…was the theme of the Jubilee 15th year of Marketing Management Conference, which took place on May 14, 2014 at the Prague Žofín and was for the second time associated awarding the prices for the Marketing Act of the Year. The Conference keynote speaker was Dave Trott, the legendary copywriter, Creative Director, an expert on linking traditional marketing tools with new media and the founder of several well-known London advertising agencies. Other eighteen speakers from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the UK targeted their contributions on authentic dialogue with customers, creativity, predatory thinking, the strength and the importance of brands in the over communicated times, and also on music in the service of different brands. The Czech-Slovak program for nearly 300 participants was prepared by Blue Events in cooperation with Slovak TheMarketers.biz.
The opening part called Authentic dialogue instead of carpet bombing was started by Martin Mravec, director of GfK presenting the speech Customers on the move – Move with them!
Based on the current research data he documented the customer lifestyle changes and using examples of the unique and witty communication campaigns from around the world he showed how you can respond to these changes effectively. Interesting data showed that customers are more and more doubtful whether price for certain products or services is adequate, and every fourth customer is thinking of leaving to the competition. More than 50% of customers enjoy the funny and crazy style of ads, the most popular are still cartoons and ads with animals. Marketers recommend: "Communicate a unique approach to the customer, accompany him, where he moves and place there your communication tools. Use such advertising style, which attracts the consumer and at the same time brings a sense of value that the customer can appreciate."
Zdeněk Hašek, Marks and Spencer, introduced The course of fresh food for the citizens of Prague. This was a story of the fresh food sales by M&S that was started at 6 stores in Prague by the end of last year. The parent company in the UK already achieves a higher turnover on food than on clothing, attracting primarily younger and more progressive customers. The offer of fresh food in Prague consists of 550 items that are seasonally rotated, the emphasis being on quality, freshness and fair trade products. In addition to standard marketing tools (recipes, shop windows, FB, newsletters) Zdenek Hasek used also a brand new communication tool – the Talking fridge. Viral campaign with the talking fridge teaching Prague citizens the right English names and pronunciation of fresh products caused an increase in the number of customers by about 14% per month. In the follow-up discussion, Hasek admitted that reflecting this positive trend, M&S is going to open separate shops with food in the Czech Republic in future.
Jiří Vlasák of Kofola has illustrated the ways of long-term building of the brand and relation with customers on the slogan of Kofola that is used for more than 13 years: When you love her, there is nothing more to solve. The three examples of different communication strategies for 3 different product groups – Bublimo, Ugo fresh juice and Kofola in half litre bottles - showed how they want to attract customers, and what their communication has in common: "We are using the new paths and changing our approach to what we do. We have an understanding for the local environment where we live, as we are a Czech-Slovak company. We have a meaningful and motivating vision: by 2017, we want to be the number one in these markets. Our mission expresses we are striving for what is important for us: to love, to live healthily and to find always new paths."
Analysis of what is Authenticity in marketing: a Flash in the pan, or the Holy Grail? was carried out by Josef Havelka of Česká spořitelna. Using many humorous spots, he asked provocative questions, whether marketing is always authentic, what it means to be authentic and whether we in fact really need it. He compared the qualities of the old and the new consumer who is looking for authenticity. In the end he more or less identified himself with the definition of Millward Brown. "Authenticity is an integrity. You are clear about what you are and what you are good at. To be authentic is to be real and genuine, long-term loyal to your origin and to what you are doing, are willing to give up short-term profits for the benefit of the long-term objectives."
The second part of the morning program welcomed the keynote Dave Trott with the presentation of Predatory Thinking. He began with explaining what creativity is, and what it means to be creative in marketing. "Predatory thinking is a game with the new total, important is just the result. If we can't resolve the problem, we swap it for the one that we can cope with. We change the context." The most important is the function that must be beyond the form of advertising. To be sure that your ads are effective, you need to know how the human brain works. The most important are these three things: the impact of advertising (the product is registered, and remembered), understandable communication (the uniqueness of the product) and the persuasiveness of it (agencies most commonly analyse only the persuasiveness). "The most important thing is to notice the ad at all, but that is rarely accented in the brief. To be different needs a greater courage. Predatory access is what works - not what you or your colleagues think that might work, or what seemingly complies with the "good external standard."
The concept of predatory thinking - to think differently than others- was illustrated by a few examples of non-traditional target groups of advertising spots. Dave concluded by a phrase used by the legendary "predator" Steve Jobs: "Why go to the Navy if you can be a pirate!"
Anthony Vanger, CORD Europe dealt in his speech with Building brands through music innovation. Using the example of Nestlé and Nescafé he explained, why it is important to incorporate music to the spot creation since the very beginning. The melody “La Figura” is used by Nestlé in 40 countries worldwide, but always in different variations depending on the context and music taste of individual nations.
The afternoon part called They came and were seen included also publication of the research results by GfK that led to the award of the Marketing Act of the year 2013/14 proposed by customers both in the Czech and Slovak Republic. The six companies were awarded in individual categories and were asked to present the winning concept in their category in front of marketing experts in the audience. The winner for both Czech and Slovak republics was the Internet Bookstore Martinus with the online battle for the greatest book hero. Most favourite book characters competed on the Internet and gained votes of their fans.
The café owner and “enliver” of the city public space Ondřej Kobza inspired participants by his playful and creative message Make people happy and the world will learn about you. He spoke primarily about the project of placement of pianos in the city centres. At present, people can play on 15 grand pianos, in summer he expects their number to increase up to 40. Ondrej wants to continue in his ideas for recovery and enlivenment of public space with many other projects. In the preparatory phase there are, for example, public grills or chess tables installed in the streets, which would become a tool to join randomly people in the summer time, “poetry machines”– the jukeboxes with a selection of poetry from 50 Czech poets presented in the original author's voice.
Petr Minařík, introduced the campaign of a new concept of electric BMWi car. Jan Podzimek of the agency PRIA presented how to you street wisdom in digital world and documented it by three case studies of low-cost digital campaigns with very high penetration and ROI. The final two panel discussions offered a great space for dialogue between the participants of the conference, managers of successful and innovative Czech and Slovak agencies, companies, as well as social activists.
Building on the success of this action Blue Events started to prepare the autumn clover of unique marketing and PR Conferences: 24th September- Loyalty Over Gold, 1st October - Mobile Marketing, 22nd October - PR Summit and 19th November - Primetime for the Internet Jungle.
Contact for further information:
Antonín Parma, General Manager, Blue Events
Tel.: +420 222 749 841, e-mail: antonin.parma@blueevents.eu
Media contact:
Aneta Zímová, Blue Events
Tel.: +420 222 749 841, e-mail: Aneta.Zimova@BlueEvents.eu