Five Presentations from Mad//UpNorth Day One

Andrew Armitage joined a 'motley crew of marketers, start-ups, disruptors, tech types + media folk' at Mad//Fest in Manchester, the first time the event has been held outside London.

Since the first Mad//Fest event attracted an audience of 2,000 attendees, it’s grown year on year to become the UK’s biggest, boldest and most distinctive marketing/advertising festival.

With a great line up for the first Manchester event, and the opportunity to see the new Aviva Studios this looked like a must attend event to hear from some of the best known marketing leaders from companies including AO.com, Pets at Home, Boots, The Co-Op and many more well known household brands.

Here are 5 sessions I particularly enjoyed across day 1 of Mad//UpNorth.

The opening conversation between Ogilvy vice-chair Rory Sutherland and AO.com founder John Roberts set an inspiring tone for the day. John was straight talking, dismissive of corporate culture and advocated FAFO; fuck about and find out. He talked about how AO.com had become the biggest buyer of green bears that they give away with new orders and while he had no metric to determine what they contributed to the business, the fact that a black market had sprung up on eBay was enough for him to know it was worth doing.

I'm all for a bit of FAFO [fuck about and find out]; If people generally think an idea sucks, then I say we go for it.

John Roberts, Founder AO.com

John wasn’t the last to weigh in heavily on culture which he said defined the customer experience. He talked about delivering a smile, not a washing machine and how this could become a major source of competitive advantage - even though there’s no measure for it on the balance sheet.

The AO founder also talked about the cost of providing customer service and readily admitted that each time someone needs to contact them, it’s their own fault for not providing relevant or timely information. That's a feeling I often share when we receive support tickets from the websites we've built.

Mad//Fest was a multi-track event, with several talks ongoing at the same time. Sadly, this is where problems soon emerged because there were so many people there with a tight schedule, and bottlenecks in the venue meant you just couldn’t move between sessions in a timely way.

Some sessions were full, and having queued for about 30 minutes to get to another stage, I’d missed the 2 talks I’d wanted to see. I later realised that people had even queued outside the venue for up to 2 hours just to get in - with some giving up on the event altogether. Clearly some lessons to be learned for the organisers and my LinkedIn feed was soon reflecting the same sentiments.

Having got back to the main stage, up next was CMO of Boots, Pete Markey on how he was keeping the historic Boots brand relevant. As a business with an established heritage he wants his customers to know that Boots are with them for life, and not just when they have a cold. This means making the brand relevant every day, whether that’s a good day when customers want to spend money on their beauty regime for a night out, or those days where people might be dealing with a major health shock.

Pete talked a lot about purpose, which combined with culture was a recurring theme from the talks I saw. He shared that purpose has to sit at the heart of the organisation and extends well beyond marketing or being seen to support certain causes. He went on to say when comms and storytelling are supported by great campaigns, led by strong people and culture delivered across multiple environments with the right products and services you can achieve true purpose. This purpose is then always part of the narrative in all they do.

Pete shared some insights from the Boots Advantage card, leading his team and working with the executive team to create the right environment for ideas and investment in future marketing activity.

Next up was the Marketing Director of Jet2, Gavin Forth, talking about how brands need to sync or swim to survive when they collaborate with popular culture. Jet2 has used sonic branding for several years with the song ‘Hold my Hand’ performed by Jess Glynne that many will instantly recognise, and he shared the story of how they grew their Jet2 Vibe brand through a collaboration with ITV’s Love Island. This was obviously far deeper than just sponsorship and he believes true cultural collaboration isn’t about hopping on trends, but aligning with audiences so you become a part of their identity. But he warned that making mistakes on this path risks obscurity, obsoletion and loss of competitive edge.

The other presentation I particularly enjoyed, which again was very purpose driven was from Kenyatte Nelson, Chief Membership and Customer Officer at the Co-Op. He shared some insight on the challenges facing a cooperative owned by members that operates in competitive spaces such as food retail and insurance. The Co-Op need to do things that their competitors don’t have to which brings obvious challenges. He was very clear though that while purpose is important, it has to be about your customer’s purpose and not yours. If it doesn’t match what your customer needs, it’s irrelevant.

Kenyatte spoke about 3 key elements that are central to any strategy.

1. Start with a clear diagnosis. What’s the problem you’re trying to solve?

2. What are the principles that drive what you will do/won’t do?

3. Double down on things that work and are aligned to your principles

I also loved that he talked about how everyone already has access to the same tools so marketing has to be more than the things we do on a daily basis and focus on delivering value. I loved his quote that marketing won’t fix a broken proposition but it will tell more people about it. Only with a clear proposition will that value be created. He also shared how marketers spend too much time talking about what other marketers care about and we need to be comfortable talking about what matters.

Marketing won’t fix a broken proposition but it will tell more people about it.

Kenyatte Nelson

Interestingly Kenyatte explained why he dislikes the term brand guardian. He argues it positions marketers as the brand police - in other words the people who say no. He went on to say the brand is owned by customer it serves and the business, with role of marketing to bring it to life across the customer and colleague experience.

The best of the rest

There were other talks through the day that were just as good, but not necessarily as relevant to us as an agency. I somehow missed out on the Jaffa Cake samples (definitely a cake and not a biscuit) as James King reflected on reinvigorating the Jaffa Cakes brand.

Seeing Happy Mondays maraca shaker ‘Bez’ on stage was highly entertaining as he talked about music and culture in the city and ‘the Manchester way’ of doing things way back from the ‘posh’ Hacienda days. Havas as main sponsors of the event shared their insights on a visual census of modern Britain and chairman of Boxfund Roger Wade talked about how to grow and sell a consumer brand. Finally, a panel joined by Mayor Andy Burnham talked about how Manchester had grown and developed into a hub for the creative sector.

All in all it was a great day with excellent sessions and great networking, although slightly marred by the excessive queues which can hopefully be put down to teething problems in a new city, and a new venue. The Aviva Studios building is fabulous, but perhaps not suited to that volume of people all trying to move around all at the same time.

Hopefully Mad//Fest will be back (and slightly more free flowing) in 2026. If you can't wait until then, it returns to London running 1 - 3 July and I would definitely recommend it.