Re:Think 2015: Where Leaders Ignite Growth


Every year, the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) holds its Re:Think Conference, sharing the latest industry-related groundbreaking studies, tools and technology. But the 2015 conference was special: fellow classmate Edmund Balogun and I submitted a proposal and were selected to present at the conference! What was the topic, you ask? Storytelling (one of my personal favourites!).


While I loved the experience of actually being a speaker at the conference (and after attending a few of the sessions, I learned that storytelling was something many of the speakers could work on), what was interesting to observe was the difference between this conference and other marketing conferences like Advertising Week. Re:Think 2015 was intense and heavily research based - so if data and research is your thing, this conference is definitely the one to attend!

Some of my favourite moments/takeaways included:

Learning about the ABC's of marketing.

A = Audience. You have to really understand your audience and how they'd like to engage with your brand. To be successful, the following shifts must take place:
  • From TV-centric measurement to content everywhere
  • From linear to multi-touch
  • From mass marketing to hyper-targeted marketing
B = Brands, and brands aren't going anywhere. For brands to really have an impact, they must move away from:
  • Fragmentation towards consistency
  • Broadcast towards creating with people
  • Marketing to consumers towards mattering to people.
As a side note to reinforce that last point, one of my favourite quotes was "Use the word human, not consumer. People only shop for a few hours and then return to their cultural contexts."
C = Content. Content is KEY. It has to capture the attention of its intended audience and there's definitely shifts in this area as well:

- From optimizing broadcast to creating talkability
- From measuring recall and persuasion to assessing engagement
- From having siloed deliverables to ones that are orchestrated and integrated

I also loved seeing in a visual how the path to purchase has drastically changed from the traditional funnel to an incredibly complex combination of different channels...

 ...AND learning that there are robots out there that can do facial coding and eyeball tracking, in addition to having a regular conversation!
 

Which leads me to my last point. The world of marketing is changing super quickly and as one speaker succinctly stated, "change or be changed."

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