Living on the Marketing Edge in Reading

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be hanging out with over 100 marketing professionals at #EdgeReading at The Hilton, Reading

Natasha Preocanin from Only Marketing Jobs managed proceedings while Simon Lewis chaired the conference, ensuring a most enjoyable, informative networking day, well worth the £150 ticket price.

Jamie Brighton, Head of Strategic Marketing at Adobe talked about spreading the love with social, mixing modern analysis with some good old stock photos we might have seen a few times before!

This was followed by a round table discussion which allowed everyone to share their thoughts…

James Murray, Search Advertising Lead, Microsoft got us searching for the silver bullet… this time not to find the answer but to free us from the devil within… scary where search is heading… robots engaging with people to suck their life blood from their wallets… arghhh!

More round table discussion… more people know I’m right 😉

Nice brew and more networking before we heard all about Silverstone… a joint presentation with their agency… interesting how they are looking to talk directly with each person around content that will be of interest to them… as technology & marketers get smarter, the messages get clearer.

Lunch… excellent spread, especially the crispy duck wraps… yum, yum

Joseph Liu was up next with the grave yard slot… what an inspirational choice… a TEDX presenter, he had us eating out of his hands in minutes and duly entertained… best of the day. But then he had been Global Senior Brand Manager for Haagen-Dazs and we all love ice cream 😉

Sorry, no more photos, i-Pad battery died! But we do have their videos… enjoy…

Pippa Chick, Head of Consumer Marketing Northern Europe, Intel Corporation shared how Intel take alternative approach to get their brand message out since their product is inside machines and not the main brand on the front. They found that CSR approaches creates more brand buy in than a shiny label… 3x if I recall, you’ll have to check the presentations when they’re loaded.

More tea vicar…

Key note, Joe McEwan, Head of Digital & Communities at Innocent drinks, shared the love… telling us stories of how people simply rock up to their offices and get taken on a tour… how staff give up their weekends to join in events… they really have built a positive vibe around their brand… 1,000,000 grannies knitting hats for their smoothies shows that you don’t have to be mad to work their but it helps 😉

Excellent day’s networking and I got to tell a couple of Marketing folk from Dell my Social Media Week Personality of the Year Award story, totally relevant to the round table discussion and appropriate this Social Media Week 2014.