A brief review of Forrester’s Marketing Forum EMEA 2009
Toyota’s use of social media to support the launch of the iQ was covered by Forrester Research as a case study, and so it was that Head of Digital Simon, along with three hundred-odd marketers, struggled through what felt like gale force winds to the Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel, in not-quite-Westminster-but-ooh-look-there’s-Big-Ben for Forrester’s Marketing Forum EMEA 2009 earlier this week. Simon had a slot to present the case-study on day 2. I hung around playing blogger-on-the-wall for good measure.
Most of the Forum took place at least two floors below ground. Cue tweets complaining that the lack of mobile reception prevented them from tweeting. (1. How did you manage to tweet that, then, smartypants? 2. What – you, like, don’t have a smart phone?) Technological disparity aside, #FMFE09 got off to a good start. The calibre of the speakers proved to be high overall, with Conny Kalcher (LEGO) and Forrester’s own Lisa Bradner (@lisabradner) being particular highlights for me.
EMC Consulting’s Paul Dawson (@poleydee) was on fine form, and his presentation software was the hot topic of the entire event for most of day two. I was genuinely impressed and fired up by Starbucks’ social media efforts and achievements with Alex Wheeler (@aewheeler) at the helm. Simon (@simonru) did Toyota proud, with the augmented reality video getting a positive reaction on Twitter from Forrester’s Nate Elliott (@nate_elliott, also a great speaker), among others.
The themes of orchestration, ‘joining the dots’, personas, the new/old Four Ps and the media meltdown recurred throughout (as did cutesy pictures of people’s daughters). What did I take away, apart from a free EMC bag and the express intention of mixing Vegemite and cream cheese as soon as the opportunity arose? That, to quote Lisa Bradner, ‘the whole notion of managing brands is becoming untenable’. iFood For Thought 2.0.
Other links:
Forrester on Twitter: http://twitter.com/forrester
Toyota’s ‘Today / Tomorrow’ blog: http://blog.toyota.co.uk
The Toyota blog on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ToyotaGB
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