5 things we learnt at the Festival of Marketing day 2

A slower start to day two (nothing to do with the late night partying I’m sure), but managed to catch some of Anthony Thomson, Founder & Chairman of the soon-to-be-launched Atom Bank, talking on the headline stage and grab myself a bowl of Moma porridge before heading to the Social stage for the first talk of the day.

The importance of social media innovation in delivering business impact

Kenyatte Nelson, Group Marketing Director of Shop Direct, on the success of Very.co.uk.

Kenyatte spoke of the journey Shop Direct has been on in recent years. From a company that was totally catalogue-led, through to its digital transformation which revolutionised the business – taking it from a -60 mil profit to +70 mil in just a few years.

His advice for the marketers in the audience was three fold:

Remain focused on who your customer is

Creative excellence is key – invest in the creative and in the people who are designing it

Focus on measurement, but make the KPIs simple.

And finally, a reminder that “People don’t hate advertising, people hate bad advertising”. A point later reiterated by Sir John Hegarty.

Time for a snack

By mid-morning, and in need of a sugar lift, I delved into my ‘Festival Survival Kit’ bag and pulled out Graze’s chocolate pretzels (given that they’re Graze I’m inclined to believe they are healthy, but that might just be good marketing).

The B2B stage was where I found myself next, hosted by Alex Johnston, Director of Jigsaw Research, for a talk on ‘asking the right questions in B2B’ in which he tackled the difficulties in selling business to business, specifically the difficulties of pitching as an agency and selling things in internally.

It was probably the most interesting talk I attended, so interesting I barely took notes, but here are a few things I remembered:

1. B2B decision makers are people like the rest of us

2. It’s no use simply marketing to the rational, logical side of a B2B decision maker, as tempting as that may be. People are complex and flawed, they are not rationally focused all the time – essentially, they are human.

3. You must engage emotionally with people, understand that they will have biases and you’ll have to get closer to their behaviour to unlock some of what’s driving people.

4. Business people are humans primarily and you need to talk to all their biases when you market to them.

5. It will help if you have a basic understanding of behavioural economics.

Back to the social stage for the unsurprisingly popular, ‘Meet the millennials on social’.

Hosted by Andrew Bent, Creative Lead at The Zoo, Google with panellists Kaushal Modha, beauty vlogger, Niomi Smart, Fashion and Lifestyle blogger and Emmy Griffiths, Entertainment Writer, sofeminine.co.uk.

Andrew opened the talk with a reminder to all that just like you wouldn’t have done for the baby boomers, we shouldn’t assume there’s a one pager for millennials. Don’t assume you can reach all millennials through vloggers and don’t assume they’re all wearing man buns, using emojis and watching make up tutorials.

However, that in no way dismisses the influence of vloggers, bloggers and YouTubers. As Niomi and Kaushal say, their audiences are amongst the most loyal of any. This strong connection with their audiences creates a very trusting relationship, one that risks damage if sullied by an unsuitable brand partnerships.

It was quite surprising to hear that neither Niomi nor Kaushal do very many sponsored videos – perhaps as little as once a month, Niomi said. What wasn’t surprising, however, was the importance all three girls placed on being authentic. Many of those in their audiences have known them since they first started, often from humble beginnings, and don’t take kindly to sponsored video after sponsored video, though crucially, they don't always hate it either.

A note to brands: Vloggers, like any company, must protect their brand. Unless they would talk about your product or service without being paid, the chances are, they won’t do it if they are paid.

The headliners

The end of the day soon arrived, which meant the headline stage would be coming alive – this time graced by Torie Chilcott, Sir John Hegarty and Monica Lewinsky – quite the line up! We were also all set to break a Guinness World Record for the longest ever marketing lesson.

Torie Chilcott and John Hegarty presented together, a lesson which emphasised the importance of allowing technology to accelerate creativity. Data and tech should be working alongside creativity, not at odds with one another. After all, data personalises creativity.

They both also stressed how vital it is that the advertising industry didn’t lose sight of where it came from, its creative roots. Creativity adds value to the industry, it’s what sets it apart – as Hegarty said: “creativity and the space it appears in is fundamentally important”.

After having been told that we had indeed broken a world record, announced by the official Guinness World Record adjudicator, it was time for the headline act, Monica Lewinsky.

Not entirely sure what to expect, I was really quite blown away. Her honesty, candidness and confidence was mesmerising. And the message itself was powerful. Cyber bullying is real and it’s up to the media world to take responsibility. Compassion is necessary if we are to build a safer, more responsible online world. I think everyone left that talk a wiser individual.

In summary…

…. a lot was learnt. There were some fantastic and inspirational speakers, the location was great (if not a little cold?), and there were at least a few free goodies. If you’re interested to learn more, I also wrote 9 more lessons I learnt at the Festival of Marketing – can you handle the knowledge?