CIM Live Debate North East by We Are UMi

MARKETING FUTURE FOCUS: 2015 – 2025 North East

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MARKETING FUTURE FOCUS: NORTH EAST The panel was chaired by Caroline Theobald, managing director of the Bridge Club. Caroline is a southerner who moved to the North East in the late 1980s. She founded Bridge Club Ltd in 2000 as a private company with a mission to ‘champion, foster, and accelerate enterprise and entrepreneurship’. Bridge Club has introduced thousands of people to like-minded individuals and given them access to a wealth of contacts. These connections have resulted in successful partnerships, lucrative contracts and a whole host of other business benefits. In 2007, Caroline accepted a Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion and became Honorary Consul for Sweden. In recognition of her Consul work, she was made the honorary chairman of the north east chapter of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in 2010 and now has the satisfaction of seeing the formalisation of ‘Creative Links’ a formal commitment to collaborate between North East England and region Vastra Gotaland She sits on the boards of several companies, is the co-founder of Gabriel Investors LLP and the Northern Institute for Business Ethics and chairman of International Newcastle. She is also the independent chairman of the BQ Live debates that take place around the country. THE PANEL: Charlie Nettle is head of marketing at North East Chamber of Commerce. After completing a degree in Business, Charlie went on to complete his masters, specialising in marketing communications. He has been in senior marketing roles since 2000 and began his career in the IT and education sector before joining the North East Chamber of Commerce in 2007. As NECC approaches its 200th anniversary in 2015, Charlie is making it his personal mission to ensure that businesses

CIM is convening the largest conversation in marketing history with the Marketing 2025 Hackathon. This is an ambitious open innovation initiative designed to crowd source practical ideas and solutions to the issues, challenges and opportunities facing marketing over the next decade. The foundations were laid for the Hackathon with a round table discussion in Newcastle – one of a series of live events in 11 cities across the UK - marking the start of a dialogue amongst marketers internationally to help articulate the 10 to 12 key themes which the Hackathon should address. In this event senior marketing leaders shared their thoughts and perspectives with an audience in a dialogue that comes in a highly interactive, participative experience looking at the big issues 10 years out which could make or break marketing’s influence and value. This is mirrored by a virtual dialogue on Twitter using #marketing2025.

in the region have a better understanding of the Chambers of Commerce and the role they play for businesses. As part of this, Charlie implemented a segmented membership model in 2011, which was recognised nationally by the British Chambers of Commerce in 2012 when Charlie was presented with the national award for Excellence in Membership Services. Other chambers around the UK are now replicating this model. He is also a non-executive director for the mental health

charity, Middlesbrough and Stockton MIND. Darren Richardson is co-founder, company director and creative director at Gardiner Richardson. He has more than 25 years’ specialist knowledge in corporate identity and brand creation. His work focuses on the use of design methods to provide organisations with strategic design, innovation and transformation consultancy. Darren founded Gardiner Richardson in 1998 with Lucy Gardiner, sharing a vision of a new approach to helping organisations build their brands by creating conversations, establishing connections and building relationships. The company now employs 35 people and clients include Metro Tyne and Wear, Siemens, Drager, Egger and RIBA. In October it was voted the UK’s best regional agency, winning the Freshest Consultancy award at the prestigious national Fresh Awards. Before Gardiner Richardson, Darren was based in London working with leading consultancies; Landor Associates, Sampson Tyrrell and Roundel Design Group. During this period he helped shape and create corporate identity systems and branded environments for

clients including Cathay Pacific, Delta Air Lines, Euro Star and Norwegian Telecom. Darren sits on the board of trustees at BALTIC, Centre for Contemporary Art and the development board at Sunderland Foundation of Light. He is a regional ambassador for the Design Council, an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Designers and an external examiner for Northumbria University. Matthew Nielson is the chair of CIM and associate director, customer engagement & marketing at NHS National Services Scotland. He specialises in partnership development, business strategy and sustainable development. He began his marketing career at Royal Mail, where he held a variety of senior roles in media & product innovation, communications and sustainability. He initiated the development of Simply Drop – a postal recycling solution for electrical goods – was instrumental in creating PAS 2020 – a crossindustry environmental specification for direct marketing – and delivered a new advertising service, Sustainable Mail, in response to consumer, customer and government demands for more environmentally responsible direct mail. In 2010, Sustainable Mail was awarded a Business in The Community ‘Big Tick’ for sustainable marketing and innovation. In 2011, Matthew joined Unilever where he was responsible for delivering the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan across home and personal care, with a particular emphasis on product innovation and consumer behaviour change. At the start of 2014,

Even 10 years ago, TV advertising was still one of the main forms of media, if you look at it in terms of how much was bought, and now you see it being overtaken by internet and there’s a really big change in the way that the conversation is happening Matthew started his current role with NHS National Services Scotland (NSS). His main responsibilities include leading NSS support of health and social care integration and putting the customer at the heart of the organisation to ensure that NSS is delivering sustainability and value to Scotland and achieving its purpose of supporting Scotland’s health. Paul Sutherland is director of innovation at NCFE and senior associate at +ADD Strategy. With more than 20 years in research, marketing, business innovation and technology commercialisation, he has worked both client side – from head of business growth at RTC North – and agency – to director at M.Ology, which was so good they were acquired by a key client in January of this year. Ranked 15th best UK company to work for by the Times, NCFE is a leading brand in vocational education and training. It offers

design and development of qualifications in line with government frameworks, and provides accreditation, awarding and management services internationally. Paul’s role is in further developing innovation capacity, as well as exploring and investing selectively in new opportunities. +ADD Strategy is a community of like-minded interim managers and advisors working UK wide and specialising in working alongside existing management teams to deliver research and insight, strategic marketing and business innovation assignments. Since 2005, Paul has acted as a non-executive director to several companies assisting with fundraising, building marketing capacity, business growth and innovation. He also has a longstanding relationship with the CIM and is currently advising on development of SME research, strategy and propositions. >>

