Its taken a while to get this down on paper because I have been rather busy of late running around post The Agency imedia Summit (Brighton). But I thought that it was important to put down in words my opinions and thoughts of the event and whether mingling with some of the most renowned agencies in the UK has helped me to better understand my perceptions and feelings towards my industry.
As usual within the agency world you have some serious B**********S and characters full of their own self importance and work, then you have, just normal down to earth people that are doing great work and just getting on with it. Some were more vocal than others but by the end, I kind of got the feeling that we were all really non the wiser for truly understanding where our industry and media was going.
The big topic was social media and to be quite frank, nobody discussed or talked about it eloquently, infact most agencies when pressed didn't even know where it was going and rather than discuss it we just seemed to go round and round in circles trying to fathom what it was and how we were going to embrace it. It surprised me post the event to see that like true honest marketeers that we are, the same agencies I was having discussions with over bacon and egg were priding themselves as social media experts even though they admitted their limitations to the forum hours earlier.
Although somewhat at first negative and hesitant I thought the summit was a great success, for years I have been trying to fight the corner of small independents being heard, as always at these events the loudest and biggest get heard but Imedia must be applauded for allowing the smaller agencies a voice. For the first time, I felt like I had a platform to voice the opinions of us smaller and down to earth agencies who are not interested in building empires but just want to produce work for the masses and do it in a way that isn't brash or trying to win a back slapping industry award but doing for the real consumers. What it did allow agencies like ourselves to do was understand the bigger issues that clients and technology faces and creatively working together there is a lot we are able to do together to combat these issues somehow though I can't see Ogilvey or VCCP inviting me in for coffee to discuss there latest campaigns and how we might work together to improve the product.
One word that kept cropping up was ideas, the hub of all communication. I think this event only reinforces and supports the fact that without inspiration, thought leadership and great ideas we cannot produce the great work and constantly change and evolve the digital media landscape. For this reason alone I have come to realise that the small independents are the backbone of the marketing and creative world and long may that continue.
On another note, David Crystal's speech was inspiring, clever and incredibly informative. Semantic targeting just goes to prove that with clever insight and passion, great ideas can be realised. I would like to have seen a series of addresses where future technologies (Brands) and agencies are commissioned to put a series of reports together which via a presentation can inform but also create dialogue with an audience.
Suffice to say I have now been asked to put together a presentation at this years Ad tech as well as appearing on the panel at the Imedia Brand summit. Research, insight, creativity, entrepreneurship, and consumer insight always helps the creative process and to have increased involvement and debate via these topics would have provided a great way of discussing and raising the profile of the event.
Events like this one are informative and created lively debate which helped to build profile but more importantly informed and helped the audience to create ideas that they could take to there clients.
Long Live Imedia....
Great article mate, its sounds like you had fun, I need to know more about this man
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