AGENDA

Marketing Procurement iQ (Europe) Conference
Day 1 - April 16th 2024

8:00am - Registration & Refreshments

8:45am - Welcome & Introduction from Day 1 Conference Chair - Tina Fegent

9:00 - 9:20am : The Human Competitive Edge

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has sparked discussions about its role in shaping the future of creative marketing communications. Some holding companies are going ‘all in’, pivoting their business model to be led by technology, whereas others, including Havas, are taking a people-first approach.

With AI and technology now shaping how we work, evolving roles within our business and ultimately increasing the value of our output, marketing professionals and procurement will see greater adoption of AI.

This means agencies and procurement may need to change how they work together; remuneration models will inevitably evolve and the measurement of creative value will change. Speaker: Mark Whelan, Chief Creative Officer, and Chairman, Havas Village London

9:20 - 9:40am : Procuring technology for marketing production: best practices for staying on top of the rapidly evolving landscape

Lindsay Hong, CEO of SmartAssets, and a special procurement guest from a leading FMCG, lay out the best practices for sourcing the latest marketing

• How to keep in tune and learn about the latest solutions on the market.

• Identifying tech gaps and finding the right time to bring new tools into your martech ecosystem.

• A forward-looking vision of what future martech deals will look like.

• How to look at the impact of technology when evaluating time and material deals.

Helen Lafford, EVP Chief Growth Officer, Stagwell EMEA

Lindsay Hong, CEO at SmartAssets

Erica Scott, Indirect Procurement Manager for Marketing Content Production, Reckitt

9:40 - 10:10am : Carbon Measurement: Creative Ad Production - implementing the AdGreen Calculator

A panel session delving into why carbon footprint tracking and measurement in Creative Ad Production is so important and how it can unlock big reductions.

The session will begin with an update from Ad Net Zero including the 5-point action plan; global expansion and why 2024 needs to be the year of ACTION!

To follow, we will deep dive into Sustainability within Creative Production and specifically measurement and reduction opportunities afforded by the AdGreen Carbon Calculator (Action Point 2 from the Ad Net Zero Action Plan).

The discussion will focus on the importance of integrating the AdGreen calculator into the production working practices and tackling the potential benefits and challenges for clients, culminating with practical top tips to get you started on your journey.

Chair: Traci Dunne, Global Director of Industry Relations, APR Stephen Woodford, CEO Advertising Association Jo Fenn, Global Director, AdGreen David Akeredolu, Global Lead - Creative Production, Diageo

10:10 - 10:40am : Effectively connecting with your customers by adopting a more scalable, sustainable & tech production model

Adopting more sustainable practices in advertising production doesn’t have to mean a rise in costs or a decline in creativity. So how are brands embracing new and innovative sustainable production and technology models, whilst still being able to target more customers, across an ever-growing number of platforms, formats and channels, for the same investment?

Join Sustainable Production specialists MSQ Source, leading industry bodies Ad Green and the Advertising Association, and marketing and procurement chiefs from major global brands to discuss how they’re optimising their media activity and creating thousands of new assets whilst reducing carbon emissions.

Chair: Darren Khan, Managing Director, MSQ Source

Jo Fenn, Global Director, We Are AdGreen

Joanna Rogers, Head of Procurement Marketing, The AA

Dave Roberts, Global Content Consultant, (Expedia, BBC Studios, Pernod Ricard)

10:50 - 11:10am : The Content Production Revolution: how AI and human creativity are working better together

Content production is both growing and becoming less impactful – how do you incorporate the latest tech within your marketing production process to create more compelling content that serves your business and brand best?

Using real examples, we show how harnessing both human experience and technology can improve your brand content, how to optimise the processes and ways of working to deliver the best outcomes, and what to watch out for in your own organisation.

Jack Threlfall, Head of Content, SPRING Production.

11:10 - 11:30am : Refreshments & Networking

11:30 - 11:50am : The New Creative Paradigm: How AI is Transforming Video and Content Production

(Winterberry / APR Whitepaper)

Based on extensive research surveying 250 industry experts, this whitepaper explores the current state, ongoing changes, and future trends on the creative production and content creation landscape, including the profound impact of AI.

“Brands are having to re-think how they bring digital content to consumers – and how they produce it. Generative AI and machine learning, collectively AI, are now transforming how we plan, develop, measure and value content created.” Winterberry Group.

“We believe brands and agencies will benefit from this research – generative AI has everyone’s attention. Its testing and deployments, when successful, bring efficiencies and quantities in content,” APR (Advertising Production Resources)

Jillian Gibbs, CEO & Founder,  APR (Advertising Production Resources)

Charles Ping, Managing Director, EMEA, Winterberry Group

11:50 - 12:10pm : Navigating the Complexities of Global Production at Scale

The rising costs associated with content production, set against the backdrop of a more cost-conscious consumer, means that brands need to be willing to trial new ways to engage their customers. The challenge is to balance quality requirements with greater content needs and increasing pressure on budgets.
In this session Claire Randall and Emily Somers, Global Director of Brand Strategy and Creative, formerly Deliveroo will discuss some of the key challenges facing marketers today and how to balance quality with efficiency.

