Gurgina Sandhu, Social Media and Content Coordinator at the IPM, summarises their biggest thought-leadership and networking event that took place this week.
On Wednesday 19th June, we had our biggest thought-leadership and networking event of the year, IPM CONNECT 2019, which was kindly hosted by Field Day and sponsored by Worldwide Special Risks. The event included a morning session featuring a series of presentations from industry and regulatory opinion leaders examining various aspects of ‘trust and transparency’, and providing practical tips on how to address it. In addition, the IPM’s agile market research partner, Zinklar, did a live, real-time research project throughout the day.
The day consisted of 6 guest speakers who each gave different viewpoints on the issue of ‘trust and transparency’:
Speaker #1: Penny Power OBE, Founder of Ecademy, pioneer of Linkedin and author of ‘Business is Personal’ – The Open One
Her talk consisted of the importance of mental health, and personal vulnerabilities and how brands and personal brands should consider being open about these insecurities. She suggests that this humanises the brand and that enables audiences to connect and trust it.
“Learning how to be transparent as an individual starts from understanding how to be open yourself. We are in an open, connect world where the only way people can trust you is to be open and trustworthy around your vulnerabilities, your errors, your mistakes, your life.”
Our first speaker of today is @pennypower OBE, Founder of Ecademy, pioneer of Linkedin and author of ‘Business is Personal’. She’ll be sharing an industry commentator’s view on #trustandtransparency. #IPMCONNECT2019 pic.twitter.com/n8WKSIe3Hw
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Speaker @pennypower says that “the key ingredient in #trustandtransparency is empathy and openness.” pic.twitter.com/kVtzQesgh0
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Speaker #2: Shahriar Coupal, Director of the Committees, CAP & BCAP – The ASA James Bond
Shahriar Coupal shared a regulator’s view on the issue of ‘trust and transparency’ and spoke about the public’s confidence in online advertising. As a director of CAP, Shahriar shared that they banned 10,850 ads due to breaching the ASA standards of advertising being legal decent, honest and truthful.
He also spoke about the lack of transparency in influencer marketing, stimulating thought around to what extent audiences consider influencers to be truthful.
Our next guest speaker is @ShahriarCoupal, Director at the @ASA_UK, who will share a unique regulator’s view on the issue of #trustandtransparency. #IPMCONNECT2019 pic.twitter.com/HFjlSz8fFy
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Speaker @ShahriarCoupal shares why #trustandtransparency is important in effective compliance and regulation of advertising. #IPMCONNECT2019 pic.twitter.com/T3b03kFtMR
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Speaker #3: Julian Davies, Global Marketing Manager at Bombay Sapphire – The Millennial Branding Hater
Julian Davies shared a brand’s view on the issue of ‘trust and transparency’, specifically talking about the gin industry. He talks about the concept of marketeers distorting the truth and shares how brands now have to be wiser than marketers as a result.
“We have to be wiser than the marketeers – there was a class action against Tito’s as they distorted with words such as gluten free even though 99.9% of alcohol is gluten free.”
He also shares the distortions in research bias in millennial branding and shared an example that stated 66% of millennials believe that the earth is flat – which of course is not true.
Our next guest speaker is Julian Davies, Global Marketing Manager at @homeofbombay, who will share the brand’s view on #trustandtransparency. #IPMCONNECT2019 pic.twitter.com/WXUAUHw2ay
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Julian Davies shares the relevance of authentic brand positioning in #trustandtransparency. #IPMCONNECT2019 pic.twitter.com/74unscsg9b
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Speaker #4: Karen Fraser MBE, Director of Credos Think Tank Advertising Association – The Research Specialist
Karen Fraser MBE shared an industry view on the issue of ‘trust and transparency’ with a unique presentation from the advertising association that looked at the good, the bad and the troubling in advertising. She shared consumer favourability on advertisements and whether they found them believable. Of course, it was found that consumers believed those adverts they generally liked.
