Taking place on 10th December in the heart of London, at the award-winning 30 Euston Square, here's glimpse of what's in store at BrandMAX 2014.
In the spirit of adopting digital trends, BrandMAX takes on 'personalisation' by offering, for the first time ever, a bespoke agenda for each delegate based on the priorities they outline at registration. Designed to help brands accelerate in the digital space, attendees' content questions, research needs and networking preferences will be met through the bespoke agendas, kicking off with five personalised breakfast roundtables discussing key issues.
Throughout the day delegates and speakers will curate a Top 10 Digital Screws Ups To Avoid list, creating a tailored checklist of 'what not to do' insights from some of the UK's biggest brands including O2, British Gas, Google, Microsoft, Barclays and Audi.
Christopher Macleod, marketing director for Transport for London and one of this year's speakers, kicks off contributions to the list with:
"The first thing to avoid is thinking about Digital Transformation as just a 'marketing thing' – or the preserve of any single function – it needs to embrace the whole organisation and is actually about business transformation. And the second thing to remember is Amara's Law, where we 'overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.' This can lead to misguided trend following and then a failure to think sufficiently hard about the long term needs and implications of digital on the whole business."
At this year's BrandMAX you'll also be able to hear the speaker's warts-and-all experiences in a closed-door panel discussion hosted under Chatham House Rules. Brands including Barclays, Audi and Google will reveal where they are in their digital journey.
Content marketing is next in the hot seat, with CMO's from Just-Eat, William Hill and Microsoft examining where the real bottom line on content is, and where it can take us.
"It's always time for transforming the digital space. A few years ago we were able to build brands almost for free by being creative on social networks. Sadly Facebook and friends caught on to us and changed the rules. Many CMOs will be considering the ROI of their social and content production now but perhaps not just as an extension of eCRM, but how it fits into PR and customer service." says Mat Brady, CMO of Just-Eat
The final panel looks at how brand leaders can truly drive the digital customer experience. Rich Pleeth, Get Taxi's VP of marketing, joins the panel to look at mobile – or as he calls them "those powerful little rectangles in our pockets" – and how this screen is changing the customer experience rules.
"We're all looking at our phones over 150 times a day, and a massive 76% of us are never more than a metre away from one. The world has changed, and it's phenomenal to see how we, as marketers, can make the most of it."
As we come to a close, we will be looking towards the future, where famed media forecasters, Enders Analysis answer the question 'what will digital marketing look like in 2020?'.
