Effectiveness, innovation and the future of marketing: Marketing Week at The Festival of Marketing

Marketing Week columnist Mark Ritson, Ogilvy UK vice-chairman Rory Sutherland, WPP CEO Mark Read and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s Jenni Romaniuck are among the big names that will appear on Marketing Week’s Strategy and Leadership Stage at the Festival of Marketing next month.

Returning for a second year, the stage will bring to life key strategic and leadership issues including marketing effectiveness and measurement, innovation, and the future role and responsibilities of the marketer. Elsewhere at The Festival, we will tackle key challenges including attracting young people into the industry, as well as showcase best practice.

Here are some of the highlights:

Thought leadership

Marketing Week boasts a market-leading roster of some of the most authoritative voices in the industry. Three of the biggest names will be taking to the Strategy and Leadership stage at The Festival.

Consultant and academic Mark Ritson will deal with arguably the biggest challenge facing all marketers – effectiveness – counting down the 10 strategy tests you must meet.

Elsewhere, marketing leadership expert Thomas Barta will dissect what brave marketing leadership means and how you can apply the tenets of bravery.

Meanwhile, Dr Helen Edwards will help you tackle the task of determining your brand’s future by unveiling the five innovation techniques that can help improve effectiveness.

The future of marketing and marketers

There has been a glut of new job titles enter the marketing industry in recent years, chief growth officer, chief customer officer and customer experience director among the most common.

On the Strategy and Leadership stage, Marketing Week will lead a discussion with marketers that have moved into different roles. Do these new jobs better reflect the role and purpose of marketing going forward? Or is the rebranding of marketing a superficial and unnecessary exercise symptomatic of a profession ill at ease with itself? Join Lovehoney CEO and former Hyperjar chief growth officer Sarah Warby and Co-op Group customer director Ali Jones to discuss the future of the marketer.

Elsewhere, we tackle the future of marketing and how it should be approached and measured. Is marketing a science, and if so which one? That is the key question at the heart of a session featuring two of the biggest voices in the industry –  Ogilvy vice-chairman and behavioural science expert Rory Sutherland and Ehrenberg Bass Institute associate director and How Brands Grow 2 co-author Jenni Romaniuk.

The future of marketing services will be the focus of an interview with WPP CEO Mark Read on the Marketing Week Strategy and Leadership stage. Up for discussion will be the state of modern marketing and the challenges facing agencies.

Helping to inspire a new generation of marketing 

The extent of the lack of awareness and poor perception of marketing among young people was laid bare by a Marketing Week investigation last year. Keen to do something about it, Marketing Week partnered to launch the School of Marketing, which is dedicated to addressing the issue. As part of our ongoing efforts, the School of Marketing has partnered with the Festival of Marketing to launch a brand-building competition for school children to inspire them to consider a career in marketing.

Marketing’s looming crisis: Why the industry must work harder to attract the next generation

Twenty students will work in four groups of five to create a brand concept with sustainability at its heart. Ideas will be presented to a panel of marketing industry figures including RBS CMO David Wheldon and former Unilever marketing chief Keith Weed. The programme will be led by School of Marketing managing director Ritchie Mehta, alongside the Founding 50 – the young marketers recruited last year to help achieve the School’s goals.

Celebrating best practice

Every year, Marketing Week’s Masters Awards celebrate the brands and individuals that are demonstrating effectiveness, creativity and innovation.  The shortlist and winner of one of the flagship awards, Brand of the Year, will be dissected at The Festival this year.

Marketing Week editor Russell Parsons will explore the secrets of the winner’s success. Powered by YouGov BrandIndex data, the stories that drove that success will be analysed, as well as the impact they had on the brand and business.

Elsewhere, YouGov and award judges including Guardian marketing director Sonia Sudhakar and TSB CMO Pete Markey will delve into the key pillars of brand success.

The Festival of Marketing takes place 10 and 11 October at Tobacco Dock in London. More than 100 marketers will appear across 12 stages from brands including Sainsbury’s, Diageo, KFC and TSB. Headliners include Tesco CEO Dave Lewis and activist, writer and director Rose McGowan.

There are new stages this year, including creative brand thinking, marketing intelligence, effectiveness and data, the tech innovation lab, and social and influencer marketing.

To find out more about the stages and speakers, as well as book tickets, visit 

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