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DEBATE THE DEBATE: Caroline Theobald: “We’ve got all sorts of different voices here and we want to hear all of these voices. There’s going to be a hackathon between January and March 2015 and we are going to hear about perspectives on marketing 2025 from our panellists. We are also going to hear what it’s like for them today, what the challenges are for them doing their very different jobs today and how we can roll that forward into some of the trends that are going to be there in 2025. We are now going to hear from Matthew Neilson, who is chair of CIM, about why it’s so important to CIM to think about the future, because everything has changed so much over the last 10 years.’’ Matthew Neilson: “It’s really great to have so many people here and really good we have such a wide range of people because that really aids the discussion. The reason why we are doing this – to give you some context – think back 10 years ago to 2004. Twitter hadn’t been invented, Facebook was an idea, but it hadn’t really gone public, the iPhone hadn’t been invented. Apple is the number one brand at the moment, but it didn’t really feature 10 years ago. Nokia was number one 10 years ago and the big announcement this year is that Nokia is going, this is extraordinary for a company that had the most used handsets globally and, 10 years down the line, it has disappeared. The App Store didn’t exist and that’s one of the biggest industries in the world now. We didn’t have Gmail, we didn’t have Google maps. Everything took months, not moments, as it seems to be today. Does anyone know how many people are now active on Facebook – about 1.35 billion and there are 25 million people in the UK who are every day involved on Facebook, on average posting five times a day. So the scale and pace of change has had a transformational effect on how we live and how we work and we are really seeing this in marketing.’’ He described how the focus of marketing has fundamentally changed in 10 years although the fundamentals and basics remain the same. Tactics have changed dramatically and there have been big shifts around the brands and how they are moving. He said: “We are now moving away from

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Customer expectations are rising enormously and certainly in the industry I work in now how that change in power to the consumer and the individual is changing what they expect from you as an organisation having a media owner to this idea that individual people are owning their own media and how they can do media and also the brands and how they engage with those brands. We are seeing a very different type of dialogue. Even 10 years ago, TV advertising was still one of the main forms of media, if you look at it in terms of how much was bought, and now you see it being overtaken by internet and there’s a really big change in the way that the conversation is happening. “Customer expectations are rising enormously and certainly in the industry I work in now

how that change in power to the consumer and the individual is changing what they expect from you as an organisation. We are definitely seeing a lot of mistrust and word-ofmouth, is probably the most powerful form of media we now have. “We went out to about 3,000 marketers and employers across the UK and internationally and we asked them about marketing and the role of marketing and there was a huge blurring of roles emerging. It shows you there’s a big connection with the IT side of the business, there’s a big connection with

the analytical side of the business and with the communications and sales sides of the business to the point where it all becomes this really big blur. Who has responsibility? Who has accountability? Who’s making the decisions? “Increasingly we are stuck in the middle of it and trying to redefine ourselves and the role that we take as marketers. So this for us is a very timely debate because we think there is a huge transition going on in marketing. This is our opportunity to think about it and really get to grips with it.’’ He argued that by 2025 marketing could be increasingly mistrusted and marginalised or it might be in a stronger position and seen as central. “Before I joined the public sector I was at Unilever where marketing is absolutely fundamental to how they drive the organisation forward. So you can have these two very different views. We are going to share some perspectives and then we’ll start a big discussion because that essentially is what today is all about. Do make sure you use #marketing2025 to share whatever thoughts you have or comments you want to share.’’ Caroline Theobald: “Thank you for that and for that context and just picking up on it, we’ve got a very broad range of experience represented here on the panel – public sector, private sector, creative and marketing. Paul, what does the NCFE describe itself as?’’ Paul Sutherland explained that the NCFE is a 200-year-old organisation and a £30m

He argued that by 2025 marketing could be increasingly mistrusted and marginalised or it might be in stronger position and seen as central

business which, qualifies, credits and certifies half a million students a year across the UK and overseas and has relationships with more than 2,000 customers including all the colleges in the UK and many private training providers. Caroline Theobald: “You’re the innovation director there, what are the big challenges you are facing at NCFE are now and what will they be going forward?’’ Paul Sutherland: “My background is over 20 years in strategic and operational marketing and market research, working for other people, building consultancy teams, building research teams so becoming innovation director was quite a shift but it reflects quite well what was said earlier about the perception of marketing. At a personal level I’ve been battling this divergence between what I call marketing and communications strategy and what I call strategic marketing, its functions and misconceptions, particularly in the SME community.

