It’s always enjoyable to get feedback from brands and agencies around the world who have afforded the time to attend the various sessions – especially from those whose English is not their native tongue. Here is a small collection of what some others have shared in the past.
Client Testimonials
“Dean is a digital visionary who makes you instantly re-think strategy and approach with solid facts and information. At a recent presentation Dean invigorated my will to make further changes within the business at Activision. Truly inspirational! I also worked with Dean at Five by Five where his passion and drive never dwindled!”
Mark Cox, European Digital Marketing Manager, Activision
“Dean is a true digital evangelist who is bursting with enthusiasm. He has become an essential part of our client digital days and has a fantastic ability to imbue clients with his contagious digital passion!”
Le’Nise Brothers, Head of Interactive, PHD Rocket, London
“Dean seems to live and breathe digital advertising – One of the most driven and passionate people I’ve met with regards to his work and has lent a plethora of support to the Microsoft Advertising business over the past few years…”
David Pugh-Jones, Creative Strategist EMEA, Microsoft Advertising
“Dean is one of a rare breed of extremely passionate digital marketer/technologist/ideation master. When I need a fresh, challenging, assumptions-checking perspective on an industry issue or a business problem, Dean is always a great person with whom to talk it through. Well worth knowing and engaging.”
James Sandoval, Technology & Analytics Director, Neo@Ogilvy
“Dean is an true online advertising evangelist – he walks the walk as well as talks the talk. His grasp of the business is second to none and he’s able to really communicate his passion for the business to a non-geek audience. A great all rounder, he knows everything from the nuts and bolts right up to the more esoteric theories – highly recommended.”
David Burrows, Director of Ad Operations, Phorm
“Dean is an excellent public speaker who manages to translate the geeky world of online marketing into something that all marketers can relate to. His knowledge about the digital environment and his skills as an evangelist is extremely valuable for all companies operating within new media.”
Even Aas-Eng, VP Digital Media, McCann Worldgroup, Norway
“Dean is a passionate and super knowledgeable expert in the digital space. Always thinking creatively and relentlessly pursuing best digital solutions for clients and partners. It has been a fantastic experience working with Dean and Eyeblaster!”
Andy Chen, Digital Media Strategy Director, Isobar Global / Carat Global Management
“There is probably no one else in the Rich Media business who knows as much or is as passionate about the subject more than Dean. He’s one of those people that you know if he’s working with you on a project, innovative and reasonable decisions will be made, and things will work well when they need to, which is a rare thing in the online world…”
Alec McCrindle, Head of Interactive Advertising, Yahoo! Europe
“Dean’s great at understanding the key requirements of where the digital industry needs progress in the tracking space. His new strategic role at eyeblaster fits his skillset and I am sure that the new insight which he will bring to the industry will be of great value. Personally I would highly recommend him and look forward to seeing some of the work!”
Dave Hompe, Group Media Director, Isobar Global
“Dean has always been great to work with and has always gone out of his way to look at solutions for particularly complicated campaigns. With his help, we managed to so some fantastic campaigns, which set new industry standards.”
Sonja Lakner, Project Manager, Lateral
“Dean is quite an extraordinary character and a rare breed – a fiery, persuasive and energetic evangelist, a visionary mind and an inspiring creative with endless imagination and drive. More than that, he’s incredibly dynamic, being able to fit into any role, surmount any obstacle and rise to any challenge thrown his way. He is the guy every team needs to breath life and air into the day and bring it all together in time for the deadline. Reliable, courteous, eloquent, charismatic…you could carry on for a while. There simply is no stopping him.”
Alexander Cameron, Owner, Digital TX Limited
“Dean is always really polite, pro active and very forward thinking in the times I have worked him. Excellent knowledge of the market.”
Sally Copleston, Commercial Development Manager, Yahoo!
“Dean is knowledgeable & great to work with in the online ad business. He understands, Publisher, Agency & Advertiser needs & delivers a great service for us as a publisher.”
Barry John, Traffic Manager, Virgin Media
“Dean was very responsiveness and followed up directly on requests I had for opportunities we worked on together. Excellent partner!!”
Swen Krups, Sales and Account Director, DoubleClick TechSolutions, EMEA
“Clear, concise and professional. knows his stuff, knows his web.”
Daniel Robey, Managing Director, ThinkJam
“I worked with Dean on a large, complicated project. Very professional. Not a bad guy either.”
Maciek (Matt) Gorzkowski, Client Services Director, Play / M&C Saatchi
“When I worked with Dean I had only recently started out as a Web Designer, and he gave me invaluable advice and really helped me to develop my skills. He always knew exactly what he was talking about and obviously really cared about what we did, and he gently pushed me to get the best out of me – so thank you Dean!”
