Great insights from Oliver Stewart on key takeaways from MAD//FEST #MADUpNorth! 🙌 A must-read if you want to stay ahead—check it out. 👇
Day 1 at MAD//FEST #MADUpNorth was worth the queues (even if it felt like a cattle market at times!). Top highlights for me: 🔥 How to Build a Super Human Brand – Dom Dwight Yorkshire Tea • Great marketing isn’t just effective—it’s entertaining! • Yorkshire Tea’s success? Human-centered storytelling + playful creativity (great example: Tea Colour Chart!). • “Brands have a duty not to make the competition for attention worse—create content people actually enjoy.” • “Northern brand are inherently more personal and authentic”- controversial, but probably true. 📱 Total Social: Winning in the Algorithm Era – Dentsu UK Victoria McKevitt-Smith Jessica Whitney & Calum Macdonald-Ball • Algorithms have biases—know them, work with them. • Content is king, but speed + strategy win the game. 🍕 Becoming the Netflix of Pizza – Nick Bamber Domino’s • 110M pizzas sold in the UK a year 🤯 but Domino’s sees itself as a data company first. • Customers are shopping differently, and we’ve seen the trend before (Blockbuster vs Netflix, Domino’s vs. JustEat) 🍊 Jaffa Cakes: Rebrand Magic – James King • Viral TikToks, cultural moments, and owning the cake vs. biscuit debate. Big Manni’s experiment (see vid) both informative and hilarious 😆 • Awareness ≠ salience—staying relevant takes bold moves. • Multi-channel marketing = be coherent and consistent, reinforcing brand across touchpoints. 📊 Untangling Media Measurement – Ollie Shayer (Boots), Naomi Yonge (Liveramp), Nicole Kivel (Criteo) • Connecting the data dots, overcoming fragmented measurement, and achieving omni-channel attribution 🛍 Retailers of the North: Data, Media & Commerce - Dean Harris Jon Beill Stephanie Taylor Laura Jones • This is really hard! • we’re in the gold rush. Stand out, and set yourself apart from by layering unique creative ideas available thanks to the rich data available. • Digital innovation is transforming in-store experiences, with more playful and dynamic creative. Layer unique creative ideas rich data. • Co-creation isn’t just collaboration—it’s about protecting and elevating the brands you work with. 👶 Parental Leave: Policies, Pitfalls & Progress- As a new parent myself, and a wife returning to work this week(!) this fireside from Blis team was a a personal and timely, and eye opening discussion. Despite progress there’s still some big challenges—lots of work still to do. Thanks for sharing your personal stories. Jessica Tagg Amy Fox Leigh Herbert Charlotte Stevens - check out Pregnant Then Screwed bringing the conversation into the open. 🚀 The Brand You Didn’t See Coming – Yoto Insane Growth – Jon Kell • 66,752% growth 🤯 • Brand + product design mattered as much as performance marketing. • “a content company first”—storytelling drives scale. 🔥 Final Thought? Creativity, data, and speed win every time. Already getting stuck in on Day 2. See you there? 👀