Seen in Contagious Newsletter
Contagious spent a day in the Greek sunshine with some of the industry’s leading international thinkers at Contagious Thinkers, which took place last Thursday in Athens.
Contagious’ editorial director Paul Kemp-Robertson kicked off the day looking at the art of getting people to forget that they’re watching an ad, in his ‘What Advertising?’ presentation. Buster Dover, head of digital at VCCP, London predicted the creative end product of the future. He highlighted the fact that while technology changes, humans don’t, meaning that people are still looking for a lasting connection with brands through numerous touchpoints.
Tom Savigar from London’s Future Lab took us through How to Think Deviantly in Strategy, covering a number of demographics and trends that the Future Lab has identified. Tom looked at the importance of listening to the deviant 20% of the population that drives the other 80%, covering the slash/slash generation of teens who set up businesses and side projects under their own steam, and womenomics – the upcoming feminine age which will see trends like caring, empathy and collaboration coming to businesses.
Luminaries from the Greek advertising industry also took part in the event including Tasos Xinaris, chief marketing officer at Netmed Group; Petros Constantinidis, MD and partner at Spot JWT and Helena Chari, MD of TNS ICAP, who looked at shopping and shop layouts as a near death experience for FMCG brands and what can be done to combat this.
The afternoon session saw Hartmut Kozok, managing director of Tribal DDB Hamburg take the audience through the case study of his agency’s creation of the Miles widget for Nike+, and the obstaclesthat his agency had to overcome to bring the project to fruition.
Pio Schunker, Coca-Cola’s SVP Creative Excellence then took us through Coca-Cola’s creative regeneration in a frank and compelling speech that covered the redesign of Coke cans, and all other consumer touchpoints such as trucks, cups and retail. He also told a rapt audience about the creation of the company’s recent compelling adverts such as Video Game, the latest Super Bowl spot and the Happiness Factory, looking at how this output has inspired the entire company and its advertising across other products such as Sprite and Fanta.
The event was hosted by Greek publishers and event organisers Boussias Communications and took place in a beautiful theatre in the centre of Athens, more used to hosting bands and plays than industry events. The unusual setting with a view of the Acropolis through a giant gas works, leant an ambience to the forward-looking content that was delivered to marketing and brand managers and attendees from the Greek advertising industry.
The day concluded with a panel discussion with Dr. Vasilis Theoharakis Associate
Professor of Marketing & Entrepreneurship at ALBA, Greece and
Senior Lecturer at the Aston Business School, UK, joining the speakers
to discuss what is next for marketing directors and the industry as a
whole. Although the audience was pretty much shocked into silence,
heads were buzzing from the day’s content and how to apply it to
innovate the Greek advertising and marketing industries.
