My brief is to describe each session, but I suspect you are time-poor and easily distracted (a normal human being, in other words) so first the overview. ‘Snakes and ladders’ was the recurring metaphor of the conference, and overall it felt like two days of ladders. Things are looking up.

Overview

There used to be some violent disagreements and heated punch ups at MAP (Ehrenburg vs Jones rumbled on for longer than Ali vs Foreman). This year, there was a refreshing amount of consensus. If that sounds cosy, it certainly wasn’t.

The consensus was that most of the time the majority of advertisers are measuring the wrong things. The industry needs a change in metrics, as Les Binet (my man of the match) put it:

• from rational to emotional;
• from sales to profit;
• from attitudes to behaviour.

He also argued we need better measures in all these areas, particularly to pick up the effects of newer channels.

Speakers from a wide variety of perspectives orbited around these same themes, and there was a healthy discussion on the final afternoon of what’s stopping us from achieving this. So it was an event full of interesting, practically placed ladders but with an awareness of the snakes out there.

Oh, and the carrot cake was sensational.

DAY ONE

Rod White welcomed us to the Year of the Rat and Ash Wednesday, and urged us to repent of our inappropriate measurements and quick decisions and make a fresh start in the new Chinese year

Pay attention. Or don’t

Robert Heath had evidence that advertising doesn’t create so many great brands nowadays. His analysis was that the auditors are in charge.

He argued that we feel things before we think them. We’ll opt for chocolate cake first, then think about it and go for fruit cake. Feelings then interact with semi-consciousness, and possibly then struggle with conscious thinking.

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