Marketing Week’s Festival of Marketing agenda now live

Following last year’s sell-out event, the Festival of Marketing is returning for its 11th year. The agenda for the 2024 Festival is now live, featuring full details of the year’s most unmissable marketing line-up.

The event, held at The Brewery in London on 3 October, will be headlined by entrepreneur, investor, sustainability advocate and star of Dragons’ Den, Deborah Meaden. If that were not glamourous enough, the architects behind the marketing success of TV dance show Strictly Come Dancing will be joined by on-screen ambassador Anton Du Beke to explain how, over 20 years, the programme has become a staple of family entertainment.

Delegates can also hear of the remarkable four-decade journey undertaken by McDonald’s with its long-term agency Leo Burnett, in a session with McDonald’s UK&I marketing director Matt Reischauer, or learn from Greggs customer and marketing director Hannah Squirrel, who will reveal how targeted activity can improve brand sentiment.

Tony’s Chocolonely CEO Douglas Lamont will be joined by head of marketing Nicola Matthews to show how it has balanced purpose and growth to become one of the most admired brands in the UK, telling delegates how marketing teams can work with the C-suite to drive success.

Meanwhile, the founder of alcohol-free beer Lucky Saint, Luke Boase, and marketing and ecommerce director Kerttu Interoinen will tell the story of the standout challenger brand, and how it has maintained consistency to drive performance, and used partnerships and positioning to open up new opportunities.

Elsewhere, adjunct associate professor of marketing, and Marketing Week columnist, Dr Helen Edwards will share a frank assessment of how creativity is developed and applied in marketing strategy and every lever of its execution. She will also share her rallying call for marketers to stop being process-driven, and to instead employ breakthrough marketing thinking.

And, at a time when the UK’s national broadcaster is about to enter its second century, BBC chief customer officer Kerris Bright will look at the future of the institution. With legacy only taking it so far in an increasingly crowded and fractured landscape, how will the BBC adapt to provide a more personal, less public service?

Career development is also a big focus at this year’s Festival. Helen Tupper, founder of Squiggly Careers will be sharing why promotion shouldn’t always be the definition of career success. She will explain how marketers can create their own opportunities and why people shouldn’t automatically default to a narrow idea of what a successful career looks like.

Meanwhile, Scott Morrison, former CMO and founder of transformation consultancy The Boom! will share how marketers can best ‘power up’ their teams to help them unleash their potential.

To kick off the day with a bang, Mark Ritson will bring his famously blunt and unmissable approach to the Festival of Marketing with his definitive take on a key problem for brand owners, in the aptly titled session ‘How we totally f*cked positioning and how to unf*ck it’.

Russell Parsons, editor-in-chief of Marketing Week and Festival of Marketing, says: “This year’s Festival theme is about the Power to Transform. A celebration amid the challenges that marketers face of the industry’s ability to drive growth, while providing marketers with the means to be able to unlock opportunities. The brands, people and subjects we are shining a light on will offer inspiration. And there’s plenty more to be announced between now and October.”

Festival of Marketing takes place on 3 October at The Brewery. For more information, to view the full agenda, and to buy tickets, click here.