Adobe Summit EMEA, The Digital Marketing Conference, opened in London today at 9:00 a.m. local time with a keynote address by Brad Rencher, senior vice president and general manager of the Adobe Digital Marketing business.  Over the course of the two day event, Summit participants have the opportunity to learn from the industry experts and network with savvy professionals who continue to push the boundaries of digital marketing and advertising, ultimately making their businesses more successful.  Keynote speakers from high-profile brands like UniCredit Group, Nike Global, AKQA, Nissan Europe, Deloitte digital, BBC, SAP and SapientNitro DACH highlight the agenda, and record-setting Austrian skydiver and BASE jumper, Felix Baumgartner, will open the general session on Thursday.

We released several news announcements at Summit today including:

1. News about a powerful new capability in Adobe Social that predicts social content performance on Facebook to maximize engagement and ROI.
2. Details of an expanded global partnership that integrates Adobe Marketing Cloud with SapientNitro’s EngagedNow platform.
3. An efficient means to conquer the webinar process from within Adobe Experience Manager.
4. Results of the Adobe Digital Index State of Mobile Benchmark Report 2013, including detail on 1) how Samsung smartphones are gaining popularity with Europeans and 2) how iOS has re-emerged as a leader in US smartphone browsing and dominates on tablets.

Adobe Marketing Cloud has fast become the solution that helps marketers get from data to insights to action, faster and smarter than ever. Here are some expanded highlights:

Adobe Social Unveils Predictive Publishing for Facebook

This powerful new predictive publishing capability for Adobe Social, which predicts social engagement on individual pieces of content and automatically suggests ideal timing to improve how that content will perform, will offer Facebook integration with the initial version.  Additional social platforms will be added later in the year.

Adobe and SapientNitro Expand Global Partnership

Adobe and SapientNitro’s expanded global partnership includes integration of the Sapient EngagedNow^SM platform with Adobe Marketing Cloud.  This integrated offering provides a solution for creating, delivering and optimizing consumer experiences across Web, social, mobile, and digital displays. NASCAR, E.ON and VISIT FLORIDA are among the organizations already seeing significant results using EngagedNow with Adobe Marketing Cloud.

Additional benefits for customers include:

• Complete hosted and managed services for Adobe Marketing Cloud solutions from SapientNitro with EngagedNow
• Ready-to-use integrations built specifically for key verticals, including travel, sports and entertainment, retail, and financial services, that help make development and deployment more efficient
• Built-in operational efficiencies from the integration of EngagedNow and Adobe Marketing Cloud that streamline creative, delivery, and measurement workflows for better performance and cost savings

Conquering the Webinar Process – from within Adobe Experience Manager

Adobe Experience Manager webinars, powered by Adobe Connect, helps marketers 1) easily create targeted webinar landing pages that drive registration; 2) deliver immersive online events that engage audiences, build brand and drive demand; and 3) deliver post-event analytics via capabilities from Adobe Analytics.

Adobe Digital Index State of Mobile Benchmark Report

The report analyzes 150 billion visits to 1,500+ websites to provide an overview of how consumers are using mobile devices worldwide.  In addition to trends in social media, video content consumption and ecommerce from the past 12 months, the study features key findings on which mobile operating systems and device manufacturers are helping drive the most web traffic globally.

Samsung smartphones gain popularity with Europeans

In the 19 European countries analyzed, nearly 30% of all smartphone browsing now occurs via a Samsung device – up 9% from last year.

iOS has re-emerged as leader in US smartphone browsing and is dominant amongst tablets

The iPhone has been gaining ground since being offered on the Verizon network (February 2011), and again became the primary driver of smartphone browsing in the US during Q4 2012, after trailing Android phones for two years. In addition, iPads accounted for nearly early 80% of all tablet browsing in the US in February 2013, up 10 percent from last year.

Day Two of Adobe Summit is in the books now and it was a day full of excitement and emotion.

In our morning keynote, we were excited by Felix Baumgartner’s first-person account of how he successfully managed risks and stood on the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. We were moved by Sal Khan’s story of how the Khan Academy came to be; so much so that Khan received a standing ovation, something extraordinarily rare at Adobe events.

Another round of breakout sessions kept people’s brains full, and then it was time for the capstone of Summit — Sneaks. Our guest host, the wonderful Carrie Brownstein, shared her love/hate relationship with the Internet and then we all enjoyed ten fantastic sneak peeks of possible new product features (but sadly I can’t share anything more about them here).

Social conversation has been a part of Summit for a few years now, but this year the conversation went to a whole new level. The #AdobeSummit hashtag trended across the United States several times during Summit and a number of Sneaks hashtags trended nationally as well.

We also produced two new videos sharing how Summit keynotes get made and getting feedback on the popular Predictive Analytics session today:

People know Adobe for many reasons, many of which revolve around our technologies that help creative professionals bring their ideas to reality and that enable marketers to create and drive industry-leading campaigns based in smart math. At Adobe Summit this week in Salt Lake City, we are talking about our technologies and the future of the industry, and we have specials guests sharing some incredible stories of overcoming tremendous personal and professional challenges to do something amazing. But we also had the opportunity to share a side of Adobe that isn’t talked about as often as our technology.

Today, at our Digital Marketing Summit, we heard from a great mind – Sal Khan about the idea of breaking down barriers to revolutionize whatever you are passionate about. His work and the vision for the Khan Academy, a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere, inspired us and evoked a standing ovation from the Summit crowd. In one of those rare moments where I had the opportunity to proudly represent all Adobe employees, I announced that Adobe is donating $50,000 to the Khan Academy to further its groundbreaking approach to education and community change.

