people coming just be to be provocative. People like [All Things Digital's] Kara Swisher, Arianna Huffington, and Martha Stewart.

We have people who are pushing the envelope like Kevin Pollack and Seth Green.

OMD: What's changed over the three years you've been doing this?

Lang: What's changed is that big brand marketers are now realizing this is a critical part of their marketing budget and their strategy. Instead of coming as an observer, they're coming in 2010 as 'This is critical," and this is part of their customer journey. They're coming to do deals.

OMD: But is it still exclusive to Digitas and its clients?

Lang: Pretty much, but we've invited some of our industry colleagues. We've invited senior marketers who are not our clients. And we actually have invited a few people from other agencies. Obviously, it is a Digitas Third Act event, but we took a different tack, that in order for this to take off, it truly has to be an industry event. In this world, some of this has to be open.

OMD: What do you expect to take away from this year's event?

Lang: Our hope for this year is getting a lot more deals done. And really moving this marketplace forward so that many more major marketers are using the creation of content and community together to build their brands. In the first year, we had one or two deals. This year, we have over 50 private meetings scheduled between major content creators and major brands who have money and want to move this forward.

There's a real sense of -- almost urgency -- that this is a playing field that they've got to be at.

We'd love for this to become more open to the industry. We think that the bigger this becomes, the more it helps the industry get smarter about this. We see it as core as marketing going forward. In a post-advertising world, this creation of content around community -- or even the reverse, community around content -- will be critical to marketing plans.

OMD: So are you willing to go on record and invite the rest of the industry to turn this into an open industry event, and let them help plan it next year?

Lang: I haven't even thought about that, but it's a great idea. One of the things you'll see at this year's event is that we will be asking everyone for their input. Last year, we asked people to lead and come up with ideas. This year, we will ask people to help us plan what next year will look like. You will hear that discussed at the conference.

OMD: Do you have a KPI, or some kind of measure for determining the success of this year's event?

Lang: We don't have a number, but what we want to measure is the quality and the impact of the deals that get done. To us that is much more important. Than the volume. You can do 50 deals, but if they're not quality deals, it doesn't matter. What we'd like to do is things like the Kraft/"Real Women of Philadelphia" deal. That was real impact. Eight weeks and eight million views. We want to do deals that have some serious impact.