“The reason I took this role is that, regardless of what we call it, defining the needs of people and to make sure there are some fantastic ideas and opportunities that can be converted into commercial operations is a great place to be. The company has over £30m in reserves and my job is to help them strategically divest and diversify using those resources, it’s a great job. “In terms of pains and issues, one of the things they are facing is this kind of deconstruction of traditional markets. If you think about the architectures we love in the public sector and the regulated world we like to put around the way we do things and how we operate, that is being very actively being disembowelled at the moment.’’ He explained that NCFE is excellent at building and maintaining relationships with learning organisations, but the way the whole of the industry is funded and generates profit and return is being completely changed by >>

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He argued that by 2025 marketing could be increasingly mistrusted and marginalised or it might be in stronger position and seen as central

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a fundamental reappraisal of the way to do things. “Should we, as the government, dictate what skills are required in different industries? Shouldn’t we give that to employer and employer representative groups and allow them to invest their money in what they want to do and allow them to drive the agenda for learning. It all makes perfect sense but obviously that radically changes how markets work. Basically you have an organisation that has great relationship management capabilities in the college sector and in the private training sector and now it’s having to build lifelong relationships from scratch with learners directly and socialise. “We are increasingly seeing a lot of people in our social networks saying I’m looking for a course in X, has anyone got any recommendations? Which college should I use? Do I even have to go to college? Do I have to go to university? You’ve got universities providing HNDs and you’ve got colleges building foundation degrees and it’s all blurring and becoming all very grey and woolly. “Another thing I’m looking along building relationships with learners is the massive proliferation of freelances and microbusinesses. That’s a double-edged thing, for us it’s a new customer base where we can engage with people, you can see that grow massively to 2025. Also it’s a source of skills and capability. How we do our marketing in an agile way and how we deliver projects is changing rapidly.

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“The thing that worries me - and it might sound a bit political, though it’s not intended to be - is the haves and have-nots. I was looking at some reports on net worth and discretionary income and they’ve been getting increasingly worse since 1983. People talk about recession and how it has hit people’s wallets and their ability to spend money on things and it has been going on for quite a while and it’s going to continue to go on until 2025. If people are going to have less disposable income, they are going to want more for less and that again is disruptive and makes us think about how do we do things and how do we add value on leaner budgets. “Last, but not least – ageing population. The reality is that it’s a major global change. If you look at the UK, a third of the population is going to be over 55 by 2025 and over 65s will be going from over 12.5 million in 2010 to 15.8 million. The ONS calls them dependents, the supported populace. Globally it’s a huge issue. By 2025 15 countries where over 10% of the population is 80 plus and where you get to the point where 10% of the population is 80 plus, they can change the course of government and, in a very short period of time, sway political systems. “I worry about huge misconceptions. These people are dynamic, agile and ambitious to do things, we are going to see a lot of third careers. What does that mean for us? Does it mean we are going to have people coming into marketing very late in life?” Darren Richardson: He explained that

he trained in design and worked in London developing corporate identities for multinational organisations. He said: “In reflecting on this, the one thing I realised when I first started work in 1987 is that we almost used to design for design’s sake and we used to create things based upon what I personally - or other people in the company - wanted what we wanted to impose on that organisation, which is mad in today’s world. It was one of those times where the creative industry and the communications industry was in its heyday and booming. I’ve looked at a lot of my early work and I kind of pooh pooh it now, I think it was very selfindulgent.’’ He explained that he moved to the North East and established Gardner Richardson, a brand communications company with skills in public relations and design, working for start-up businesses and international brands. He said: “What’s interesting now – and Matthew contextualised this very well – is the rate of change and how that’s influenced everything in our lives. We know now that we purchase by feature and function, we purchase by acceptance and advocacy. More and more, people are buying on advocacy and social recommendations. Something like 75% of customer acquisitions in any sector come from word-of-mouth. If you go back 10 years, that would probably be 5% or 10%. “We realise now that those platforms that Matthew mentioned are vitally important. What we have realised over the past five or

Going beyond that initial hit of a function or a feature, what’s beyond that? Our biggest driver is the power of purpose and how purpose can help you shape your business and create longevity. six years is that you can’t differentiate on function, you can’t differentiate on feature. I’ve got two teenage boys and I can tell you that because as soon as something new and shiny comes out they just go for it. That loyalty, that advocacy and how you go about building that relationship is really important. “Our biggest challenge right now – but actually I also see it as an opportunity – is helping people discover and realise the power and potential of purpose. The power of purpose is ultimately what we try to help people with and to create something that has meaning. That’s sometimes very hard in a world that’s very function and feature led because technology means that I can do something really clever, so therefore I’ll make something very clever and I’ll make something that someone might want. “Going beyond that initial hit of a function or a feature, what’s beyond that? Our biggest driver is the power of purpose and how purpose can help you shape your business and create longevity.” “I was very privileged last week to go to

a dinner at Northumbria University and Jonathan Ive, who is big in the design industry and created the iPod and is another alumni of Northumbria, did a 10 minute talk and it was really quite moving. What was lovely was he said that you have to put purpose and meaning into everything you do, as individuals you follow your drive and your passion and don’t chase the money. So, the biggest challenge for me then is – and something that we try to do for people that we work with, from global brands such as Mars to two-man start-ups in Ouseburn – we try to help people understand the power of purpose.’’ Charlie Nettle: “We were asked for a bit of a brief on ourselves and then on the business we are involved in and what our challenge is. As a marketer I did a bit of research and asked my wife last night to sum me up in three words. She summed me up as loyal, conscientious and funny, so that worked out well. Then speaking to my five-year-old, she summed me up in three words as: has no hair. That brought me right back down to earth.’’

