From Insight to Action: A Wrap-up of Creativebrief’s BITE Live

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On November 14, MarComm News attended Creativebrief’s BITE Live event in London. The main theme of the day was going from insight to action and transforming the richness of ideas into real business value.

BITE Live invited some of the world’s leading brands and their agency partners to reveal how they have turned cultural and societal insights into the most creative and effective campaigns of the year. This is how the day progressed:

‘I Can’ 

Following a brief introduction from Creativebrief’s Managing Director Charlie Carpenter, the day kicked off with what turned out to be our favourite talk of the event! James Whittle and Tom Caulfield from The Tempest Two, told us about their awe inspiring and amazing story of rowing across the Atlantic.

In just 18 months the duo physically trained, raised £80,000 via cold emailing, and then with little to no prior rowing experience, set off on their 3,000 mile journey across the Atlantic. They displayed their ‘I Can’ attitude and showed how an idea between two friends turned into a creative brand adventure.

James and Tom have since quit their jobs and dedicated all their time (much to the dismay of their girlfriends) to The Tempest Two, where they are changing how brands use content by showing their customers that anything is possible.

This talk was incredibly inspiring and a great start to the day. When asked to explain what The Tempest Two wanted the audience to take away from their presentation, they said they wanted people to know “they are capable of anything they want to achieve but its having the mind shift to recognise that and commit to something.”

BITE Trends

The Tempest Two’s whirlwind of a talk was followed by the Managing Editor of BITE, Kara Melchers, who explored the main themes from 2017 and what they mean for the year ahead. Her key trends of 2018 were as follows:

  • Diversity to Belonging
  • Welcome to the Darkside
  • A Guide to Self Improvement
  • Rise of the Bots
  • Brand Transparency in the Age of Truth

Age of Misinformation

Kara’s final trend was all about creating a truth that the brand is not ashamed to tell, which perfectly segued into the next talk by McDonald’s VP of Marketing Emily Somers and Leo Burnett London’s Global CSO, Josh Bullmore – who spoke about how McDonald’s debunked the myths and misinformation surrounding their food.

They spoke about the Age of Misinformation, the anatomy of fake news, and told the story of how they placed the brand’s worst fears at the heart of their advertising. This presentation was particularly interesting because it was extremely relevant to the fake news epidemic the world is facing.

The Wonderful Everyday

The next talk was another agency-client duo of Kemi Anthony (IKEA) and Katie MacKay (Mother London), who presented the conception of their ‘The Wonderful Everyday’ campaign.

Kemi and Katie revealed how IKEA built a brand for ‘The Wonderful Everyday’ by focusing on the long term health of the brand and creating a platform that combines the brand’s core beliefs and values in order to generate brand love and commercial growth.

This talk further highlighted the importance of building a long term brand, which will stick with consumers as a business in the long run.

Some of the main themes from the morning’s speakers included taking action, realising your potential, making the truth interesting, embracing the skeptical voices, developing an idea that will outlive you, and having the courage of your own convictions.

Talking Diversity & Equality

BITE’s Izzy Ashton moved the conversation forward by highlighting the importance of creating a higher purpose for your brand and being responsible for your actions and behaviours, in order to move the needle.

Then we heard from Lucy Abel at StoneWall and Mr. President’s Laura Jordan. The duo talked about equality and LGBT rights through launching a three year campaign to inspire, educate, and energise a passive section of the community, encouraging them to take more meaningful action on LGBT rights in their everyday lives.

Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Jude Kelly followed this by asking why gender equality takes so long to achieve and what this means for our industry and beyond. She explained that it takes courage to be an activist, but that real change is possible through a positive, optimistic movement.

These two talks were particularly relevant to today’s society as they touched upon subjects that are difficult to talk about.  Jude, Lucy, and Laura are all pushing the envelope and encouraging change in these areas via their Women of the World (WOW) initiative and the ‘Come out for LGBT‘ campaign respectively.

A panel consisting of Jude, Mars Chocolate UK‘s Michele Oliver, Utopia’s Nadya Powell and Above+Beyond‘s Zaid Al-Zaidy, then continued the discussion on diversity. 

Speak Easy

Following lunch, we were welcomed back by a quick audio clip recapping the history of voice. This was a precursor to J. Walter Thompson’s The Innovation Group and Mindshare who presented the key finding of their Speak Easy: The rise of the voice-activated world, study.

Find Something Discomforting

Next, we listened to Nick Adams at Sense and The Economist’s Marina Haydn discuss how they built an always-on campaign, which led to thousands of new users with a lifetime value of millions and ushered in a new internal department, just by selling less.

Their presentation affirmed how you can’t go wrong by focussing on what’s interesting about your brand, even if that might be daunting.

They even brought along some of their ‘bug ice-cream’ for the audience to try, in order to prove their point!

Give Peas a Chance

The penultimate talk was entitled Hippeas: From Idea to Global Brand, which had the brand’s founder Livio Bisterzo share how the snack went from concept to shelves in a whopping eight months!

Alongside James Nixon, Managing Director of Jones Knowles Ritchie, this session showed that a great brand identity, clear purpose and a strong focus on doing good can transform an idea into the global marketplace.

Reforming Capitalism

The final keynote of the day came from Alain de Botton, best selling author and philosopher, who discussed the future of capitalism and the philosophy of everyday life. This talk was a great way to end the day because it wrapped up all the topics that were discussed over the course of the event.

“At the end of the day, we can’t commercialise relationships and happiness, instead we have to place profit higher up the pyramid and create a brand purpose that is glued to these values. This is turn will create a new kind of entrepreneurial spirit and hopefully produce national wealth,” said Alain during his talk.

The afternoon sessions were extremely engaging and informative. We learned about easing the cognitive load and finding your voice from Mindshare and The Innovation Group, being broad minded and globally curious while facing discomfort and polarisation from Sense and The Economist.  We also learned about thinking big and doing good through vision and vitality from Hippeas and Jones Knowles Richie and the future of capitalism from Alain de Botton.

Final Thoughts & Reactions

Overall, attending BITE Live was a meaningful and inspiring experience. Our main take aways from the day include making the truth interesting, changing culture through stories, and pushing yourself to be more daring both in business and in your personal lives.

 

Article by Julia Brown, Correspondent, MarComm News

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