Earlier today I attended Another Marketing Conference in order to try and (as I said in this previous post) gain a different perspective on ‘changing behaviours’ from outside the L&D bubble that I’ve found myself living in.
Readers of my ‘Small Chunks‘ post will know that instead of trying to capture every piece of information that is conveyed during conference sessions I always try and identify ‘small chunks’ that I can take away and work on as opposed to HUGE strategic-thinking pieces.
09:30
You can’t have too much data! or can you?
Peter Waggett
Emerging Technology, IBMData is everywhere and it is now easy to capture information on our customers and prospects. Getting beyond the hype associated with Big Data requires understanding of the data and knowledge to turn it into something actionable. This talk will discuss the issues associated with the practical and responsible use of Big Data and detail future trends.
My takeaways from this session:
Peter told us the story of ‘Millenium Challenge‘, a US Military exercise in which the ‘friendly’ force mulled over its data for so long that the ‘opposing’ force just went ahead and ‘destroyed’ several key US assets. In other words, data analysis is all well and good, but without any ‘action/decision’, well…… it’s just…… data analysis! This is something that I’ll research further and if tenable, I’ll keep it up my sleeve should it ev er look like I’m in danger of being forced into ‘analysis paralysis’!
Peter talked us through the Jeopardy / Watson exercise (as he put it, Siri on steroids!). He reckons that in 5-6 years this level of semantic technology will be on the High Streets – another nail in the coffin for L&D or another wonderful opportunity?
10:00
What Nokia did next
Richard Murphy
Global Director of eCommerce, NokiaFor years Nokia was the most desirable brand when it came to mobile phones. However, the smartphone revolution shook things up.
Consumers have changed and so has marketing. The pace of change is accelerating, putting more pressure on organisations to embrace this new digital reality and transform the way they market. How Nokia embraced this new digital reality will offer comfort and inspiration to all of us trying to change our approaches and cultures.
My takeaways from this session:
Richard identified the physical commuting routes his bosses took into work and bought the posters/advertising space along that route! The feedback from his bosses was great!
Whilst I have no need to go that far, I do think there is some value in locating a lot of my mandatory training campaign material within eyeshot of our Directors office door, not only to ‘big up’ what we’re doing, but more critically to encourage the cascade of the messages from Director level.
10:30
Seamless brand building
Julie Strawson
Director of Marketing, MonotypeA look at how technology can challenge your brand, why the process of branding is changing and how to deliver reliable on-brand experiences at every consumer touchpoint.
Julie will also reveal the results of a new piece of research into how publishing is changing and what’s on offer for advertisers across 100 leading consumer titles conducted by Brand Perfect, Monotype’s community for brands, designers and developers.
My takeaways from this session:
My upcoming mandatory training ‘revamp’ will adopt a campaign approach. Julie reminded us that we need to have a cohesive and seamless experience from one format to another. Many of the videos and animations from the campaign will reside inside our internal collaboration platform, which unfortunately (as it sits in the public domain) requires a login everytime you open the platform up. This isn’t much of a problem when ‘deskbound’ as the platform forms a part of many people’s workflows, it becomes a problem however when I start to encourage people to access the media from their mobile devices as I feel that asking people to ‘log in’ from their mobile device is only likely to create another barrier to the content.
To get around this problem, I plan to dual-host the videos within a Vimeo Pro account. This will allow mobile users to get access to the content quickly and seamlessly as advised by Julie.
11:45
It’s all about ME (Marketing Effectiveness)
Julie Roberts
Marketing Effectiveness Director, TMWHow do we measure our true success? How do we know if we are being effective? And how can we improve? Investing in ‘big data’ is pointless without a concrete effectiveness strategy. Julie will look at, with the increasing amounts of data available, how we should plan, do, check and (importantly) act in 2013.
My takeaways from this session:
I’ll be honest, this was my least enjoyable/useful session of the day which is a pity as this was the one I was hoping to get the most from due to the work I am doing at the moment. There was a LOT of being talked at, poor slide design, lots of “I’m sure everybody is aware of xyz“, rushing through content etc
So I thought I’d try and glean something from this session….
