Advertising Week New York took over an old department store in Manhattan this week for a conference that shed a generous spotlight on a handful of exhibitors.
Under old signs pointing to the “men’s store” and home goods, executives from tech, telecoms and entertainment shared their wisdom for modest audiences across seven stages.
But AW New York stood out for what it’s not: A sprawling trade show with hundreds of booths giving out mints, pens and stress balls.
This was no CES or HIMSS, where it’s difficult to tell up from down in a dizzying expo hall with keynotes as long as 90 minutes.
Below are some highlights from AW New York 2025, and why it stood out from most other conferences attended by Vendelux this year.
Four Levels, Packed Tight
The conference was held in a building at West 33rd Street that used to house the department stores Gimbels, Stern’s, Abraham and Straus and finally JCPenney until the chain went bankrupt in 2020. It still bears the architectural hallmarks of retail, with long escalators overseeing a central atrium. Most of the talks and seminars happened in two underground floors with low ceilings, giving the conference an intimate feel.
“I love that honestly,” said Jeremy Smallwood, senior vice president of partnership experience at Vurvey Labs. “Just the scale of it, and being able to look down from floors up and see all the action going on. It’s a very tight spot.”
Session-Driven Programming Kept Short
The conference was dominated by 30-minute sessions, timed expertly by door and AV staff at each “stage.”
Workers organized lines, scanned badges, directed attendees to their seats, and promptly ordered them out as each session wrapped up.
At a talk titled, “The Business of Doja Cat,” featuring members of the singer’s management team, moderator and Paper magazine music editor Erica Campbell asked permission from staff to take a question as the chat was dangerously close to running over.
AI was a big topic, though conversations mostly stayed true to more traditional themes like marketing and social media strategies.
Meghan Hockaday, marketing operations manager at FM, which owns three subsidiaries that license music, video and photos to creators, spoke positively about a session titled, “The New Alliance: Forging Collaborative Teams in the In-Housing Age.” The Tuesday morning talk featured the chief marketing officer of PepsiCo, as well as executives from the trade publication Adweek and the creative agency VaynerMedia.
“It was cool to see people who are leading in that space talk about where it’s headed,” she said.
Fewer Booths And More Eyes
All in all, Vendelux counted about 10 exhibitors scattered between a “Networking Hub” on the second level and the other three floors.
As such, there was very little competition for the attention of the 20,000 people on site. Those that showed up stood out simply because they were there.
Both Smallwood and Hockaday are first-time exhibitors at Advertising Week NY. They praised the organization and overall programming, with only minor complaints about the reliability of the WiFi.
Comparing it to Cannes, Smallwood said he had multiple conversations with people who seemed enlivened by the conference.
His employer, Vurvey, builds AI models of customers based on video surveys, which clients can later use for real-time market research into other products. The Ohio-based company took over half the landing on the second floor, making them the first ones to greet anyone who went upstairs.
“We get to honestly hear from them about what they’re seeing, what they’re thinking about, what’s top of mind for them, before they get here, and what’s top of mind for them on day three,” he said. “Like with a lot of shows, you hopefully come out of there energized with what the possibilities are.”
Hockaday’s company, FM, hosted a prominent installation on the main floor that looked a lot like an Apple store. Inside, laptops and headphones sat affixed to wooden tables so that prospective customers could test out the content libraries of Stills, Filmsupply and Musicbed, FM’s subsidiaries.
“We brought all this merch to give away, and we’re almost out of all of it, so people have been really giving a positive reaction to our space,” she said.
Neither Smallwood nor Hockaday mentioned any hard metrics when asked, instead focusing on brand awareness and attendee interaction.
Another notable installation came in the form of a retro diner serving up club sandwiches and root beer floats courtesy of WebToon, a South Korean-American platform where users can read digital comics.
Tucked into a corner was the FQ Lounge, sponsored by The Female Quotient, a Los Angeles-based company that advocates for female equality in the workplace.
The lounge was perhaps the most well-designed space in the building, with a calming color palette of soft pink, light brown and beige, as well as a combination of stand-up lamps, couches, flowers and an espresso bar that offered a temporary reprieve from the fluorescent atmosphere outside.