Anna Celeste Watson, Designer, Fresh Egg Ltd
“I worked with Dean to assist us in setting-up a brand new website, from concept through to completion. We wanted to provide our customers with an easy-to-use site which would be informative, eye-catching and of course produce revenue. Dean’s comprehensive approach enabled us to produce exactly what was required, offering his expertise, advice and support throughout this process.”
Jane Gammage, Marketing Manager, Pevonia UK Ltd
Event Feedback
“‘What an impressive guy!! That presentation was a real kick in the butt. Is he available to speak to clients? They need to hear this stuff!’ Dean, I wanted to share just a few comments resulting from your outstanding presentation to the Digitas Chicago staff. We have speakers come in all the time who are leaders in the industry and experts in their field. But rarely do we have the pleasure of listening to a true evangelist who combines compelling storytelling with a real vision of where we need to be headed to help our clients be successful. I can’t thank you enough!”
Colleen Whitney, SVP / Media Director, Digitas Chicago
“It’s always well appreciated to get a macro perspective on forward thinking where the focus is on the shift, so that the right fundamentals get laid down for the minute things turn… as we all know, things tend to happen overnight and then you find yourself late in the game. Being cognizant of these changing trends will be critical as we continue to plan ahead and really, for the shift in engagement. Thanks to Dean for the great presentation… you could tell we were all very engaged.”
Kat Chung, Associate Director, Digital, Initiative LA
“On behalf of the whole EGTA team, I wanted to thank you for your participation in the MediaConnect. Your input really contributed to the success of this event. We had very positive feedback from the ‘VIPs’ of the European Commission who were present, and they appreciated very much the concrete examples and business insights you provided them with – and are very confident that it will help them in the revision of the Green Paper on Connected TV and generally, the legislation of our industry.”
Anne-Laure Dreyfus, Communications Manager, EGTA – Association of Television and Radio sales houses
“An outstanding and thought provoking presentation on the Internet of Things, helping people practically understand the impacts of Near Field Communication upon the media world. The highlight of our Samsung Developer Day 2013!”
Erin Ericson, Senior Business Development Manager, Samsung Media Solutions Center Europe
“All the comments we have received from the EU Ministers for Culture after the meeting are so positive and your participation was of the key importance being it successful.”
Laimonas Ubavicius, Attache for Media Policy, Audiovisual and Copyright, Permanent Representation of Lithuania to the EU
“An interesting debate in the EU Council about converged media with futurologist Dean Donaldson, showcasing the digital future for connected citizens and what’s ahead of us…”
Alexandra Ekkelenkamp, Press Officer, EU Council Press
“Just wanted to thank you properly for your great innovative presentations at Rich Media Workshop in Tokyo yesterday! You ROCKED! Despite of early Monday morning session, you two got the Japanese audience excited with your energetic and fun speech.”
Ayumi Ai, Microsoft Advertising Trade Marketing, Japan
“Well this has been remarkable. Definitely one of the better presentations we’ve seen in a long time.”
Matt Wood, Manager of Media Development, Razorfish Seattle
“Many thanks for your participation at our digital video meeting yesterday. It was in fact the perfect set up for our day, we referred back to your presentation many times.”
Joe Barone, Managing Director, Digital Ad Operations, Group M New York
“Totally inspiring. We simply need a deck like that!”
Carl Fremont, Global Media Director, Digitas New York
“ALMOST goes without saying how much you were appreciated at this first-year conference. The compliments are pouring in and you are at the top of the list of admired keynotes we had. You’ve got a great spot with MediaMind and I’m sure they are thankful to have you as an asset, spreading the good word.”
Shawn Rorick, Event Chair, Digital World Expo, Las Vegas
“Dean, it was a pleasure meeting you at last week’s Pushing Boundaries: Connecting digital media trends happy hour and I wanted to thank you again for your participation as keynote speaker. Your presentation was highly informative and engaging, and we’ve been receiving wonderful feedback! We hope that you enjoyed the event as well and would love to have you back foranother Pushing Boundaries.”
Katie Sinnett, Integration Manager, FRWD Co., Minneapolis
“I just wanted to reach out to you to thank you again for speaking at our meeting. The presentation was perfect! You blew everyone’s mind and overwhelmed them. It was exactly what we wanted to do. It was a pleasure meeting you.”
Steve Muscato, Brand Marketing Manager, Bridgestone Retail Operations, LLC, US
“Great presentation!! Should you be visiting Munich again and have time, we would appreciate you coming by!”
Gregor Abt, Geschäftsführer, mailandsale GmbH, München, Germany
“Dean, it was great seeing you last week in Miami and terrific presentation! I can’t tell you how many comments I heard and have seen since the summit about how well you can work a room and put together a powerpoint.”