He described how he failed most of my A-Levels and then did a Business Studies course at college. He said: “I really enjoyed it and suddenly got this spark in me to want to learn in a way that I had just not got through my school life. For me a lot of that was around better teachers but also around applying education in a real business environment. That was enough to drive me on to want to achieve more, to want to then do a degree in business and then a masters in marketing communications and then enjoy a 15-year career in marketing and I can pretty much say that I have totally enjoyed every day of that. “That has put me in a position of wanting to support and help others but also I’ve got a real fascination with brands and how people engage with brands. I would argue that the Chambers of Commerce are probably one of the biggest B-to-B brands in the world. There’s a Chamber of Commerce in every major city in the world.’’ He explained that his main task at the >>

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DEBATE North East Chamber of Commerce in Durham is modernising the chamber brand and image. “I don’t see a bigger challenge out there than to try to wrestle with the Chamber of Commerce brand and to try to get businesses to realise that actually it can help them run and grow their businesses. “The other thing I’m wrestling with at the moment is around confidence in the region and getting people to realise that, actually, the North East is a great place to be and particularly inspiring young people around that. Thinking back about my own career, it’s really difficult as a young person to see where the opportunities are and you immediately have this reaction there’s nothing for me here, I’m off to London or Manchester or wherever. “With regard to particular challenges, I think the big challenge is around brand education and I look at those in two areas. First of all for me that’s around my colleagues at the Chamber of Commerce and also I sit on the board for a mental health charity called Middlesbrough and Stockton MIND and there are similarities and differences there but there are still challenges in getting people to understand the value of thinking about brand and developing brand strategy and what everyone’s roles are in that. “There’s a real role for marketers to be leaders in that and to be salespeople. There’s always this divide between where marketing and sales lie but more and more I’m seeing myself as a salesman within the business on a big internal marketing drive to get internal people to understand brand and their role in that. I need to focus more of my attention and prioritise more of my time on doing that to make sure the organisation moves forward. “Another challenge for me is around SMEs. In the North East there are only about 7,000 businesses that have more than 10 employees and I think there’s a real role for us to educate that sector on brand and on what that means to their business and how they can differentiate their businesses to build competitive advantage and grow their businesses. That’s something the chamber is really keen for because ultimately we’re existing to make sure the North East is a success and that will be driven through business success in the region.’’

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Caroline Theobald: Matthew now we are going to hear what you do during the day and your challenges and how they can roll forward to 2025. Matthew Neilson: “In January I joined NHS Scotland and a particular part of the organisation called National Services Scotland to lead on customer engagement and now I have all communications as well. Essentially we are an organisation that provides shared services to all of NHS Scotland and we can now provide it to the entire Scottish public sector.’’ Services provided by the organisation include managing and analysing all of Scotland’s health data, running all the financial services in many of the special health boards and, managing all legal services, procurement, logistics, warehousing, payments to GPs, dentists, opticians, pharmacists. It also provides counter fraud services and screening programmes. It commissions major health initiatives and has a pass through budget of about £3.5bn. It commissions other parts of the NHS to deliver services on behalf of Scotland. It provides all the blood transfusion services for Scotland and deals with matters relating to organs and cells and tissues. He said” When I joined the organisation the first thing they asked me to do was write a marketing plan, which is probably the most difficult thing to write for an

organisation like that because it’s so diverse. How do you manage it when you are doing marketing around getting people to donate blood through to promoting and marketing procurement service or associated commercial services? It’s a real challenge from a marketing perspective to try to bring all that together and utilise it under one marketing activity. In reality we can’t and in some respects we are much more focused on allowing them to grow from the bottom up and create their own individual and strategic direction and my job, with the team, is really to help guide them. “They really do not like the word marketing at all in NHS Scotland and one of the things that was really clear is that there’s a recognition that we need to have market development because market development allows you to understand where things are going and where therefore the organisation needs to go in order to meet those new demands. “They realise that they are very receptive and respond to things but they are not very good at innovation. We try to look at where things are emerging and market development is a really critical part of it. “They provide some fantastic services and are extremely well received to the point where you can’t really see them. I liken it to sport where a really good referee is one that you never see. In some respects we are the same – if we are doing our job really well no one ever

sees us. As soon as it goes wrong then it can be catastrophic. “We manage all of the IT across Scotland and we could have situations where if the service were to go down you couldn’t run operations, so it has a huge impact on people. “They had no appreciation or understanding of who a customer was because before all of the funding came from Scottish government and Scottish government said please do this and deliver it to these people. Now the market has changed, where the money goes direct to the health boards and to other parts of the public sector and we negotiate with them in terms of how much that money we need to bring in to develop or deliver a direct service on their behalf. Because the relationship is changing and there is a need for that negotiation there is an increased need for marketing and also business development. “Sales is another word you can’t use and neither is business development. Partnership is fine. Language is a really interesting construct in terms of how you deliver and ensure you achieve the outcomes. The principles are actually fundamentally the same, it’s still a marketing foundation that’s still delivering this, it’s just that we are presenting it and delivering it in a new and different ways. “The other thing is that we need to be seen as extremely professional. However, we can’t spend any money on it. Even with our

presentations we have to make it look as if we’ve not spent huge amounts of money on it. The first thing they are thinking is that you are like a private company and that’s seen as a huge rejection and they remember these things, especially when you are working with the clinical elements of NHS where you are talking to doctors and nurses and they have a very different professional perspective in terms of what they’ll appreciate.

