As part of Bournemouth University’s Festival of Enterprise, That’s The Way To Do It 2 brought together 10 of the top agencies in the south to hold a conference where experts could share their knowledge. The conference not only gave an insight into how other agencies in the regions worked but also gave little tips of the trade which people could use in their own companies.
Make sure you read Ed Gould’s blog for “Inspiration is Poop” (
HERE) to see what he spoke about.
Our very own creative director Ed was asked to speak, alongside talks from nine other professionals who spoke on the best ways to work in the digital and creative economy. The talks were aimed at budding entrepreneurs and established businesses.
The first talk by Sophia Story explained the importance of targeting your marketing effectively. She stated how important it is for a company to stick to its ethos and not lose sight of its existing customer, describing the clients of a business as fuel and saying ‘Don’t put petrol in a diesel engine.’
The next talk by Mitchell Stuart explored a company’s mission to conquer social media. The main idea around the talk was to demonstrate how vital it is to have clarity on your mission social media sites, such as Twitter and Facebook.
The last talk of the morning by Tom Wittlin looked at how businesses can benefit others. The talk pushed for the audience to consider people and the planet and to use business as a force for good.
After a short break, a presentation by Michelle Cunningham showed effective ways to use data to pinpoint marketing and use it effectively. The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle, shows 20% of customers make up 80% of business which shows how important it is to properly target your marketing activity. Michelle then showed an algorithm that demonstrated splitting data into five categories to get 20% and then continually splitting it until the target audience can be fine tuned and clearly identified. A product could then be launched/marketed into a more specific market.
The next presentation by Martin Flavan was about the importance of creating a brand personality when using social media. Martin’s talk used examples such as Paddy Power, which has owned social media by creating a ‘lad’ like persona and bantering with their customers on social media. The talk mainly highlighted the fact that if you give your brand personality, then people will embrace the brand and ‘invite you to the party.
Challenging the everyday came next. Mike Mallia from LV (Liverpool Victoria) spoke about a lab idea the company is running to find experimental marketing strategies. Pressing people to break out of the norm and try something unique and different, one example used, was to help flood support phone line workers gain empathy through the use of a Virtual Reality scenario showing them being put into a flooding house to give them an understanding of what people go through.
After lunch Gemma Harris looked at how to create effective marketing campaigns by being different. The speaker used a harrowing story that showed how not giving up made a difference and the media gave the story a lot more attention because of the person’s perseverance. The presentation pushed for businesses to be relevant, be useful and be heard.
Next, Carswell Gould’s own creative director Ed gave his talk on inspiration. He tried to uncover the mystery of inspiration, the plastic brain, a brief insight in to neuroplasticity and the comparison of inspiration to going to the toilet. Which as a creative director he feels he has to conjure out of nowhere sometimes.
We finished the day with a talk from a start-up company called Push Mind And Body where the focus is the well-being of employees. The talk highlighted the importance of managing your stress when at work. It also gave good statistics on not taking on too much at once, as multi-tasking leads to a lower quality of work.
Overall, this was a fantastic experience for me and I really enjoyed getting an insight into what other agencies in the south are working on. It was also very interesting to see how Ed networked with other professionals and, as an intern, has given me inspiration for how to network and present talks myself.
The most rewarding part of the day for me was learning about the Pareto Principle and I am hoping that I will be able to try out the algorithm myself to see how I can pinpoint my marketing ideas to aim my direct marketing to the 20% with greater precision.