Jason Haffar, Director, Sales, iMedia Communications, Inc., Laguna Hills, CA.
“Hi Dean, I wanted to say thanks again for an awesome presentation yesterday. I left inspired with some great take aways and some pretty good talking points as well.”
Garrio Harrison, President dblthink, Minneapolis
“Just a quick note to say thanks so much for coming in yesterday – your talk was terrific. I’ve had lots of positive feedback from people, so I hope you didn’t take the absence of questions as an indication of anything other than stunned silence And don’t think it went unnoticed that the book having its barcode scanned on one of your slides was Snowcrash – nice touch ;)”
Ben Lunt, Head of Hypermedia, London
“Thanks again for everything today. Great deck and you’re a terrific presenter. You definitely drew a healthy response in attendees for the breakfast, plus another 15 or so on the web conference.”
Lisa Kerr, VP, Market Development, Online Publisher’s Association, New York
“I’ve gotten really good feedback so far and I definitely think we will want to have Dean in again – potentially for a client engagement. I thought it was really a compelling presentation with lots of dots connected in a way that should help our teams start thinking in a different way. Thanks again for offering him up.”
Kevin Hartbarger, Midwest Regional Director, Digital, OMD Chicago
“We are excited to share with you that during the two days of IAB Conecta we had more than 900 participants. Among them, 400 eager marketers ready to learn about strategies and recent happenings in the Interactive Marketing industry. Your participation was key to the success of IAB Conecta 2010 and the Mexican Digital Marketing Industry. The feedback we received was amazing. Thank you for making this year’s IAB Conecta so special!”
Bianca W. Loew, Director General, IAB México
“I loved the presentation that you gave last week in Mexico at de IAB Conecta!”
Pablo Cortina, Supervisor de Cuenta, WebAr Interactive, Argentina
“Thank you again for your speech at the partner engagement event in Hungary. It was a brilliant speech – as always!”
Anita Geiger, APS Marketing Lead CEMEA, Microsoft Advertising
“You were a moderator’s dream! I would like to tap your insights about other trends and issues sometime in the future.”
Anna Maria Virzi, Executive Editor, The ClickZ Network
“I had the pleasure of choosing your Spotlight [at iMedia Florida] and loved your presentation. What I saw in your presentation is exactly the message I try to deliver to prospective clients… it was in my humble opinion, the best part of the Summit!”
Maryalice Peterson, Merchant Content, Localeze
“On behalf of Microsoft Advertising I would like to send a big thank you for taking part in our Rich Media Rock roadshows last week! It really was a valuable opportunity for both the audience and Microsoft Advertising to learn from your expertise and experience working with Rich Media. Feedback we’ve received from the audience shows they very much enjoyed your talk, which has in turn sparked other lively conversations about the topic amongst those in attendance.”
Vineet Gupta, Marketing Lead, Microsoft Advertising, India
“I really enjoyed your presentation during this week’s ClickZ event in New York… congratulations.”
Phillip Klien, Predicta, Brazil
“I would really like to take this opportunity to thank you for joining us in our event ‘The Connection 08’ & make it a huge success. I’m really very glad about how all the event was shaped & from the great presentation that you shared with us! I’m quite sure that everyone who attended the session share with me the same vision.”
Mohamed ElSayad, General Manager, MSN Arabia
“Thanks very much for your help with the campaign. Your insight broke down some barriers and I hope that we will have a better campaign as a result.”
Kelly Bennett, Director, New Media & Interactive Marketing, Warner Bros. Pictures International
“Thank you again for making the trip out to our corner of the country – the presentation was well received and I’ve had very positive feedback since the event!”
Meagan Minus, Sr. Media Project Manager, Ad Products, Revenue Operations & Strategic Services, Disney Interactive Media Group, Seattle
“Thank you an inspiring seminar in London this Monday/Tuesday.”
Lars Høngaard, Marketing & Publicity Manager, Sony Pictures, Denmark
“Thanks for a terrific presentation [at iMedia Entertainment Summit] last week!”
Brad Berens, Chief Content Officer, DMG World Media
“Just wanted to say thanks for bringing in Dean. The discussion was timely and very thought provoking. We all look forward to finding creative, relevant, and effective ways to reach consumers.”
Danisha Wright, Assistant Media Planner, AKQA San Francisco
“Just want to say a big thank you for the presentation to John Frieda. The client has been amazed by very high quality of the presentation. They are now very excited by all the creative opportunities available for them.”
Marie-Anne Garnier, Buying Manager, Zed Media, London
“I enjoyed the afternoon immensely! I found the ‘evolving nature of media’ Dean Donaldson presented be very insightful and relevant to my current role. There was some great info in there. It gave us some excellent insight into the current digital landscape, current agencies/advertiser challenges, how this relates to a publisher as well as how they are working closer with Eyeblaster.”