The other thing that’s really lacking in the organisation is this real understanding of who the customer is “The other thing that’s really lacking in the organisation is this real understanding of who the customer is. At the moment they have lots of information but they are not really able to process that information and the insights in a way that allows them to be very targeted and selective in the way they approach their different customers. That’s part of the reason

why my team is forming, to help bring that environmental scan into place and to really start generating the insights that will allow them to deliver that. “In terms of the challenges that we are trying to address, one is the ageing population. In the health service this is absolutely fundamental because as people get older they are more likely to need the support of a health service. They will certainly have increased care needs, whether that’s done socially or through the health service and that is changing dramatically. Certainly in Scotland, which traditionally has quite a poor life expectancy, that’s improving which is great news but that places additional pressures on the system.’’ He described how in Scotland, many young people head south after taking their degrees which has led to a shortage of marketing talent, particularly in research. What researchers there are are highly sought by the financial services sector, which pays higher than London rates. The public sector cannot compete and must invest a lot of time and energy in professional development and looking at other ways to attract good candidates. He said: “That’s linked to this idea of limited resources because limited resources and funding is going to be an ongoing issue. The first business case I had to write was an interesting challenge itself because typically in a commercial organisation they’ll ask what is the pay back, what’s the ROI or something like that. The question I was asked was: is that the equivalent of 10 hip operations so why should I give you the money? That’s a really interesting challenge as a marketer because it forces you to think: what is it really that I’m doing? In some respects I think it makes you more careful as a marketer to ensure you are driving the outcomes that you need whereas in the commercial space it feels like there’s a lot more flexibility and a lot less accountable. “One of the things that really comes through is that there are no consumers in my world of marketing. There are people and fundamentally we are there to serve people. Interestingly, it was a concept that was starting to emerge in Unilever, that they were trying to get away from this idea of consumers because they felt it gave the wrong idea of what >>

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DEBATE they were trying to achieve. “I think there is a need to bring stronger humanity back into marketing because sometimes you can feel like you are driven by the numbers and very clear financial outcomes, whereas in reality what we are trying to deliver is something that creates a better world and better lives. Values to me is a really strong concept and within that I think we need to find new measures of marketing. I’ve worked very closely around sustainable living and sustainable development and I think we need to look at those kind of personal and social outcomes that we are trying to achieve as marketers, how we do help enable better lives and what that means in terms of environmental impact and financial outcome is really the last thing that you should be considering. “I was very fortunate to meet David Putnam and we were talking about this idea of sustainability within marketing because he started his career in advertising. One of the things that we looked at was this idea of relocating dreams. His view is that post Second World War when marketing really emerged there was a real sense there was a need to create this better world and that’s what marketing really tried to focus on, this better future for everyone. In reality it’s like a plane, if it goes one degree off course, it can end up in a very different place. In some respects marketing feels like that’s what happened and that’s why we have some of the views we have around marketing. We may have gone one degree off trajectory and looking forward to 2025 how do we bring ourselves back on course? Caroline Theobald: “Is the aging population something that everybody thinks the hackathon needs to spend more time on?’’ Drew Dunning from Grain Creative: “I think there are some practical reasons why it’s worth looking at an aging population but one of the things is that people who are aging don’t like being bracketed as being aging. You start targeting the aging population, you only have to get it very slightly wrong and you can upset them.’’ An audience member said it was not possible to generalise about an aging population in the same way it was not possible to generalise

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about a younger population. She added: “We’re a very diverse population. I would absolutely disassociate myself from a lot of other people my age because I have nothing in common with them, so I think we need to get away from this label of the aging population.’’ Someone else asked whether the aging population wasn’t the market rather than the marketing. Paul Sutherland: “Well there’s two things. From my perspective one of the misconceptions about marketing is that it’s perhaps slightly disconnected. If you look at somebody presenting what they perceive to be a marketing agency in a TV soap or something like that, it’s often full of young people with wild crazy t-shirts and that’s obviously not reality, but there’s a practicality there. As society changes and evolves we need to make sure, as marketing agencies and marketing employers, we recognise that and we have representative communities within our own organisations and actively employ older people because obviously there’s a level of synergy and a level of insight we would benefit from. “I think another practical side of looking at it is: how does it affect marketing? Everybody behaves differently, right down to individual levels, but if you look at tribes or groups of people, it does affect thinking about social marketing, about the channels you use, about

the type of marketing that you apply. How does loyalty management work with different groups in our society? It’s all different and we need to recognise the difference and focus on it.’’ Caroline Theobald: “There are people here at the moment at university studying, perhaps quite a long way to becoming marketers. Old age and an aging population probably seems quite a long way from you, but can you see that there are practical implications that are going to affect the profession going forward?’’ Audience member: “Well, when you think about 2025, I think an important aspect we need to remember is that internet and online anything is going to be a much larger aspect of buying behaviour than it is now or 10 years ago. I think 10 years from now it’s going to be an important aspect of any forms of marketing.’’ Camille Taylor, head of online reputation at Zebra Internet Services: She explained how, as a young person, she had been brought up with social media and the internet, whereas older people had not. She added: “We have found that one of our challenges – and it’s not something we dislike - with the aging population and, I suppose aging employees as well - is communicating those messages to them in a way that they can understand and that they can take on board. It is really quite difficult sometimes to

get an older generation to deal with SEO and websites and just working in a different way. It’s no longer just walking into a business shop front, it’s now online and the aging population don’t quite understand yet.’’ Matthew Neilson: “I’m going to give a different perspective. If I look at it from a health perspective, we use aging population because that’s the reality that people are living longer and they’re getting older and generally when they’re older have increased health needs and that is just the facts, and it translates in different ways. We need more medication, we need more drugs to support it, they need better care and the challenge we have is how do we give them better care, the care that they deserve where they want it? Because that’s the other thing as well, if you’d rather not go into hospital how do you deliver that sort of care? Because knowing that there are other sorts of problems. Because before that the health service tended to deal with one thing. It was either a heart problem or something else, but as people have got older and we’re able to manage those conditions and help them manage it better, the consequences of that is that they now have a heart problem plus something else and then you get into some very tricky areas in terms of multiple drugs what that might mean to them and how you provide the care to them. Aging population is not meant in a derogatory way. This is about altering our mind-set to deliver the best possible outcomes for these people.’’ An audience member said there were a

