Advertising Week Highlights - Part 2

So after getting our passes and bag (or maybe two) of free sweets, it was time to settle down and get involved with a few of the talks over the last couple of days.

Talk 1

Neurodiversity: Panel - Roxanne Hobbs (Founder - Hobbs Consultancy) Wayne Deakin (Exec Creative Director - Huge), Mark Evans (MD, Direct Line), Pip Jamieson (Founder, The Dots)

A major takeaway from this talk was being able to put myself in the shoes of people who are dyslexic or have autism and the dilemma that they have around when to "come out" and tell existing or potential employees.  This is vital in allowing them to be themselves and the "whole person" that they are and it was fascinating to hear accounts from the panel that it's still a bit of a taboo area for a lot of people.
Making sure that interview processes can cater for Neurodiverse candidates is also very important.  Traditional interview formats clearly are not the best way to bring out the best in these people and allow them to really showcase their exceptional talents. 
Plenty of the worlds greatest geniuses and creative minds were/are Neurodiverse so harnessing this pool of talent is key to the industry.

Talk 2

Messaging matters: Panel - Amy Cole (Head of Product Marketing, Northern Europe, Facebook), Neil Stubbings (MD Europe, IV.AI), Erica Buckley (Head of dig and data, Public Health), Carolijn Hauwert (Manager Social Media Hub, KLM)

The stats speak for themselves when it comes to messaging as a form of communication.
When Amy asked the audience who has engaged in messaging friends or family personally in the last couple of days, everyone's hands went up.  When she asked who has engaged with customers via their business through messaging, there were a couple of hands shown.
This demonstrates a real gap between businesses understanding how people are now interacting with each other and how businesses are not yet fully adapting to this style.

Customers like messaging because it's instant, direct and it's personal

Amy took us through some fascinating insights and stats in relation to messaging - here are some of the key ones: 

63% say that their messaging with businesses has increased in the past 2 years
56% of people would rather message than call customer services 






Businesses really need to listen to these stats and make sure that their customers can get in touch in the most effective and comfortable way for them.  Failing to embrace this will ultimately lead to people taking their business elsewhere.

Talk 3

Advertising on Trial: Panel -  Gemma Greaves (Chief Exec, The Marketing Society), Claire Beale (Editor in Chief, Campaign), Chris Hirst (UK Chairman, European CEO, Havas), Nils Leonard (Founder, Uncommon), Tammy Smulders (President, Vice Media)

Advertising finds itself in a very vulnerable position at the moment as it takes steps to continue to look to evolve in order to remain current and move with the times. The output and the working environments are being scrutinised more than they ever have been before. So the judge and jury on the panel, looked at finally taking Advertising to task.

In this very honest session, the industry of Advertising put itself on trial for 3 key areas and the audience voted that it was guilty for 2/3 

Diversity and Inclusion - is the industry promoting it enough? Verdict: Guilty 

It was felt that the Industry is definitely guilty of talking more than doing but that momentum is gathering on the topic, it just needs to move a bit faster than it is. Chris Hirst made the very valid point that even though everything falls under this one remit, there are very separate issues within it. Giving women more Senior positions in the industry is a very different issue to making sure that there are a diverse number of social backgrounds within an agency environment. 
Inclusion is yet another big topic at the moment.  Chris also spoke about the fact that he felt accountable to the people within his organisation and a responsibility to make sure that everyone has a fair opportunity of getting to where they want to get to and thrive during their employment.

Creativity: is the industry producing rubbish work? Verdict: Not Guilty

It was felt that the industry is still more than capable of producing excellent work and that creative agencies shouldn’t have fear of failure. Nils made the point that the industry is at a bit of a crisis point so there is no point in fearing as it can’t fail any more than it currently is. Therefore important to be brave and bold and essentially go for it !!

The way that the agency world does business is wrong:  Verdict: Guilty 
It was discussed that you can't really innovate and produce best work when you are always 'taking orders' from clients and being told you can and can't do things.  Again the feeling was there that the industry needs to be braver and bolder with taking the lead and through some tough love, really allow clients to see the value that can a creative business can bring. 

Talk 4

What's your Elephant in the room? Panel: Mark Evans, (MD Direct Line), Rachel Eyre (Head of Marketing Propositions, Sainsburys), Josh Krichefski (CEO, Mediacom UK), Nishma Robb (Marketing Director, Google)

This was a fascinating discussion around making sure that mental health stops being a taboo subject within the work place and what businesses are doing to make people comfortable with bringing their “whole self” to work.  Putting things in perspective and allowing staff to feel empowered to talk about their mental health were two of the key takeaways from this chat around how leaders can start to impact their organisations around this topic on a day to day.   The panel were very brave in revealing how even as senior leaders, they each have an 'Elephant in the room' that they have to battle with on a day to day basis. 



We've had a great and inspiring couple of days at PictureHouse Central and are looking forward to the final day tomorrow!