Bryan, our marketing director, reflects on the industry’s annual get-together of 400 brand-led thinkers.
For the second year in a row, Ozone was the proud headline partner of The Marketing Society’s Global Conference for 2022. As a day focused on business inspiration, thought leadership and personal growth, the content was perfectly curated to the overarching theme of the event ‘Changemakers Ignite’.
The Marketing Society’s CEO Sophie Devonshire opens the conference
If you’ve never attended one before, the beauty of The Marketing Society’s conference is that it brings together marketing excellence alongside learnings from adjacent – and even non-related – sectors. But rather than just hear about what inspired me, I asked four of my colleagues to share their highlights from the day.
Damon, CEO
“One of the speakers – with maybe the longest job title I’ve ever seen – was Dr Usha Kim, who heads up the Department of Orbit, Oculoplasty, Ocular Oncology and Ocular Prosthetics at Aravind Eye Hospitals. The Aravind organisation was created in 1976 to help eradicate ‘needless blindness’ in India through an amazingly efficient, patient-centred healthcare programme. Dr Kim highlighted how McDonald’s was used as a blueprint for Aravind by introducing more efficient processes into how blindness is dealt with, while also emphasising empathy and compassion as key drivers of this service design. A fascinating story, with many relatable lessons for those of us working in the ever-changing tech and media space.”
Sophie, Client Director
“It was amazing to hear the 18 year-long story of Dove’s focus on real beauty from Alessandro Manfreddi, the brand’s global CMO. At a time when the negativity of unrealistic body image continues to impact women across the world, it was refreshing to see the full scope of work that the brand has embarked on over the years. Alessandro also highlighted how Dove has continued to innovate to embed its messaging beyond traditional advertising, such as working with Roblox and other metaverse spaces to create avatars representing real body shapes, partnering with Getty to ensure representation within advertising itself, or even impacting US beauty regulation. “Let’s Change Beauty” indeed… and all with very clear revenue and profit impact.”
From left to right: Damon Reeve, Sophie Raptis, Craig Tuck and Frances Lazenby
Craig, CRO
‘As the dad of two girls, it was an absolute honour to listen to Kay Cossington, Head of Women’s Technical at The FA – and what a year to hear from her, fresh from the Lionesses triumph at Euro 2022. Kay spoke in detail about the journey of the women’s game in England across the past decade; focusing on the right structure, a focused identity, alignment across the breadth of the women’s team, closing the gap on the competition to become best in class, and having the right leadership. Aside from the emotion of just hearing this story, there was so much in the presentation that is reflecting the journey Ozone is on. However, nothing related more than the three areas Kay said were the focus of the team as they moved through the tournament – Dare to be different; Be comfortable about being uncomfortable; Take risks, bravely. Amazing stuff, and a lesson to be learnt.”
Frances, Head of Strategic Solutions
“On what was the 254th day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we had the total privilege to hear from Olena Martynova, CMO of the country’s Starlight Media. It would have been inspiring just to understand how people continue to work in a war-torn environment, but Olena shared the story of the brilliant collaboration between news broadcasters in Ukraine – under the banner United News – to create a single trusted and reliable service for the country. In her own words, Olena said that their job was “not about business now, it is about life”. Finishing to an unsurprising and so-deserved standing ovation, Olena stated that life continues to go on for Ukranians, they still need to be entertained and informed, while also reminding global advertisers that their absence from the ad ecosystem was impacting media funding across the country. An incredibly powerful session.”
A full house standing ovation for Olena Martynova from Ukraine’s Starlight Media
From my own perspective
Now back to me, and like everyone in the team, it was really hard to choose just one session to focus on. But perhaps one of the most relevant and timely came from Emma Revie, CEO of The Trussell Trust. At Ozone, we’ve spent a huge amount of time this year looking at how engagement with cost of living content has sky-rocketed as consumers look to find ways to save and preserve money. Sadly, Emma was able to bring this data to life with stories from the trust’s 1,400 food banks across the country – be it the 2.1m emergency food parcels they distributed in the past year, the one food parcel they distribute every 13 seconds to people in crisis, or the 30% of their work that goes to support children. With the profile of The Trussell Trust’s ‘customers’ changing dramatically this year, this was a very humbling and stark reminder of the challenges facing many up and down the country.
So as you might imagine, the impact of hearing from these speakers was somewhat profound. I’ll sign off by saying that this time next year, do your best to beg, borrow or steal (maybe not) a ticket for this event – or you could just get in touch with the Ozone team as we hope to be back for more of the same in 2023.