The Online Marketing Rockstars Festival (“OMR”) has become a landmark event for digital marketing in Germany since it opened its doors for the first time in 2010.
Around 70,000 attendees gather yearly at the Hamburg Messe venue to discuss the latest marketing trends, with up to 500 exhibitors displaying their latest products and services. The biggest spectacle, however, happens on the OMR conference stage, where a lineup of prominent policymakers, influencers, industry experts, and A-level celebrities discuss the latest industry trends.
This year, the lineup included top voices such as the vice chancellor of Germany and minister for economic affairs and climate action Robert Habeck, music producer and founder Rick Rubin, top model and entrepreneur Toni Garrn, and the professor and digitization expert Scott Galloway. They all contributed to plenty of media buzz before the event and interest during the event. Nevertheless, the main OMR attraction happened on Day 1 and was at a whole new level. At precisely 16:10, around 7,000 people got up from their seats and lifted their phones to see this year’s headliner, Kim Kardashian, the US reality star. Hours before her session, the conference hall became noticeably crowded, with people standing in the aisles before being escorted outside for security reasons. The conference hall could have been 3-4 times as large and still be full.
Kardashian entered the stage to discuss social media, entrepreneurship, and motherhood with the podcaster and tech journalist Kara Swisher. She shared her experiences as a mother, such as “enforcing rules on her children’s smartphone usage improving their overall behavior, and pointing out that among all the Kim Kardashians, the mom version is the “real Kim.”
The entrepreneurial Kim highlighted that the success of her beauty and fashion brands is mainly based on superior product quality rather than her name. However, given the cult around her personality that could be witnessed during her speech, one might be tempted to disagree. After speaking about not giving much about other people’s opinions any longer and regularly forcing herself into uncomfortable situations to grow, Kim Kardashian’s interview was over, and the conference hall emptied at record speed.
On Day 2 of OMR, the FinanceFWD Conference kicked off, featuring German FinTech superstars. Wirecard whistleblower Pav Gill created a minor but noticeable Kardashian-like effect. Hundreds rushed into the venue for his talk and left the moment he finished.
The interest in Pav Gill’s talk was more than justified. The case of Wirecard is a remarkable crime story, and Pav Gill told it captivatingly. He spoke about how he thoroughly curated detailed information about the fraudulent Wirecard system and sent it to several law enforcement authorities. To his surprise, Gill did not hear back from them while becoming “persona non grata” at Wirecard. Being left alone by the authorities and threatened by Wirecard, he pointed out how he felt his life was in imminent danger. For a long time, this situation put him and his mother in an extraordinarily hostile place. Gill declared that his mother was his person of trust during that time and revealed that her health suffered severely during that time. A wave of sympathy emerged in the crowd when he mentioned that she was in the audience. Being asked for his advice to people in his position, he recommended asking if putting oneself in this situation is worth it, given the potential retaliation. Aside from the incredible story Pav Gill had to share, this talk was unique as the audience’s admiration and respect for Gill’s sacrifices to do the right thing could be grasped in the air.
Pav Gill’s talk was recorded and is available via this link.
Aside from the event headliners, including Kardashian and Gill, which certainly stood out, AI remained the hype topic in marketing and FinTech. Given the recent progress of technology, Roland Eisenbacher summarized the current status of AI by quoting Nick Law. “Mediocrity is now free.” This could be bad news for many people in positions and industries endangered by AI.
German journalist Sascha Lobo pointed out how cultural differences impact how societies approach AI. “The USA aims to have the best AI in the world, China the most efficient AI, and Europe the most regulated AI.” While other nations invest massively into AI, the risk-aware German society still sticks to outdated technologies. As proof, Lobo presented an online article that discussed the seven best fax machines and was published in 2024.
Jürgen Schmidhuber, who was introduced as the “father of modern AI,” highlighted the potential of AI, especially for Germany, pointing out that the efforts are insufficient, especially concerning regulation and industry adoption. The latter became apparent during many of the FinTech talks. Nearly all players have the topic AI “on their radars.” There is a high awareness of the potential of AI, e.g., for efficiency gains in customer service or application processing. However, aside from experimenting and launching minor use cases, more significant lighthouse projects have not yet been seen. As the investment environment has become more stable after years of consolidation, some panelists pointed out that “AI” is used inflationary to benefit from the AI hype and improve the chances of getting funding, even though there is hardly more than a simple algorithm to present.
One of the notable takeaways from the event was the evident maturity of the FinTech scene in Germany and its impact on the industry.
As it became a tradition for Germany-based tech events, the N26 CEO, Valentin Stalf, spoke about the current state of his company. Having recently launched a trading product and fulfilling all BaFin requirements, Stalf sees Germany’s most popular neo-bank in a stable position to continue its customer growth and increase profitability. In this light, N26 appears to be a candidate for an IPO. Still, Stalf persistently evaded the repeated questions about this topic.
Another example of FinTech’s maturity was demonstrated by the highly successful FinTech company Raisin, which recently managed to appoint the former head of the German Central Bank, Axel Weber, as advisor and board member. In addition to benefiting from Weber’s expertise and network, this move can be seen as a seal of approval, putting Raisin on a level with many of the established industry players.
Our observations during the FFWD show that the German FinTech scene is still highly dynamic. Successful neo-brokers, such as Trade Republic, continue to extend their product range and move into the neo-banking space by offering accounts and cards.
During other speeches, there was also widespread consensus among panelists that the market still offers plenty of potential for efficiency improvements due to the relatively high level of legacy systems and infrastructure. In this light, we can look forward to next year’s OMR and FinanceFWD conference with excitement and the hope that no one will feel inclined to mention fax machines anymore.