Claire Randall, CEO & Founder, Claire Randall Consulting (CRC)

Emily Somers,
Global Senior Director of Brand Strategy & Creative, Formerly Deliveroo

12:10 - 12:30pm : Productive Precision: Consumer Centricity amplified with Audience-First Production

For businesses and brands to land their message, we believe a revolution is required in the role production plays in delivering value and desired outcomes. Literally, a revolution, based on putting the audience first.

Our discussion will share our POV on Audience-First Production, and how Audience-First scope definition, craft enhancement, measurement, and optimisation (along with the role tech and AI play in improving efficiency and performance) helps brands and businesses successfully benefit from infusing customer centricity into their Production process – and reaping the rewards of productive precision.

Bronson Smithson, Global Chief Strategy Officer, Havas Prose On Pixels

12:30 - 1:00pm : Women of Influence from the world of Creative Production and Marketing Procurement - Panel

As part of the Marketing Procurement iQ editorial series Women of Influence, we will interview three inspirational women making an impact on the world of creative production and marketing procurement.

Women from across different sectors, disciplines and regions within global leading brands, agencies, partners or industry bodies.

We are going to look into their successes, perceived failures, personal achievements, and how they may have changed or advanced the job sector or vertical they work in. And we explore how these women have changed and adapted with the growth of our industry over the years. Chair: Robin Seasock, CEO, Decideware
Panel: Tina Fegent, Jillian Gibbs, Claire Randall, Elspeth Rollert

1:00 - 1:50pm : Refreshments & Networking

1:50 - 2:15pm : Overcoming the Enemies of Scale

Learn More About Session & Speakers

How to meet the demands of ever-increasing content requirements whilst controlling costs and quality. Anybody with a budget can create beautiful individual films but how do you create millions without exponential cost inflation and still have impact no matter which market or channel? - Setting up for scale from the beginning. As an organisation, how do you ensure your processes are set up for scale? What are your priorities and where should you focus first? - Having impact in every market. There has always been a tension between the centralised and decentralised models, which has only been amplified with the increase of channels. How do you choose the right model for your brand? What factors drive that decision for you? - Creative integrity. Brands have to communicate across multiple channels now to reach what is a more and more fragmented audience. How do you ensure that your message is not diluted and resonates across all of these different channels with very different specifics? - Technology and AI in particular seem to have offered a myriad of opportunities for scaling cost effectively. However, how do you choose the right technology without getting caught up in the hype that is created around tools. - From an operational standpoint, transparency, flexibility and simplicity are key in being able to set processes that scale. How do you achieve that from an operational standpoint but also culturally? Chair: Dasha Dollar-Smirnova, Operations Director, MSQ Source
Angela Paul, Regional Brand Manager, Bombay Sapphire Gin- Western Europe, Bacardi
Elaine (Rodford) Bhurtun, Associate Brand & Campaign Manager, Capital Group

2:15 - 2:40pm : Centralised Production Business Management: Ensuring Value & Transparency

Learn More About Session & Speakers

What are the benefits of centralising the business behind production, from talent, licensed element rights and payment of vendors to creating reports for more visibility into production spend in all markets.

Multinational companies often find their brand managers relying on rosters of agencies across several countries to produce a wide variety of content, this can lead to inconsistencies and gaps in the management of the content creation workflow and expose them to brand inconsistencies, reputation risk and duplication of efforts.

In this discussion we will look at:

• Centralised Talent and Licensed Element Rights Management

• Reduced redundancy and asset sharing

• Best Practices for creating a streamlined marcom workflow

• Mitigating reputation risk in production practices

Chair: Mark Egmon, VP, Marketing and Business Development, Cast & Crew

Larry Byrne, Founder & CEO, Lakehouse Partners, LLC

Claire Randall, Founder & CEO, Claire Randall Consulting

John Kirk, Deputy CEO & Chief Strategy Officer, Inspired Thinking Group

2:40 - 3:00pm : Optimising value through a flexible research model

Learn More About Session & Speakers

Insights into how flexible research models are empowering marketing departments with more agile and data-driven strategies:

• How to balance a fast-paced, high-risk landscape with flexible research models.

• The future of ‘blended’ market research approaches and how businesses can leverage real-time survey deployment for faster insights.

• How to procure the right set of tools to future-proof your marketing strategy.


Gary Topiol, Managing Director, Enterprise at HarrisQuest

3:00 - 3:20pm : Refreshments & Networking

3:20 - 3:40pm : Beyond The Birdseye: In-Craft Production Efficiencies

Learn More About Session & Speakers

While efficiencies are driven by robust top-down planning, a series of incremental optimisations at the craft-level can lead to significant improvements in productivity, resource utilisation, technology adoption and commercial costs. In this session, Locaria’s EVP Creative Adaptation & Global Growth Director, will be discussing developments in the voice over industry, applications of AI within content localisation, new areas of creative adaptation testing, and showing how collaboration changes with upstream creative partners can drive cost, time and quality efficiencies. Using tangible examples from work with global brands, the session is designed to provide a series of ideas and takeaways for procurement specialists interested in production and adaptation, to investigate further.