Andrew Prakash, Campaign Manager, ninemsn, Australia
“Thank you so much for speaking at Swirl today… many people came up to me after saying what an interesting talk it was and how great of a speaker you were. I do think the little Swirl sprockets were turning based on the information you provided in your talk and will provide food for thought starters going forward. All of your information was highly valid and current to the current atmosphere we find ourselves in.”
Annie Leuenberger, Director of Resource Management, Swirl San Francisco
“Thanks so much for taking the time today to have Dean come it and talk with us. It was truly an incredible presentation and Greg is going to be super bummed that he missed it! Thanks again and have a fabulous holiday weekend!”
Heather Jenkin, Senior Media Strategist, Swirl San Francisco
“Thank you so much for taking the time to come to Norway to do the roadshow to Carat, Mediaedge, Mediacom and Apt. Everybody enjoyed your presentation.”
Aksel Sørbye, Marketing Manager, Microsoft Advertising, Norway
“These Eyeblaster guys are no longer just a rich-media ad server. They have developed a custom CMS solution for Flash banners. Their evangelist, Dean Donaldson, gave an eloquent talk on how purchases really happen today and made the point that the click-to-buy mentality marketers have come to rely on because we can measure it is a fantasy because it doesn’t represent how people actually buy stuff. To its credit, Eyeblaster is working to develop more appropriate metrics based on actual consumer behavior.”
Adam Kleinberg, CEO of Traction, San Francisco
“I am writing you an email to share with you the great work Dean has done the last 3 days in Oslo. The value of him presenting the digital landscape and associate it to the Eyeblaster brand is so valuable. Believe me. I was very sceptical about this before I experienced the reaction from the crowd. The MSN team were so excited and positive. They literally told us that what we pulled in 3 days they never would achieve in such a short time period. Keep up the good work Dean”
Guy Makmel, Easy Concepts, Amsterdam
“Just wanted to say such a massive thank you for your chat today. Really sorry if it came across as though we were giving you a grilling – it’s just so interesting to hear industry’s perspective on this – I wanted to put the arguments we’ve heard to you so we could better understand your perspective. And I did! We’ve been developing a policy position on this over the last year or so, and have conducted various pieces of market research. Hearing how fast it is all progressing was a real eye opener. Would love to be able to chat with you further on all of this – and I’ll read your blog and thesis with interest.”
Georgina Nelson, In-House Lawyer, Which? UK
“I just wanted to say thank you very very much for this morning (especially after a heavy awards night)! I got an email from Which? saying how useful the session was and how much they really enjoyed it!”
Katie Hemus, interactive media manager, PHD Rocket, London
“I just wanted to say a huge thank you for coming along to the meeting this morning which we all found incredibly informative. I hope you didn’t mind that we went off on a tangent somewhat into wider discussions about privacy and the industries stance on this. It’ s an area that has been widely debated at Which? and it was so useful to hear your viewpoint as someone so actively involved and knowledgeable in this area. It would be really useful to keep in touch if possible to pick your brains as this debate develops. ”
Anna Hillier, Marketing, Which? UK
“Digital Experience Day was a pretty cool event, fitting of the digital theme. One of the best I have attended lately.”
Moses Chia, DSEA/Marketing, Daimler South East Asia Pte. Ltd., Singapore
“A quick note to congratulate the marketing team on putting on the best event we’ve ever had. It was a class act from beginning to end. Great content and production, excellently presented. The panel helped provide a thought provoking end note. The audience remained engaged throughout. Thanks for the big effort. It was great!”
Joel Crawford, Vice President Sales & Client Services, EMEA, MediaMind
“I want to personally congratulate all that were involved in yesterday’s DED. I heard nothing but kudos regarding the whole event. The venue was amazing, Dean’s presentation and the video work between each segment was, as always, a piece of art. But the overall choreography of the day by dynamic duo that deserve some sort of MediaMind sainthood… Liv and Kara. They made everything look like finely tuned machine, throughout the day. It was very obvious how much work and effort went into everything and for those who attended, it was an impressive show.”
Nick Talbert, Director, Communication Strategy, MediaMind
“We have just returned today from a wonderful weekend which included the Digital Experience Day and Eyeblaster Spain company weekend in Sitges (near Barcelona). The learning was very serious and thorough. I am sure we will see the results of having our entire team more aware of what is really happening behind the day to day campaign scene. We will certainly be able to be more proactive and consultative using this information and I believe our CS team could now start being more confident and assertive, when coming to adding real added value to our clients, way beyond the actual campaign execution.”
Oded Liva, Country Manager, Eyeblaster Spain