Flying visit to Advertising Week Europe. One of those grassroots-feeling events where every session is packed and, just like Disneyland, you spend a lot of time queueing. 😡
Sessions were thankfully tariff-free 😀 and covered (of course) AI in marketing, search evolution, artist partnerships and collaborative marketing strategies.
Three Key Takeaways:
💎 AI as your creative partner
Lots of talk about AI empowering not replacing creativity (yep!). But nice to see some pragmatism (and tool tips) in Adobe's 3 step "AI-enabled creativity framework": deep audience research, creative exploration and AI-enabled human creativity.
💎 Authentic partnerships beat transactional relationships
Loads of speakers on the topic of trust (even musician Jessie J!) in the digital world, but partnerships seem even more critical than ever. Speakers emphasised the need for shared values and alignment (dare I say its all about the "vibe"?!) as the foundation for successful collaborations.
💎 B2B marketing in crisis
The "off stage" chat was all about the identity crisis of B2B marketing - where does it sit? All under a CRO? Or should we split growth & corporate marketing? Measurement? Do we need all these people? AI can do it all, right? Is brand really a thing? Lots of churn going on!
As always it was to a chance re-connect with friends and colleagues. Great to see you Claire Darley Helen Gillbe Hung Le Alastair Hussain Michael Bayler Linus Gregoriadis Justin Cooke John Horsley Simon Johnson Lindsay O'Gorman Simon Morris.
Finally, congrats in particular to John Horsley and team in a first outing for Path7. Great panel discussion that dove into partner marketing as purposeful collaboration requiring matched values. Speakers discussed how partnerships differ from paid media by being more authentic and trust-based, especially valuable in the post-GDPR landscape where we now have "richer data but less of it."
Right, I'm off to queue for a coffee in my kitchen 🚶🚶🚶🚶
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