Technology for Marketing allows B2B and B2C businesses to connect with professionals who can help them boost their profiles. If you turned up expecting to be bombarded with gadgets, algorithms and tools to claw an advantage over the competition … well, you wouldn’t be disappointed. It’s a marketing enthusiast’s paradise.
With all the tech magic on display, however, it’s important to stay grounded. Marketing is ultimately about making human connections – or at the very least, making connections that feel human. It’s with this in mind that we’d like to share some insights from a few of the presentations we attended, including from Croud’s Global Director of Advanced Analytics, Gabriel Hughes, who spoke on a data-driven approach to brand and performance marketing. We found them every bit as exciting and actionable as the rest of the event.
Trust and loyalty
Jim Rudall (Mailchimp) hosted a talk with Stephen Rogan (Shopify) and Nathan Lomax (Quickfire Digital) on the importance of customer loyalty and trust.
Rogan noted that while business is emerging from the doldrums of the past few years, it’s still precarious out there. Companies are having to fight for every customer, and retention remains key. Traditional means like discounts and special offers can devalue your brand, so we all need to be community-minded to keep our customer numbers growing. Using empathy and understanding go a long way to keeping them coming back. Don’t forget things like quizzes and gamification to humanise the brand, Rogan reminds us.
Can AI and automation be used to “personalise” customer relationships? Lomax thinks so – but the human connection still needs to play a part. You only have to look at a brand like Beavertown craft beer. They owe much of their success to their very human way of doing business. Their customers feel like part of a community, rather like being in a country pub. He thinks that if you use AI as a “copilot” alongside traditional customer relations, you can get efficiency without losing the connections.
In these times of privacy demands and mistrust of corporations, it was surprising to hear some of Rudall’s research for Mailchimp. He pointed out that half of consumers want personalised messaging, which necessarily means giving up private data. And 70% are happy to share data as long as they knew how it was being used. As Rogan noted, people tend to be happy drip-feeding data to build up personalisation, rather than giving it all up in one go.
Into the community
The importance of community was driven home in a talk hosted by Charles Parkinson of the “How I Became” podcast. He was joined by Jamelia Donaldson (Treasure Tress), Benazir Barlet-Batada (ex-Cadbury) and Sarah Fuller (ex- Nandos).
These inspiring stories taught us about the importance of actually getting out there and meeting customers face to face. Donaldson would host afternoon teas form mums and daughters with curly hair, where they would discuss the products they used. This was not only a great way to connect with her community, but also to collect data which fed into both the stock and the language used by her business, which retails hair products aimed at Black women.
For Fuller, community was an integral part of building the Nando’s brand. They would get involved with schools and youth groups, making a real difference in communities. The brand obviously benefits, but when people know their local outlet is there for them, barriers are demolished like a Family Platter at a teen’s birthday party. You might notice that Nando’s don’t advertise a huge amount – that’s largely down to this community-driven, word-of-mouth approach.
Barlet-Batada was in no doubt about the importance of personable marketing, especially when working on behalf of a giant like Cadbury. Her three biggest tips where:
- You can never stop listening to customers.They won’t tell you everything directly, so seek to meet their untapped needs.
- Drive mental availability. Deliver ads which are engaging by being emotional or entertaining, to keep the conversation going.
- Drive physical availability. Show up for the consumer wherever they are- whether online or in store.
How brands grow today
Anja Spielmann (Mars) and Gemma Spence (VML) understand how the avalanche of information we face daily contrasts with our diminishing attention spans. In fact, research suggests that the average consumer’s attention span has dropped from 15 seconds a few years ago to just 8 seconds today. Thanks for making it this far, reader!
It gets worse. Did you know that for purchases over $50, consumers are waiting for 48 hours between discovering and making a purchase? And that in a few years, we’ll each be seeing 20,000 ads every day? For Spielmann, this is where AI can reap priceless rewards. It will give businesses the power to personalise ads on the fly for everyone who sees them. When ads put customers first, consumers will be much more open to those advertisers’ messages.
Unlocking potential for brand & performance: A data-driven approach
Our Global Director of Advanced Analytics, Gabriel Hughes, took to the stage to share how currently, most decision-making in the market relies heavily on platform metrics, which may improve efficiency but don't always ensure effectiveness. Often, effectiveness is driven more by intuition than data.
Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) can be great to guide strategic decisions, but struggles with daily planning and measuring long-term brand effects.
To address this, Gabe shared our range of customisable and complementary solutions. In addition to MMM, we propose a long-term brand MMM that isolates the impact of brand investment from the baseline. Incrementality tests will measure true lift, while Causal AI will allow us to simulate experiments without actually conducting them. Finally, first-party attribution models will drive daily efficiency and ROI within a digital funnel.
In short, a comprehensive measurement strategy, embracing a range of measurement solutions, is essential. If you’d like guidance from our dedicated Analytics team - please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
Cringe-proof social media
How can you make sure your brand speaks to young people without it making their eyes roll in despair? Draft your niece in to do the copy! That’s what broadcaster Saira Khan did when she was launching a brand – and it worked.
Khan has lots of fingers in pies, and she has picked up a wealth of information on the world of influencers and how to make sure they land with businesses’ intended audiences. Choosing the right influencer is the starting point. Just because someone has half a million followers doesn’t mean they’ll engage with your viewers if they’re from a totally irrelevant niche.
But that doesn’t mean you can only choose influencers from within your sector. Skincare specialists CeraVe used YouTube funnyman ItalianBach on a campaign that probably shouldn’t have worked, but really hit home with his followers.
Video is dead (long live video)
Finally, we bring you Grace Miller and Grace Andrews, the marketing brains behind Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO YouTube channel. Their talk was called “5 Reasons Not to Use Video Content In 2025”, which seems odd coming from masters of the medium.
When we heard the reasons – “You’re going to reach too many people”, “Your data will be overflowing” and “Your brand becomes too memorable” – we realised the title was tongue-in-cheek. The truth is, video content is expected to account for 82% of all internet traffic by 2032, and 85% of marketers say video helps build stronger brand loyalty than other media.
Added to that, you have the incredible power of analytics provided by platforms such as TikTok and YouTube. Content creators can really get under the hood and find out exactly who their audience is. That can only lead to greater marketing opportunities and brand engagement – if used wisely. The two Graces told us how minor changes to things like the thumbnail image and the intro turned flatlining DOAC into what it is today – a 7.4 million-strong channel that attracts A-list guests.
Remember – technology is just a tool
There’s an important takeaway from all this. Technology is the engine that delivers great marketing, and helps you to improve it, but the old-fashioned, imaginative ways of interacting with customers still hold true. When the personal and the technical are used optimally alongside each other, the scope for growth can be breathtaking. Just make sure you don’t grow too much – your competitors wouldn’t like that.
