The Future of Advertising 2014 – Report & Photos

Wednesday 19th of February proved to be an extremely successful afternoon for the APA at BAFTA. A sold out Future of Advertising…In One Afternoon was both thought-provoking and positive about the state of Advertising today, and how the line-up of engaging guest speakers saw it.

Tom Roope of The Rumpus Room opened the show talking about how digital can become more emotional, before Claire Tavernier, MD of ChannelFlip, took the stage to explain how brands can utilise Youtube stars to make the difference between simply getting views versus getting engagement.

Neuroscientist Duncan Smith arrived with a terrifying set of slides and a much calmer message to explain how the brain can hold the key to truly accurate market research, leaving us with the staggering stat that 90% of your thinking goes on outside of your concious control. Rob Lawrence assumed the mantle up to the coffee break to report back from the other side of marketing with ‘trendcasting’ and his abiding message – that dumb is the new smart.

After a relaxing break, Andrew Bent of Google woke the audience back up with his explanation of how Youtube is browsed and how Volvo Trucks in particular have made the most of this knowledge. Duan Evans of AKQA spoke about how campaigns can empower rather than lecture whilst designer Brendan Dawes delved deep into data to show how it can be used to tell stories.

As we moved into the later part of the afternoon, Bridget Angear of AMV expounded the benefits of experimenting and how the brands that will succeed in the future will be those that stand for something beyond just their product. Nigel Walley of Decipher then took the mic to talk about the convergence of web and television and it’s impact on the advertising industry.

The afternoon was rounded off by actor and comedian David Schneider discussing how to cut through on Twitter using techniques such as instant response and reactive listening to, in his own words, “take Twitter by the throat and stroke it with our brand!”