What we’re trying to do is identify themes around which marketers like you can get stuck in and this is obviously one because people feel quite strongly about it and it can be judgemental record number of 30-year-olds having lost a limb through type 2 diabetes and obesity, so although older generations might have a propensity to certain conditions, statistics might not show them to be the biggest drain on the health economy. Matthew Neilson: “To throw that back: we should give the flu vaccine to everyone, because all the stats show that people over a certain age are more vulnerable to flu than at other ages. So that’s the thing, and that’s what the health data is there for.’’ Caroline Theobald: “What we’re trying to do is identify themes around which marketers like you can get stuck in and this is obviously one because people feel quite strongly about it and it can be judgemental.’’ Paul Copley, senior lecturer in marketing at Northumbria University: “I was interested in what you said originally, because that was about changing needs. If you think of marketing in the traditional way, you’re going to define it by demographics and by age, and

me for that matter. And I resent it as well because I am not the same as whatever age the guy next to me is who’s different to me, that’s what you’re talking about isn’t it?’’ Audience member: “As an academic I have learnt this over and over again that we should always start with behaviour and when we start our segmentation and in that case it doesn’t matter what age we are. As you were saying about computers and so on, I might be old but I did study computer studies even in 1968 which now sounds rather strange, but I’m also reading articles about how managing directors, marketing directors who are finding it very difficult with social media and again, it’s nothing new. When I was young working at advertising agencies in my 20s and 30s we knew very well that to make a campaign for teenagers we needed to talk to the teenagers before we put it together. And this is where I come back to the same point as you Paul, and of course we have been working together, start with behaviour, >>

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DEBATE that’s usage knowledge, all the kinds of things we’ve been talking about. Paul Sutherland: “The reality is, however we frame it, by 2050, 22% of the global population which will be 2.43 billion people, will be pensionable age and that’s up from 8% in 1950, that’s a massive change in the world, the total population of the world and the fabric of society at a fundamental level. So you know, I see third careers and people having the opportunity to do something totally different from what they did before and this is just the beginning of a kind of journey we’re on. It’s very exciting to think that we will inevitably have a broader age range of people in business, including marketing, and that will be great because it will help with how to do things and understanding behaviours and all those things.’’ Darren Richardson: “We’re not trying to sort the demographics of the world, that’s just going to happen. One of the big challenges is changing the way we think. Because before we can act differently we need to think differently and I think thinking differently is pretty difficult because we like thinking in a way that we’re used to. That’s why you get people who are challenging the norm and they stand out. “Things are changing at a rate that’s ridiculous and yet we’re all struggling to work out what language to use because we’re all talking different languages. You’ve got specialisms in different languages, there won’t be digital agencies in ten years’ time, there’ll just be agencies because it’ll just be something that we just communicate on. But you have all these areas of expertise around this relationship that we’re building with people. “These are human beings that we’re communicating with and I think the tension you’ve got, is going back to traditional methods you’re kind of struggling with the way we used to do things. One of the struggles at the moment is people can’t relate to the world in terms of the way we are now and they can’t relate to the amount of data that’s out there and how do we start to build that relationship with people and we need to get back to very basic human needs. We have very basic human needs, and it’s understanding, any business that’s out

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Things are changing at a rate that’s ridiculous and yet we’re all struggling to work out what language to use because we’re all talking different languages there, what its purpose is. The NHS has a core purpose. It has a purpose that’s genuine and relevant to people. Categories in some ways, or age groups kind of disappear because if you believe in it, it doesn’t matter what age you are, you’ll believe in it. So I think it’s about a different way of looking at things, it’s about changing mind-sets and how you can instil belief in something and many brands and organisations around the world are doing that. Some are massive, some are small, but they’re doing that they’re telling that story, it’s not anyone else’s it’s theirs. And the marketing challenge is all about targeting people. “Two years ago fountain pens had their highest sales ever, beware of trends. Everyone said that radio was dead when TV came out. I listen to the radio more than I watch TV. So don’t always think that this is an interesting boom and this is going to change the way we live. Maybe people will get sick of using their finger to do things and they’ll want a pen again. “I think there’s a real struggle there with trying to understand the language in a new

vernacular, I think sometimes we can go too deep and go from the fundamental which is the human need and how do we create that sense of purpose in whatever business you’re in, how do you create that sense of purpose in what you do, because that’s how you build compelling relationships that inspire action and that inspires belief.’’ Caroline Theobald: Both you and Matthew mentioned that sense of purpose, and with all the glittery fizzy things, it’s about authenticity. Audience member: “I think it’s interesting because the digital age is perfect for the aging population because you know you can go online you can go on Skype and Skype your family who might be half way across the world. I think the digital age is perfect for the aging population although it might be quite difficult for them, although by 2025 that might be different as the aging population catch up. Caroline Theobald: “I really like what Darren and Matt were talking about: having a sense of purpose and using authenticity really to build relationships because in your job, being