5 basic questions for marketing
Research – conduct some! (online, panels, in-store)Hypothesise – ask bite-sized questions & build nimble analytical modelsSet parameters – use a simple allocation modelSpecialists – internally & externally, central co-ordinating role & clear RACIs12:15
Mapping human behaviour with immersive experiences
Jon Dodd
Managing Director, BunnyfootHow do we develop products, services and websites that provide customers with a rich, immersive and satisfying experience? What are the little peculiar human behaviours that we need to be aware of and tap into?
My takeaways from this session:
Never consider going into neuroscience!!! Mind. Blown.
Read up on Norman’s 6 Design Principles
14:00
The hedgehog and the fox – and why the social sciences are plural for a reason
Rory Sutherland
Vice Chairman, Ogilvy UKRecent evidence suggests that our brains – and hence the way we make decisions – may be more variegated than we think – or than we want to believe. One of the implications is that single models of human behaviour may be woefully inadequate, or even misleading. We simply need to accept that a single toolbox may never work
My takeaways from this session:
All models are wrong; but some are useful – and some are dangerous!
Rory suggested
Anybody with a ‘number’, trumps anybody with an ‘abstract noun’ – I’ve had some recent successes when quoting/demonstrating Ebbinghuas’ Forgetting Curve. I’m going to make sure that I have more numbers in my back pocket.
Don’t get bogged down in the attitudinal aspect, make it easy for people change their behaviours and they will construct their own reasons for doing so.
Rory shared this video with us. I can’t for the life of me remember what the context was, but it’s funny so what the Hell!
14:30
Context and content: the two pillars of mobile marketing
Paul Berney
Chief Marketing Officer, Mobile Marketing AssociationWhen it comes to mobile marketing it is vital that we understand how to deliver our content and the role that context plays in how that content is received.
Paul will talk about how the plethora of small screens is changing the way we need to think about our mobile strategies and whether or not we think that it really affects us.
My takeaways from this session:
Include a mobile call to action on my mandatory training campaign material that I can expect people to be accessing via mobile devices. As I’m planning on using Delivr.com to manage my mobile delivery I’ll be able to place the ‘call to action’ on the media landing page as opposed to having to place it on the poster (so can reduce environmental impact, printing costs etc)
I’d been planning to link out to videos / animations etc from physical posters/pop up banners etc, I’m still going to do this, however Paul provided an example of AR enabled sports tickets which has prompted me consider other options for linking the physical world with the online world.
Paul also shared this video with us, makes you think eh?
15:45
Predatory thinking
Dave Trott
Executive Creative Director, The Gate LondonOne of the most respected figures in advertising, Dave Trott, talks about the importance of the creative spark and how we need to manage our teams and our time to release a little bit more of that inner creative mischief.
My takeaways from this session:
Alas, by this point I had had to dash for my train to start any chance of getting home at a reasonable hour. This is a pity as the tweets that were coming out of Dave’s session suggested he was ‘plain speaking’ which would have made a nice change from one or two of the other speakers.
My overall observations of the day:
It was blatantly clear from every session that online/digital/mobile was a critical element of any behaviour changing marketing plan. Dare I say it, but the level and depth of conversation far exceeded the conversations that I see at most (not all) L&D conferences, a clear indication (I think) about how far behind we are in our thinking???
I have to admit that at times some of the conversation was above my head. I’m not saying this is a bad thing because let’s be honest I was ‘out of my usual comfort zone’ so I guess it’s to be expected, but it also served as a reminder to check the language and references that I use when speaking to people within my organisation around subjects that are within my comfort zone, but very possibly outside of theirs.
It was a welcome relief to hear that the general approach I’m taking with my organisations mandatory training in terms of creating a campaign around it, is broadly spot on. I strongly suspect that my attendance at this conference will help to tweak some of the ideas we are planning to ensure that they have the maximum chance of hitting home and changing behaviour.
Biggest non-surprise of the day was that there were no other Learning Professionals there (at least none that I could ascertain during the breaks and lunch), which is a real shame….. perhaps next year?
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