Helina’s Takeaways from MADFest, London

Last week, I attended MADFest in Shoreditch, London! 🤩

It was a jam-packed day with many amazing brands and speakers joining together to celebrate the world of advertising and marketing!

Being new to marketing, it was invaluable for me to be amongst and hear from many senior and experienced marketers.

Here are some of my highlights & key takeaways from the event:

• George Papadopoulos from Reckitt emphasised that we need to make the consumer the heart of everything we do. Do what’s right for your consumer, always – it’s a matter of survival ⚠️

• I really enjoyed hearing from Yann Le Bozec at Crocs who outlined their marketing journey and how they responded to the highs and lows they’ve been through as a company. It was interesting to see how they incorporate their two values, comfort and self-expression, into every marketing decision they make – however big or small.

• A presentation from the Head of Digital at Nivea, Adam Wright, outlined how they use experimentation for growth. I was intrigued to see their scale of A/B testing and how they break down the experimentation process.

• I was particularly drawn to a graphic he shared with us that displayed the complexity of customer journeys. It visually represented the transition from awareness through to the love of a brand. It was interesting to see the representation of individuals going back and forth and jumping between stages – showing that the process is not always as linear as I thought 💡

• What I particularly valued from Adam’s presentation was his acknowledgement of the audience. He recognised that most of us would be looking at Nivea’s experimentation process and be intimidated by its length and scale. Most of us were probably thinking, “that’s much too big of a task – why even try?”.

• Adam reminded us that small steps do make a difference! He referred to this quote which really put this into context and got me thinking:

• Finally, I heard from the Marketing Director at Beavertown Brewery, Tom Rainsford, who discussed the power of people and culture. He recognised that although strong strategy, marketing, finance, tech, & sales are important to a company, growth comes from strong productivity, engagement, and other people-related factors. In essence, a healthy culture is what ultimately drives growth 📈

• He said that to work towards building a healthy culture, we need to start by just being kinder to ourselves and each other. We need to ask ourselves: “What behaviours do we want to be coming back to us?”. Upon reflection, we would probably think better of emailing a colleague about a task on a Sunday evening… 😬

• Further to this, Tom shared a thought-provoking quote with us:

“Change is inevitable, growth is optional”

• Change will continue to happen throughout your company’s existence, but you can seize the opportunity for growth by taking action. And, through working towards building a healthy culture, we can lay down the foundations for this growth 🌱

• In fact, a key message I kept hearing throughout the day was that people won’t love your brand if you don’t love your people – a positive company culture has never been so important.

Overall, the event was great – the variety of speakers, companies, and topics really gave me a flavour of the different aspects of marketing as someone new to the industry.

I would definitely recommend it! 🙌

My top tips:

• Pack your phone charger! 🔌
• Bring a notebook or have your phone ready to take notes 📓
• Cater your day to your liking! For me, that meant taking some time away from the venue to have my lunch elsewhere and take a breather before getting back into it! 🥰