The exclusive debate for leading brand marketers making sense of today’s prescient topics

In this 40-minute debate, an invite-only library room will provide the space for senior brand leaders to debate the most important topics facing advertisers now and in the future. And the conversation will flow entirely from the floor, giving everyone the opportunity for their voice to be heard.

Forward-thinking disruptors and out-the-box thinkers reshaping brands for tomorrow

Meet the leaders and future leaders of our industry who are reshaping the brands of tomorrow. The marketers standing up for excellence, disruption, courage, and inclusion. We’ll hear from leaders outside our small M25 bubble, so that we can leave with our heads packed full of ideas. Colliding speakers from within our industry and beyond –fill yourself up with innovation and inspiration.

Where marketers and mathematicians unite to better understand ad performance

We’ll be taking a look into the media measurement tools and metrics we have at our disposal, and the opportunities to develop and improve in the coming years. We’ll hear what brand marketers need from the industry to deliver relevant, effective advertising. We’ll also take a look at the essential brand metrics we should measure – and whether we need to redefine our language.

- How to build a brand measurement methodology with performance indicators aligned to top-level brand goals (such as growing share of mind, market share, or brand consideration)

- How to correlate brand measurement goals with media spend and measure effectiveness

- Whether cross-media measurement will be the silver bullet for increased investment

- What are the metrics and currencies that buyers and sellers are focused on today

- Trading on business outcomes instead of media proxies (however measured) – how can media owners optimise for ‘the end goal’ and what must advertisers and agencies learn

- The opportunities to measure the carbon impact of our media campaigns, and the results that we are achieving through taking the environment into consideration

- How we can apply attention measurement proxies to media planning – the early use cases, and the lessons that have been learned

- Whether attention can be used as a currency and if so, what we should transact upon

- What happens to the price of high-attention media, and whether we have a client-ready ROI for paying more for inventory, especially if we go into recession

Because whether you have a lot, or none at all, it only really matters when you know how to use it

It’s time to make sense of diffuse and confusing datasets. In this session we’ll look at the tools and approaches available to support brands to connect their data to their media and marketing efforts. We will hear about how marketers can turn data into insight that improves the effectiveness of media and marketing spend, to insights that can improve the brand story and positioning, the customer experience, product innovation, pricing, the purchase moment and more.

- How the leading practitioners are using data to improve the performance of media spend, plus the new lessons we are learning and what is now considered cutting edge use of data

- Whether we are making the most of data to track and measure brand performance – from landing page to purchase – and brand lift to impact of creative

- The data insight strategies we can take to fill the void left by third-party cookies

- The steps we need to take to transform behaviour data into actionable insights

- Using data to improve our understanding of the elements a customer can take on the path to purchase over time, to improve consumer experiences when browsing and buying online

- How to use segmentation and targeting in ways to efficiently target buyers at the right time in their personal customer journey and reduce wastage

- Whether audience segmentation is as reliable as we think – and how to plan for this

- How far is too far with personalisation – and where the use of data starts to become creepy

- How we build the trust required to leverage, maintain, and increase consumer data

Big-picture thinking at the intersection of economics, marketing, and finance

We’ll make sense of the macroeconomic headwinds our industry faces, hear about investing themes for 2023 and find out how the city is engaging with and investing in the media landscape. Plus, we’ll hear about where we can find opportunity in volatility and how brands will invest in a recession. This session will unite marketers and investment professionals for an afternoon of big-picture thinking.

- What are the macroeconomic headwinds we should consider going into 2023

- Balancing declining consumer purchasing power and brand outlays, such as product input costs and media price inflation

- What budgets do the biggest brands have this year, and how do they plan to spend it?

- Why are big retailers beginning to think about developing their own media networks?

- The importance of environmental, social and governance for business growth

- How is retailer entry into owning media reshaping the advertising industry?

- How much private equity interest is there in media and adtech right now?

- How can brands internally position marketing as an investment rather than a cost?

- What must we learn about speaking the language of the CFO to lock in budgets?

- How should brand messaging strategy change in light of the economy?

- Has a drive for ‘purpose’ in advertising stifled creativity, at a time when brands needs cut-through more than ever?

Strategy designed for the future of brands, plus the tech that will get you there

If the only constant is change, brands need to rewire. In this session we take a second look at the principles of brand marketing, rip up the rule book and reform opinions on how brands are put

together. Think product innovation, purchase moment, consumer experience, brand positioning all wrapped up with data, digital, media and tech. This is where brand marketing regenerates.

- Understanding the fast-changing digital ad landscape

- What technology is changing how marketers work at the world’s biggest brands?

- How DTC brands are competing for attention in the digital realm

- What we can learn from innovative scale-ups re-thinking brand marketing

- Against-the-norm methods top brands use to drive results

- Building strategies that allow for experimentation in new channels

- The impact of price promotions and discounts on short-term and long-term impact

- Developing a consistent experience across channels

- How to use data insights to enhance performance and returns

- Combining performance and brand objectives within the same campaign

- Driving activation and boost rapid response channels to deliver short-term outcomes

- Overcoming reliance on short-term performance marketing

- Avoiding bland advertising – without compromising brand safety

- Developing brand identity and awareness in a crowded arena

- Making marketing decisions that align with what a brand stands for

- The importance of environmental, social and governance for brand growth

- How brands can build trusted conversations and loyal communities

- How we can ensure we have the right skills in our businesses to meet future demand

Where brands with remarkable ideas collide with excellent media planning

We take a close look at what drives effective brands in today’s always-on environment, and whether the anchors for brand-building and performance marketing are changing over time or remain steadfast. We will ask what is driving effectiveness today out of creative, reach, brand, targeting, recency, context, etc, and sentiment among brands to the various levers.

- What is driving effectiveness today out of creative, reach, brand, targeting, recency, context, etc, and which factors are becoming more or less influential

- As the dust settles on the data-driven and audience-focused planning revolution, how important it is to refocus on creative and context

- What we have learned about the effectiveness of different environments and whether all channels are equal for creating emotion and impact

- What kinds of creative or format can drive brand-building and performance objectives from the same advertisement

- How different ‘inputs’ must be used based on category or product, time-in-market, brand health and budget, etc.

- Sentiment among brands to the various levers, and if we’re all aligned on what should drive campaigns in 2023

- The impact that new measurement solutions like attention have on creative effectiveness

- Whether a recession will accelerate or slow brand effectiveness

- What kind of creative, sentiment and messaging works best in a recession?

One second after the big bang

In recent years, the rise of retail media has captured the imagination of marketers throughout the world. Retailers are becoming their own media owners and doing their own ad sales. Conversely, media owners and tech companies are building their own ecommerce offerings. With all the first-party data available from our browsing, watching, listening, and shopping, it’s clear how significant the opportunity will be. From category pages and search listings to digital OOH, CTV, and influencers, we will discuss the opportunities available to claim a slice of the pie.

- The retail media landscape, key businesses, and the size of the opportunity

- How we can develop a consistent experience for consumers to interact with a brand, regardless of where they begin the shopping journey

- The ‘omnichannel’ (non-retailer website) retail media elements we can explore, from in-store point of sale media, to email and magazines

- How we can use data signals from a variety of sources, including location-based services in and around retail estate

- The synergies retail media has with media channels such as CTV and OOH

- How we can enhance consumer targeting by using first-party and ‘zero party’ data signals, including purchase history, preferences, and intentions

- The impact of price promotions and discounts on short-term and long-term impact

- How are brands reacting to price inflation and volatility in retail media

- The opportunities for non-endemic brands to use retail media