This week I attended MMA SM2 Innovation Summit in New York, which took place during Advertising Week. The lineup of speakers did not disappoint and I gained many new insights. Here are the four that most stuck with me. 1) Marketers want to reach people when they are engaged within their passions. David Roman, CMO of Lenovo, spoke about bringing out the personality of Lenovo and how to be authentic in marketing. One of the ways to achieve this is to go big around passion points and connect with consumers around what they love. We also heard this from Liz Walaszczyk, Bacardi’s Global Head of Music; she believes that music as a passion is a genuine and culturally relevant way to connect with consumers for her brand. 2) Mobile video is huge. This is not “new news,” but the numbers are staggering. Marketers are expected to spend $5.4 billion on mobile video next year. This is aA 30 percent increase from the year before.  And it’s expected to grow to $8 billion by the year 2020. 3) To be relevant, provide utility and personalization. Kristen D’Arcy, Coty’s VP of Global Digital, was clear in her guidance to fellow marketers: to use data to personalize the experience for consumers. She also spoke about the importance of leading with the mobile experience and that every creative review meeting at her company starts with a mobile review. Spotify’s insightful presentation on “mobile prodigies,”the emerging Gen Z and younger Millennials, emphasized that this generationthey places a high value on personalization. Spotify uses is using data to deliver a personalized experience to consumers and to add value to their experience. We, at Flipboard, also use data to personalize our experience based on readers’ interests and the content they are consuming and following. 4) Mobile is a cultural shift at many big companies. As mobile devices are taking over the time we spend on digital media, many companies struggle to adjust. They run into issues like privacy and security concerns, outdated IT departments, PDF documents, and red tape. This provides an interesting perspective for those of us at digital and mobile-first companies to understand the challenges that brand marketers face, as they strive to do what they truly believe in and embrace the present and the future of mobile marketing. ~MicheleC is reading #BrandsWeLove