That was an incredibly special moment to be able to share with our customers and partners. Beyond our technologies, Adobe has a philanthropic side that does meaningful and inspirational work, but that at times takes a backstage to Adobe’s business initiatives. Adobe Youth Voices represents this side of Adobe, and was created to ignite creative confidence in youth, empowering them to find their voice and make it heard. To date, Adobe Youth Voices has created opportunities for over 120,000 youth. We have a vision of a world where the future creative and mathematical minds of tomorrow are not hindered by circumstance but have endless opportunities to succeed.

Beyond Adobe Youth Voices, our broadly reaching Adobe Foundation is funded by Adobe to leverage human, technological, and financial resources to drive social change and improve the communities in which we live and work. The Adobe Foundation supports innovative programs that further its mission and goals, and we are proud to support Khan Academy as a partner in creating opportunities for the world’s youth. I’m pretty excited about it and speak for all 11,000 Adobe employees in saying that we believe the work we do to better humanity is the most important work we can do.

Ok yes maybe I work at Adobe and ok yes maybe I’m a tad biased, but I’ve been going to Adobe Summits for I think four years now and dare I say this one is the best? Yes, the food at the opening night party was good. Yes, from an event team’s standpoint things are running smoothly, but from the overall “relevance” standpoint, this year’s Summit has started off super strong.

The social conversations from the event are unparalleled, growing more than 50% when compared to the same timeframe last year. Over 8500 conversations in just the first day put #AdobeSummit at the top of trending Twitter hashtags.

Brad Rencher kicked it all off with the opening keynote session (watch now), which included a thorough demo of Adobe Marketing Cloud by David Nueschler and folks from all five of the Marketing Cloud’s solutions teams. Need a rundown of what’s coming in Marketing Cloud? Check out this week’s news.

The day’s second keynote had its moments too. After Bill Briggs of Deloitte Consulting implored everyone to go beyond “mobile first” and think of “mobile only,” John Battelle interviewed Adam Bain of Twitter about Twitter growth, and paid social media vs organic social media. Good stuff. And the conversation continued to prove to this social marketer (me) that Twitter might be a brand’s best bet for proving ROI in social — paid and organic. Happy to discuss further in the comments.

Need some visuals of what the first full day of Summit was all about? Watch the videos below. Short and to the point, with quick looks at what Summitees are experiencing here in Salt Lake City, and be sure to follow all tomorrow’s action: @AdobeSummit and #AdobeSummit.

This week at Adobe Summit – The Digital Marketing Conference, more than 4,500 digital marketers and senior leaders representing the world’s top brands are coming together in Salt Lake City to learn the latest about marketing trends, network and share best practices with each other.

At the conference, we are making a series of news announcements to address growing industry needs that include:  1) helping marketers iterate and act more quickly to better meet consumers’ expectations; 2) staying on top of the mobile explosion and delivering better mobile experiences; 3) simplifying the complex task of delivering the right experience or content to the right person at the right time.

Keynote presenters this year include Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen and SVP and GM of Adobe’s Digital Marketing Business, Brad Rencher, along with record-setting stratospheric daredevil Felix Baumgartner; Adam Bain, president of global revenue at Twitter; and Sal Kahn, founder of Khan Academy.

You can watch the keynote live today, Wednesday, March 6 from 9am-11am MST.

Our news today highlights major new Adobe Marketing Cloud capabilities, including:

New Touch Interface and Mobile Marketing Capabilities 

Adobe today unveiled an innovative new UI for Adobe® Marketing Cloud that surfaces data and insights to marketers and business leaders so they can easily gauge the impact of their marketing dollars.  Through this visually rich, touch based interface, Adobe Marketing Cloud, which marketers use to understand how campaigns are performing, now links with Adobe Creative Cloud™, which agency creatives use to build and deliver those campaigns.  In addition, every solution within Adobe Marketing Cloud has been upgraded with new mobile marketing capabilities, including new mobile capabilities for analytics, advertising, social app development, targeting content on smartphones and tablets, and mobile content management and delivery.

Adobe Social Goes Mobile 

Adobe today upgraded Adobe Social®, part of Adobe Marketing Cloud, with a completely redesigned user interface focused on interpreting and presenting social data in a more digestible format that helps social marketers prove business results.  Adobe also debuted Adobe Social for mobile phones and tablets.  Social marketers now have a marketing tool that’s as mobile as they are.

Delivering Personalized Experiences across Mobile and Social 

The static website is long gone.  Personalizing and optimizing your customer’s experience is essential.  Adobe today announced a major update to Adobe Experience Manager, part of Adobe Marketing Cloud, which introduces new responsive design, social communities and video capabilities that deliver a fully personalized experience to customers. In addition, Adobe today introduced a new Digital Asset Management offering within Adobe Experience Manager.  Adobe has re-imagined digital asset management with both marketers and creatives in mind, giving organizations unprecedented capabilities to deliver consistent, high-quality experiences anywhere.

New Digital Advertising Solution for Media Agencies and Marketers 

Adobe today unveiled a standard version of Adobe Media Optimizer, part of Adobe Marketing Cloud. Media Optimizer is Adobe’s digital advertising platform for campaigns across search, display and social media. The new edition, Media Optimizer Standard, delivers a rules-based bidding solution that improves the performance of search engine marketing campaigns through seamless integration with Adobe Analytics. Media Optimizer Standard is designed for media buying agencies, search engine marketing (SEM) agencies and direct advertisers seeking more control and transparency over their campaigns at an economical price point.

Taken together, these groundbreaking new solutions and capabilities are all designed to help our customers deliver the right online experience to the right person . They also offer the best way to tie social media activities to business results. And finally, they enable customers to achieve the greatest return on investment from online advertising.