NEW YORK - Brands must improve their execution of multichannel campaigns, according to the keynoter yesterday at ad:tech New York.

That was the message during the keynote presentation, "Dispatches from the Digital Frontier." Shelly Lazarus, chariman/CEO of WPP Group PLC advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, New York, gave examples of marketers using digital media to engage consumers and build brands, beginning with the historic president election.

"First of all, I'm very excited about election and we can all agree that this was a groundbreaking campaign from a marketing standpoint," Ms. Lazarus said. "We'll look back on this as the election season when campaigning went digital, the year that the more digital candidate won.

"Obama and his campaign knew how to use all of the marketing tools at their disposal, from staying on message with traditional media and a really good logo to an outstanding field effort and using all of the opportunities digital media provides for interactivity," she said.

"Team Obama went directly to the American people and brought their brand to life across all media in a way no one has done before -- they won and the world has changed."

Ms. Lazarus said that the Obama campaign's shrewdest tactic was engaging in constant dialogue with people, getting his message across via email and SMS without the interference of the mainstream press.

"As he was about to take the stage at Grant Park in Chicago to give his victory speech [Nov. 4 night], Obama sent out an email and a text message to his opt-in base thanking them, saying 'Without you I wouldn't be where I am' and promising to follow up during his presidency," Ms. Lazarus said.

"The campaign said 'We don't need interpreters anymore, we can go around traditional press and talk directly to the people'" she said. "The world has changed, and Obama understands this."

In addition to the use of his SMS and email databases, now President-elect Obama garnered praise for his use of other forms of digital media.

These include his Web site -- both mobile and PC -- and his pages on social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace, his Twitter group, his Race to the White House game, advertising within the virtual worlds of Xbox games urging youth to vote early, the "Yes, We Can" music video viewed by tens of millions of people on YouTube, his iPhone application and his offers of free ringtones.

"Obama's campaign managers are masters of CRM and Obama's campaign is the best run CRM campaign ever to date," Ms. Lazarus said. "Obama got 4 million donors, send daily updates and requests for money and volunteers, and sent out numbers of people to call with a script for volunteers to follow."

Mr. Obama ran a sweepstakes offering five campaign donors the chance to win a trip to Chicago to watch the election returns with Mr. Obama on Nov. 4 and announced one winner per day on his Web site.

"This is a great example of new digital marketing," Ms. Lazarus said. "Obama's campaign used every trick in the marketer's playbook."

However, while Mr. Obama was undoubtedly the most successful marketer, other presidential candidates began to use digital marketing strategies as well.

Hilary Clinton announced her presidential candidacy online, while the McCain-Palin campaign ran an online promotion for the best user-generated Joe the Plumber video spot.

Many more people viewed Tina Fey's impersonations of Sarah Palin online than on TV, and mobile video could play a role in elections to come.

However, this time around, Mr. Obama was the only candidate to effectively harness the power of SMS and the mobile Web. His use of mobile contributed to tipping the election in his favor.

In addition to various viral YouTube video campaigns, another example Ms. Lazarus gave of a successful campaign was one run by her own agency Ogilvy on behalf of client Lenovo, a Chinese company that bought the PC division of IBM.

Lenovo developed a widget for mobile phones with direct links to photos, video, medal counts, athlete bios and other coverage during this year's Beijing Olympic Games in China.

"The Beijing Olympics was Lenovo's signature moment, the company's coming-out party," Ms. Lazarus said. "Lenovo got athletes blogging, which gained an incredible international audience and offered compelling reasons for fans to interact with the Lenovo brand.

"A measure of its success is that the IOC [International Olympic Committee] came forward and tired to stop it, because they claimed site was stealing content from media giants it had sold coverage rights to," she said.

"That campaign represented the democratization of content, and once the digital revolution starts, you can't stop it."

Another example was a series of IBM short films between two minutes and five minutes, giving examples of clients who employ their technology, including the New York Police Department, the Scripps Institute, National Geographic, the U.S. Open, the PGA Tour and La Fenice.

Many of the videos were codeveloped with CNBC for an online series called "The Business of Innovation."

One IBM client, British company PortoMedia, created a video illustrating a movie rental kiosk that lets consumers pick a movie on a touch screen, pay for it and get a tiny Flash media USB drive that plugs into a laptop or mobile device.

Ms. Lazarus ended on an optimistic note despite the economic slowdown.

"If you are uncomfortable with change and ambiguity, this is not your time," Ms. Lazarus said. "Sure, we have to think differently, but we have new tools to target and engage in new conversations with consumers and respond instantly to them.

"There are very challenging economic times, and it's at precisely times like this that we need to experiment, we need to try new things," she said.

"Smart, strong, insightful, brave, far-seeing marketers spend more at times like this. It's been proven to be the most successful strategy. Those that spend in times of recession eventually get stronger brands and bigger market share.

Then she brought the keynote back to the historic presidential election this week and tied a bow on her presentation.

"We need to spend in new ways, to engage people to share, to move, to motivate," Ms. Lazarus said. "This is a time of enormous creativity and possibilities, and we must lead our industry into the digital future.

"If the next president of the United States can do it, so can we," she said.