authentic is really important isn’t it?’’ Camille Taylor: “What I do is something that is tangible it’s not something that you can pick up. A lot of people consider SEO especially a black art, it can be really difficult to sell that concept to people if you’re not authentic, if you can’t find why a particular customer needs what you do as opposed to you just want to make some money for your business, I think you’re going to really struggle. We used to do a lot of design and development work, and we’ve completely pulled ourselves out of that market, purely because we couldn’t find that purpose, we couldn’t satisfy the needs of our clients effectively, we could have gone on and sold websites for hundreds of pounds and thousands of pounds but actually taking a step back and thinking about what the customer wants and what they want to achieve and what it’s going to do for their business and their lives is probably the most important thing. I think that’s how you engage with a customer and you can get on their level that’s how you can do well at marketing.’’ Darren Richardson: He agreed and said that, in a world of new gadgets it was good to get back to purpose and meaning. He said: “It’s a bit like going back to basics really. Why did I start this thing? Why did I want to do this? Because in a world where there’s more and more choice, there’s less and less time, you need to know that I’m not going to buy as a feature or function, I’m going to buy out of advocacy. And it’s actually quite hard to do that, because you’ve got to make a living so you know there’s always pressures that come up. But I think it’s something that in large organisations they find very hard, because large organisations like to complicate things and use big words and usually what you find is the smaller nimbler start-up businesses now they have that at the heart of what they’re doing and they’re quite agile. “I like the theory of IQ and EQ. You can have a very high IQ and a very low EQ. If you look at entrepreneurs, they have a mediocre IQ and they have a very high EQ. They’re very in touch with human beings, and they can read situations and they know human needs. In these times of change and all these different challenges we have with the platforms and the channels, a lot of people get bamboozled. You

just need to go back to something that’s fairly fundamental to you and feel comfortable with that. The challenge is finding it, the challenge is going down there because it can be a bit fluffy and a bit woolly, sometimes people don’t like to go there because they think, ooh that’s not very serious.’’ Camille Taylor: “Especially with the online aspect of marketing, it’s the trust issue. How can we trust people with our money because we don’t understand what they do? We’re quite lucky as a company because we’re one of the oldest online companies in the North East and we’ve been doing it for 20 years, which in internet years is like doing it for a million years, but a lot of new digital marketing agencies struggle with that because what’s their USP, why are they different? And it’s difficult for them to sell that because it is one of those worlds that’s full of really complicated language.’’ Darren Richardson: “Things go in cycles

and that’s why I think that usually something new comes along and then we get into it and then we go back to what we know. There’s always something new but then we go back to something and there’s always something that influences this whether it’s recessions or whether it’s technological changes, but there are cycles and I think it’s being aware of those but at the heart of that I think it’s going back to the human needs and it’s the deeper sort of slightly more philosophical stuff really that in some ways is a challenge for marketers to get around.’’ Jenny Volkers, managing director of Indigo Crow: That’s quite interesting because that kind of taps into one of the newest areas of marketing which is neuro-marketing, which actually just goes back to our base needs. But that also has a challenge because I wonder whether people will think of it as another kind of marketing dark art?” Darren Richardson: “I think that’s a fair >>

If you look at entrepreneurs, they have a mediocre IQ and they have a very high EQ. They’re very in touch with human beings, and they can read situations and they know human needs

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If you look at entrepreneurs, they have a mediocre IQ and they have a very high EQ. They’re very in touch with human beings, and they can read situations and they know human needs

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point, it can be seen as just the next thing on the bandwagon.’’ Caroline Theobald: “What are we all about? How are we going to change? How are we going to make ourselves fit for purpose in 2025? As teachers, as academics, it must be quite a big challenge for you.’’ Paul Copley: “We started off by talking about the influence of technology since 2004, the last 10 years, but other themes are coming through as well, and we’ve touched on CSR and sustainable development which is one of my areas of interest. You go on any big company website and it’s full of that. It’s full of what they’re doing for the environment, responding to that kind of thing which wasn’t particularly that explicit that long ago but it’s become an important issue. So lots of it is about technology but lots of it isn’t.’’ Darren Richardson: “Yes, absolutely, but I think we’re seduced by the technology at the moment.’’ Matthew Neilson: He raised the issue of sustainability, pointing out that by 2025 there would be an extra 1 billion people on the planet creating needs around food, energy and water. He said: “It’s a finite supply generally speaking so therefore you’re dishing it out in kind of even smaller portions, which if you’re going back to your have and have not’s. That is also being defined by environmental factors as well as financial factors. And where it gets really interesting is if you start looking into

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other markets, if you’re not looking at the UK, although there is a suggestion it could happen in the South East, but water is the biggest constraint to development. So lack of water is pretty fundamental. Of all the things you need to survive, water is the most important, one would argue. So the consequence of that is if you have ambitions around selling products which need a lot of water then you may have to think again in the future because your products may largely be rejected because there maybe water rationing or people just don’t have access to water in the same way that they did before, or it becomes far too costly. “This means that the decision making around how the kind of products or services that people buy might change, and I think that’s a really important thing for marketing to understand. We may not see it here specifically in the UK, but in other parts of the world it is fundamental to their thinking and what they need to do and you suddenly can’t create more water by 2025, that’s actually quite difficult. The consequences of desalination and things like that is you end up with sea water that becomes fresh water but salt’s highly poisonous in highly concentrated forms so there’s all those kinds of limits to what we can achieve. That is a really big area that marketing hasn’t really got its head around. Because, if the idea of marketing is that we go out there to promote the consumption of more and more things because growth is predicated on the idea that you deliver more

