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Where are the CMOs? We need to urge more clients to join the debate at industry events

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By David Ellison, marketing services manager

June 24, 2015 | 5 min read

Event organisers need to up their game, attract the senior marketers and make sure they attend or they will risk losing delegates.

There is nothing worse than a room full of delegates all trying to talk to absent CMOs and ending up talking to other delegates. Having attended and organised my fair share of events over a career spanning seven years at ISBA, the voice of British advertisers, I can say that as a whole the industry is thriving apart from the occasional minor speedbump on adland’s motorway. I feel the need to make some observations on a recurring trend at events in adland which may disincentive people from attending.

At an Advertising Week panel session discussing the role of the media agency, which was attended by just two or three marketers, a media owner said that "we need to educate clients to respect their agencies more, pay for what they are able to achieve from their agencies…"

What a pity there weren’t any advertisers on the panel to put their own views forward on being educated thus.

A wide variety of people seem to feel that they have the right to speak on behalf of advertisers in their absence. But ask yourself: when did you last hear an advertiser speaking on behalf of an agency trading desk or a global media owner?

My colleague Bob Wootton, ISBA’s director of media & advertising, highlighted this issue in his MediaTel article Wasn’t Ad Week fab? (But, er, where were the clients?), after attending and presenting at Advertising Week in London. He argued that Ad Week "won’t reach the next level unless it can attract a vital but missing constituency – advertisers!"

What I found annoying once again at Ad Week was that at a number of panel sessions, representatives of media owners, media agencies and ad tech companies spoke on behalf of advertisers, claiming 'advertisers are concerned about this' and ‘advertisers aren’t worried about that’.

I know what you’re thinking. Of course the answer is for advertisers to attend these conferences and populate panel sessions themselves.

A host of events promise a high percentage of relevant, senior advertiser attendance, but inevitably don’t come up with the goods. So how do we encourage advertisers to not only attend but also take part in events?

Event organisers need to up their game by involving advertisers in the organisation of relevant events, enticing well-known brands to make presentations, populate panel sessions and present insightful case studies. Invest in a significant, relevant agenda and the advertisers will come. And advertisers will be able to comment.

I was able to attend and indeed enjoy the FT’s outstanding ‘Marketing Innovators Summit’ earlier this month. This high ticket event promised widespread attendance from CMOs. In fact the whole event was aimed at CMOs. Indeed, a delegate list with anything less than a gaggle of top level decision makers operating at board level would have been a travesty.

The prospects were good and the agenda delivered. There were excellent presentations from Keith Weed, chief marketing and communications officer at Unilever and Caspar Schlickum, CEO of Xaxis.

There was also practical insight from Tina Muller, CMO at the Opel Group, who explained how a brand can be turned around. We don’t get enough of these!

And interesting panel sessions involving Julia Porter, director of consumer revenues at Guardian News and Media, Dominic Smales, managing director of social talent agency Gleam Futures and Marcus Butler, one of his 24 vloggers.

The only thing missing was interaction and questions from the audience. However in the afternoon delegates were able to interact at seven roundtables ‘tackling a host of vital issues troubling CMOs’.

Although the roundtables enjoyed vibrant discussion, there seemed to be a lack of CMOs at the summit.

The event was first class, and the FT’s reputation as a premium content provider of news, data and analysis is intact, as is its ability to organise global conferences and events. However, without an increase in the number of CMOs being present throughout this event, delegates may be disappointed.

If quality established publishers such as the FT and the Economist are struggling to attract CMOs and chief executives for their summits, these events will be attended by delegates lacking the power and authority to make decisions and influence the future.

It’s a chicken and egg scenario. Unless and until this type of event reaches a critical mass of senior, influential, experienced marketers and advertisers, these individuals will shy away from attending, discouraged by the prospect of being outnumbered and mobbed by high powered sales forces from agencies and ad tech companies.

Enticing advertisers generally – never mind CMOs – to attend events is a growing challenge for all event organisers operating in this space.

David Ellison is marketing services manager at ISBA

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