Diu Hoang, VIOOH’s Senior Marketing Manager, attended this year’s Advertising Week Europe event and below are her four key takeaways and insights. 

As most of the advertising industry seemed to be, I was also at Advertising Week Europe this week in London. Some key sessions that were a particular highlight over my days at the event were:

Belonging is Business Critical 

61% of people in the marketing and advertising industry have personally experienced bias, harassment or inappropriate behaviour at work - which is up from 41% in 2020. I was taken aback by this increase amidst the backdrop of the pandemic - but it really highlights how we still have a long way to go.

Something that was also discussed was allyship, which I think plays into the previous stat nicely in working out how to address that type of behaviour if it were to play out in front of you: speaking up and recognising your privilege in being able to do so, doing the education yourself and small things such as making sure minority voices are able to be heard in meetings and are included in the conversation.

Did You Say Context on Steroids?

“In terms of the big initiatives and some of the things that are happening out there, we’ve seen a massive drive towards emerging channels in the last 12 months. COVID has spearheaded the urgency and importance of bringing in CTV and DOOH into that digital ecosystem. Essentially, they’re both cookieless but the whole piece around contextual relevance has come back in.” Lindsay Wiles, Head of Programmatic, Yahoo

The Future of Brands in a Connected World 

Meta, MADE.com and Charlotte Tilbury came together for this session to talk about how they’re using technological innovations to transform their businesses. 

Brands that connect with people across multiple experiences are more effective - up to 139% more effective at driving awareness, consideration and association (source: Facebook Internal Brand)

“The crossroads between desirability and mass accessibility vs. scale and innovation is where the magic happens.” Corinne Suchy, Chief Growth and Technology Officer, Charlotte Tilbury

A final highlight for me was a segment around BBC News: Dispatches from Ukraine, with veteran BBC reporters Ros Atkin, Yalda Hakim and Lys Doucet (who joined live from Kyiv via Zoom) - just an incredibly powerful session where they discussed reporting on the war and maintaining impartiality whilst doing so, and also a reminder of just how far technology has come since the pandemic that we could have someone attending via Zoom whilst in a warzone.