What a way to kick off a UK heatwave with an actual IN PERSON event where the conversations, panellists, speakers, demos and DRINKS were flowing. Well done MAD//FEST.

People’s approach and take out to all these events can differ but for us at distillery everything we do is to create content that makes a positive impact, so Jonah, Emily, Gracie and I headed down on a mission to get inspiration on new ways to help us stand true to our ethos for our clients and our people. For me while everyone is tapping into the women's sport, I think Diageo showed us how well it can be done with their #HerHomeAdvantage Going beyond football with Guinness Cameroun campaign as well as investing in female soccer players’ Wikipedia pages to raise their profiles and combat the startling stat that 94% of sports journalism is about male events.

Even more interesting was hearing from Jodie Cunningham herself encouraging agencies to get on the forefront and make a positive change and find ways to help existing clients on new forms of content to help tap into Women in Sport. When was the last time we had the actual players themselves reaching out for our help to grow their portfolio?

Sustainability was one of the key themes covered at this year's MADFest posing some salient questions on how we can all do our bit to decarbonize the advertising industry. Inspired by talks from Anne Coghlan (Scope3), Rosalind Holley (BLabsUK) and Laura Wade (Essence), here are some key thought starters posited to help our industry become more sustainable:

Production: through the likes of AdGreen, production should do all it can to reduce its emissions on set and consider where possible is a shoot even necessary? Repurposing footage and UGC (user generated content content) can also be seen as a more sustainable option without compromising the creative and always worth considering before committing to shoot.
Publisher: did you know that 28% of an average consumers’ Co2 emissions come from digital advertising? Innovators such as Scope3 are doing their bit to address data waste and helping establish industry benchmarks that media publishers can all adhere to, to track and monitor their digital emissions from publishing online.
Creative Agencies: #ChangeTheBrief Alliance is a not-for-profit partnership between agencies of every size and their clients, learning and acting together to directly address the challenge of the climate crisis by promoting sustainability via every channel available to them. If we are to change behaviours, it’s vital that briefs are held more accountable to their emissions, encouraging us to consider all options/ outputs available.

Remember decarbonisation is the start of the journey and together if we all do our bit we can help the advertising and marketing industry take the bold step to be net zero, which with the right mindset and behaviours is more than possible!

At distillery, we help brands with purpose-led marketing campaigns so brands can be their best selves with content that has substance. Check out our band purpose whitepaper here.

It was great to hear cybersecurity as a main theme in Madfest last week, in particular Jerry Daykin’s speech on ‘Privacy Matters: Building a Better Internet’ stood out to me as it is so key to our clients. At Okta’s Forum22 last month, they explored how privacy and trust are at the heart of their projects, whilst also balancing how identity is central for a personalised experience. Brands need to incorporate fresh ideas of how they can use data for accurate targeting whilst allowing consumers to feel protected. We can all do our part to build a better internet, and it’s great to be working with companies like Okta and Wix who care about building a safer internet for us all!

This was an underlying theme throughout. Thank you Pete Markey, Debbie Tembo and Efrain Ayala for the great panel on the importance of measuring your DEI efforts. I also enjoyed hearing from Munnawar Chishty about how No.7 Beauty Company were going beyond the tick box through their comms, product portfolio as well as their choice of people and partnerships. From this, they now have 400 shades of foundation and have significantly increased the diversity in their product testing panels, which in turn has contributed to their commercial results.

Zoe Chowney highlighted in her talk that 62% of people go back in the closet when they take their first job and that Cognitive diverse teams solve problems 6% faster, this shows the importance of a supportive work culture and a diverse team. Businesses can work with organisations such as Pride in Business to help them become more welcoming and supportive towards the LGBTQ+ community.

At distillery, Our Proud To Be podcast is an essential part of our commitment to Diversity and Inclusion (D&I), where we share our insights, learnings and best practice in the D&I space. You can listen to it here.

Last year, we also released “Diversity” font as part of the Diversity Type Project. This involved working with a globally diverse group of incredible lettering artists who created one letter each, to produce the world’s most diverse typeface. Every download means a donation to support the DEC, The Diversity Trust, and UN Women - organisations championing diversity around the world to create a more inclusive, safer, and fairer society for all.

… This year we have an exciting project coming up in the DEI space that we can’t wait to share, so keep an eye out.

You can learn more about Diversity type here, brand purpose here, listen to our podcast here and get a coffee on us here.

4 Positive Trends from MAD//FEST 2022

Women in Sport

Doing our bit to decarbonize the advertising industry.

Cybersecurity

D&I

EMEA

APAC

Americas

META