or sell more, the actually you wonder where the buffer is and at what point we’ll have to start making some really interesting choices as marketers, and there’s a feeling in my head that 2025 is a point at which that becomes far more real for far more people. Well technically it’s 2050 but I think we might start seeing it a bit earlier than that.’’ Darren Richardson: He argued that there would be more companies producing products that are needed but with a sense of purpose of why they’re doing it. He said: “That can be quite a compelling reason for a relationship with them because you know we’re trying to protect this planet that we live on. Social enterprise is something a bit like Fairtrade. I mean 10 years ago, you might see something on the shelf that was Fairtrade and think, I might buy that, whereas now it’s just everywhere. There are brands out there that probably make a lot of money and the shareholders drink a lot of bubbly, but there are businesses out there that actually do make a difference and that’s quite an interesting shift in terms of marketing, in terms of having that authenticity behind it. “Just one thing to throw out there as another theme: there are more and more people who are working remotely and there are more and more specialists who used to work for big organisations and now don’t. Businesses are getting smaller, their support networks around them are getting bigger. When I worked in London in the 1980s, there were 350 people

in the company I worked for, in that same company now there’s 60.’’ Audience member: “Absolutely, and now they’ve got networks of people all over, so that’s quite interesting how it’s just different ways of working. It’s like in the public sector, they’re trying to get to terms with all the cuts, they have to get used to different ways of working. That’s quite an interesting dynamic, and that whole way of, maybe we can with different ways of working deliver different and better results.’’ Diane Earles, Network Manager at CIM: “How does that sit with your comment about the haves and the have nots? I’m thinking: that’s great but is that making them even further apart.’’ Paul Sutherland: “People have got less disposable income and less and less net worth, that’s just something that society will have to deal with.’’ Drew Dunning: “That’s not necessarily true though is it? I mean we are going through deep darkest recession in this country and pulling out and one would hope that when employment levels reach a certain point then incomes start to rise above inflation rates and there is genuine growth again, although, in the long run, if we grow too much as a world then there are balancing factors aren’t there which will prevent that.’’ Paul Sutherland: “The reality is, however we cut it, it’s not going to be like the 1980s. I think that society is changing. In the context of freelancers and working with connected groups of people - it will become much more normalised. There’s lots of tools that I use these days in my work which weren’t around even five years ago which helped me build very effective relationships with communities of suppliers and freelancers, not just with individuals but small groups. I think one of the more interesting things when we’re talking about this is how it affects the service brands in marketing. You know if you’ve got eclectics of companies coming together to pitch for work or to work together collaboratively to pitch together for work or for clients, rather than with one agency how comfortable will larger customers be working with an eclectic of small micro firms or freelancers to create one project or one group of solutions rather

People have got less disposable income and less and less net worth, that’s just something that society will have to deal with

than having a traditional agency which has it all in house?’’ Camille Taylor: “But that’s a really good point about the whole collaborative working. Round here is a good example of how businesses are working together differently and how actually the customer no longer wants a one stop shop for all of their services. They do want something more specialist and I think that marketers are more having to come across as more specialist. You don’t want to diversify too much and that whole idea of working together collaboratively is massive in the North East. Up here, the groups of specialists that North East businesses have in each other is so important, and it’s actually quite nice but it can be quite closed. It’s less competitive now, because businesses are getting used to the idea of working more together.’’ Caroline Theobald: “And that is a great way to bring in Charlie.’’ Charlie Nettle: He described how the Chamber of Commerce was trying to get people together to form a voice to represent all those businesses. He added: “Actually there’s some fundamental day to day things that we need to decide for those businesses because their focus is on surviving day to day and it can be quite difficult to get them to buy into that bigger message of purpose about representing the North East. “Prosperity for the North East is almost a charitable message and a CSR message. Actually day to day there’s: what’s in it for my business, what’s the return investment, how are you going to connect me up with other businesses and help my business day to day? For us it’s quite a balance to get that working together for a stronger voice, a stronger network collectively to help us all as one team and one unit and bring in all the specialists from that community. “I think it’s

also the case in marketing isn’t it? Just look at how marketing has changed. I’m 37 and we had computers just coming into school as I was leaving, but I wouldn’t say that I was on top of social media and you’re trying to keep on top of all that all the time. “As a medium sized business, which the chamber is, we’re 35 staff, we’ve probably got eight different agencies that we work with, graphic design, social media, website and things like that. So we’re very much into that specialist approach supporting us as a business, trying to support a broader business community of 4,000 members.’’ Diane Earles: “That’s a really interesting point there and especially for SMEs because they’re trying to run the business and thinking about the business is sort of over there. So if you said to a lot of your clients, in 2025, they’d think that was too far away, whereas bigger businesses in theory should be planning five, 10, 15 years or even further ahead, so there’s a bit of a mis-match going on there and as a marketer how do you manage that? And then bringing it down to the individual, what am I going to be doing in 2025?’’ n

Key themes • Ageing population • Behaviour • Authenticity • Trust • Language • It’s not all about technology • The haves and have nots • Marketers as leaders and sales people • How to be extremely professional without spending any money • Lack of skills - people moving south

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People have got less disposable income and less and less net worth, that’s just something that society will have to deal with

The decision making around how the kind of products or services that people buy might change, and I think that’s a really important thing for marketing to understand. We may not see it here specifically in the UK, but in other parts of the world it is fundamental to their thinking and what they need to do and you suddenly can’t create more water by 2025, that’s actually quite difficult.

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