Mikhailo Pimenov - EVP Creative Content, Locaria

3:40 - 4:00pm : Mastering Scope. Unlocking Cost Efficiencies and Building Stronger Agency Partnerships

Learn More About Session & Speakers

How can marketing procurement wow Finance and delight Marketing?

Brand advertisers have been looking for tangible ways to drive realistic cost efficiencies that do not hamper their agencies’ abilities to produce great work, but hold everyone accountable to operational excellence and process rigor.

In this session we examine how marketing and procurement can join forces to turbocharge brand's fiscal stewardship and collaborate to forge stronger agency partnerships.

Join us to discover expert strategies in SOW management, agency negotiations and financial agility. Revolutionize your approach to scope and financial management to make your CFO smile and your CMO cheer (without making your agency cry)! Bruno Gralpois, Co-founder & Principal, Agency Mania Solutions

4:00 - 4:30pm : Beyond the Hype - How to build a tech stack worth the investment

Learn More About Session & Speakers

Evaluating what technology stacks to invest in as a marketer and how to assess the benefit of technologies that your partners are investing in. Chair: Dasha Dollar-Smirnova, Transition Director, MSQ
Iain Seers, CEO, RightSpend
Aaron Kwittken, CEO & Founder, PRophet
Vlad Komanicky, CEO & Co-founder, Alchemists

4:30 - 5:00pm : Masters in Marketing Procurement Panel – Agencies

Learn More About Session & Speakers

Masters in Marketing Procurement Panel

We ask three senior professionals with a background in marketing procurement to join us to discuss three challenges that either their team face, that their organisation is striving to achieve or that they believe is an issue our industry is struggling to deal with.


Panel One: Agencies

• Where should agency management sit?

• Becoming the client of choice.

• Is AI good for agencies or clients or both?

Moderator: Tiffany Crow, Managing Director, EMEA, RightSpend

Philipp Schuster, Agency Management & Marketing Partnerships Director, Bayer Consumer Health

Craig Butler, Senior Category Manager - Marketing Procurement, Kellanova

Vlad Komanicky, CEO & Co-founder, Alchemists

5:00 - 5:30pm : Masters in Marketing Procurement Panel – Talent Management

Learn More About Session & Speakers

Masters in Marketing Procurement Panel

We ask three senior professionals with a background in marketing procurement to join us to discuss three challenges that either their team face, that their organisation is striving to achieve or that they believe is an issue our industry is struggling to deal with

Panel Two: Talent

• Where next for marketing procurement as a profession – is it evolving to become marketing optimisation? How will AI impact?

• Does your career background make a difference to your approach to marketing procurement?

• Working together: Aligning procurement objectives and marketing objectives to deliver the optimum success for the brand. Moderator: Tina Fegent, Tina Fegent Consulting


Nicholas Wright, Senior Marketing Procurement Consultant, Booking.com

5:30 - 6:00pm : Licensed Music - A Procurement Anomaly

Learn More About Session & Speakers

Commercially-released music is not commoditised so it’s difficult to buy. The music rights landscape often feels like the Wild West. How can Procurement influence the negotiation process? Existing music used by brands generally falls into two categories: 1) Production library music (aka stock music) 2) Commercially-released music Production library music is created by professional composers specifically for use in audio-visual media. It’s a B2B commoditised product, pre-cleared for all uses including advertising. In the UK, most production library music is licensed by PRS for Music under a fixed rate card. For Procurement, this is a simple, easy purchase category with predictable pricing and rights. It’s the musical equivalent of Shutterstock or Getty Images. Price comparisons between two tracks are like apples to apples. Commercially-released music (on streaming services, vinyl & CD) is totally different. When used by brands, it has the scope to go horribly wrong if not skilfully managed. Commercially-released music is made by songwriters and recording artists as a creative outlet. It wasn’t created for use by brands. It’s a B2C product for which prior approval is almost always needed. There’s no rate card and pricing is highly variable. Price comparisons between two tracks are like apples to oranges. Furthermore, rights are fragmented and the licensing process is slow and opaque. Commercially-released music can be a scary Procurement Anomaly in which many brands have horror stories of massive overspends and legal claims for unlicensed usage. How can Procurement bring order and discipline to what often seems a world of chaos and uncontrolled risk? Richard Kirstein, Resilient Music LLP Jeff Cobb, Cobb Collective Helvia Ruiz Diaz, Senior Procurement Marketing Manager, Entain

6:00 - 7:00pm : Drinks Reception in The England Suite - sponsored by SmartAssets

Smart assets