Our first speaker this afternoon is @KarenFraser_MBE, at @CredosThinks and researcher at @ad_association, who will share a unique industry view on #trustandtransparency. #IPMCONNECT2019 pic.twitter.com/qOOI7qkviy
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Speaker @KarenFraser_MBE, shares an Advertising Association presentation on the importance of #trustandtransparency. #IPMCONNECT2019 pic.twitter.com/vu0Oc6wxHT
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Speaker #5 Iain G Morrison, Chief Marketing Officer at University of Greenwich – The Man who’s middle name letter ‘G’ stands for ‘Gin’
Iain Morrison shared an educator’s view on the issue of ‘trust and transparency’ and specifically looked at the importance of building a trusted industry to attract the best young talent from higher education.
“Over the last 5 years we are 14% down on attracting UK students to this creative course set, EU and international are up 17% and 25%.”
He also spoke about the importance of mental health, and shared some personal stresses he faced. He then went on to express how brands need to start waking up to what this means for their staff and consumers.
“I think a lot of sectors are slowly waking up to the ticking time bomb of staff absence days over mental health and how serious that can be. Slowly brands are considering what that potentially means especially for their consumers.”
Our next speaker is @igmorrison, Chief Marketing Officer from @UniofGreenwich, who will share a unique educator’s view on #trustandtransparency. #IPMCONNECT2019 pic.twitter.com/MUlseStFzf
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Speaker @igmorrison, shares the importance of building a trusted industry to attract the best young talent from higher education. #IPMCONECT2019 pic.twitter.com/K1jyLVqpRU
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Speaker #6: Stewart Hilton, Co- Founder & Creative Partner at Zeal Creative – The Stuart Show
Stuart Hilton gave an agency’s perspective on ‘trust and transparency’ and shared 21 tips for building trust with clients. One tip he mentioned was honesty with clients as well as the team. He said that being honest and owning up to mistakes and errors in the first instance so that collectively the team can work on the error together to make it right.
“You made a mistake, and even if it wasn’t your fault, just apologise. Clients appreciate honesty and are more likely to trust you for it.”
Our final speaker is @stewarthilton, Co-founder & Creative Partner at @zealcreative, who will share a unique agency’s view on #trustandtransparency. #IPMCONNECT2019 pic.twitter.com/ECEptOlAZP
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Speaker @stewarthilton shares @zealcreative’s 21 tips for building trust with clients. #IPMCONECT2019 #trustandtransparency pic.twitter.com/NABDkYIhJk
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Panel Discussion
The panel discussion featured the six guest speakers where audience members asked questions that ranged from political advertising, to the use of technology, to whether agencies should also take the blame for upheld complaints about advertisements.
We’re now taking questions for our panel #IPMCONECT2019 pic.twitter.com/sxJ9SI2mJv
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Julian Davies from @homeofbombay says “we don’t use technology to harness our story, we just make sure the story is there.” #IPMCONECT2019 #trustandtransparency pic.twitter.com/Uvgnne1UO6
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
During the event, IPM research partner from agile marketing specialist, Zinklar collected consumers perspective on ‘trust and transparency’ using their real-time market research platform. It was found that most people were undecided about whether they found advertising they saw last night believable or realistic.
Abhijeet Roy from @Zinklar talks us through their marketing research software at #IPMCONECT2019 pic.twitter.com/BSDdHoOGwN
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Real-time users were also asked what brand they think is honest, reliable and acts responsibly?
The results are in from @Zinklar and they found that most people were in the middle about whether they believed tv ads pic.twitter.com/9gxZTccmfP
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Abhijeet Roy from @Zinklar reveals the brands that consumers think are honest and reliable at #IPMCONECT2019. pic.twitter.com/tQQLnPFncl
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
Duncan Wood, Managing Partner from Ingenuity shared what Ingenuity are about and spoke more about the new partnership with the IPM for the agency referral scheme. Stay tuned to the IPM for more updates on that…
Duncan Wood, Managing Partner at @IngenuityLondon talks about the agency and brand partnership with IPM at #IPMCONNECT2019 pic.twitter.com/smhjRojjpq
— IPM (@IPMUpdates) June 19, 2019
That is a wrap of what happened at IPM CONNECT 2019. Thank you to all our speakers for sharing their perspectives and speaking with us yesterday and to Worldwide Special Risks for sponsoring, Field Day for hosting, and Ingenuity London for facilitating.
