The document summarizes insights from a marketing conference. Over 200 attendees participated in a real-time survey. Key insights include: 1) Marketers see opportunity in engaging youth through connectivity and technology; 2) Building trust in a brand is important, especially around crises; 3) Social media allows both seeking and providing recommendations, important for brands to have an ongoing dialogue. The summary captures the high-level theme of insights from marketing professionals on engaging audiences.

2. More and more, marketing today is about connecting the
dots. Whether it is developing real 1:1 relationships,
integrating brand communications across multiple channels
or leveraging social networks, the job of marketers is to
understand, experience and connect.
And so it was with the 2010 BCAIM Contagious Conference.
By bringing together the brightest minds in marketing for a
day of insights and sharing, we at Concerto saw the
opportunity to leverage this brain trust for everyone’s benefit.
Throughout the conference we asked delegates topical About Contagious
questions about the state of marketing today, gathering those BCAIM’s Contagious Conference 2010 brought together our generation’s
insights electronically in real-time. most powerful marketing minds and trendsetters in one venue on
November 19th, 2010 in Vancouver. This one-of-a-kind conference aimed
This Contagious Conference report is a compilation of those to provide the most innovative, compelling and talked about content. The
survey interactions; taking the pulse of the Contagious sharing of ideas and points of view was not only encouraged, but
embraced.
participants. Intentionally graphic in nature, we trust you will
find the dots we’ve connected to be both interesting and
thought provoking. About Concerto
Enjoy the read. Learn from the insights. Share the results. Concerto Marketing Group is the first firm in North America to perform
market research, strategy development and brand communications
together with one outcome in mind – market certainty. Concerto’s deeper
Perhaps with a little more certainty about your industry, your
insights drive measurable marketing results.
peers and your opportunities, you will have some inspiration
to connect the dots for your own brand. con + certo = with + certainty
Rob Dawson, Partner About this report
Concerto Marketing Group Inc. Concerto conducted a real-time survey of delegates using handheld
electronic devices during the 2010 BCAIM Contagious Conference in
Vancouver. Over 200 attendees took part in this survey about key issues,
trends and topics impacting marketing professionals and our industry
today. Participation was voluntary and results should not be extrapolated
beyond the walls of the 2010 Contagious Conference.

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“The demographics of our customer base skew to
the seniors market. As such, investment in the latest
and greatest digital innovations just don’t pay off for
us. It’s only now that we are seeing older
demographics embrace online channels and social
media are we actively taking steps in that direction.”
Mike goerzen, avp marketing
coastal community credit union

5. “We strongly feel that the youth market offers an
extraordinary amount of growth potential for us from
a market share perspective... The youth demographic
is a fundamental part of the new Connected World we
live in and they’re not just using new technology in
exciting ways – they’re using it together with other
products to change the rules of how they connect and
engage with one another. This kind of
Digital
connectivity-thinking is paramount to our
innovators and
organization’s strategy and influences the new
early adopters
products we want to carry and offer to our customers
are more likely
across Canada.”
to view youth as
Angela Scardillo, Vice president of Marketing their best market
best buy, canada
prospects.

6. “The thing about work life balance and money is that they are
never more evident than when they are missing. I subscribe to the
Dan Pink school of thought on compensation – pay people enough
our
that money is officially ‘off the table’ and they aren’t constantly
keeping one ear to the ground for better opportunities. When they
make sacrifices for work – acknowledge them as being above and
beyond.”
Peter Reek, Principal
Smart Savvy
careers &
passions

7. “BC Dairy Foundation’s approach to
marketing is mostly brand driven. The
organization is unique in that we do not
have control over packaging, direct sales
and product marketing. While we do not
have access to direct sales results we still
attach key metrics to our campaigns. We
measure both qualitative and quantitative
results such as earned and paid media
impressions, campaign attitude, aware-
ness and intent to purchase, social media
engagement/conversations joined/blogger
outreach/fans/followers as well as pre and
post promotion sales and awareness. As a
brand driven organization, we rely on our
consumers’ response to measure our
success.”
Liz gursky
director of communication & market development
bc dairy foundation

8. “Simply put, trust in our brand is key to what we do
and how we do it at Newalta. Our people have
worked hard to build a solid foundation of trust and
we see the brand as being the representation of how
well we are doing at living our value and delivering
on our promises. Though we’d like to believe the
equity in our brand would carry us through any
disaster-type scenario, we make crisis planning and
emergency communications a top priority and
continually refresh and update these plans as we
grow our business and expand services.”
jesse Cadotte
Manager, Corporate Communications & Community Relations
Newalta Corporation

9. “Kraft Canada stays on top of consumer needs and cultural trends so we can be
sure we are leading the Canadian food industry in serving up innovation that will
drive sustainable business growth and delight our consumers. Investing in
marketing excellence and innovating and brand building is always (even during
tough times) a top priority. Our retailer partners and our consumers expect
nothing less, and we deliver.”
janine keogh, vice president, consumer insight & strategy
kraft canada
“Social media plays a part in all of our lives, whether
we realize it or not. We search for highly rated
The BC Association of Integrated Marketers restaurants online, we both ask and give our peers
and Concerto Marketing Group wish to thank recommendations on everything from plumbers to
designers, we are participants in an ongoing social
everyone who participated in the 2010
dialogue. Leveraging this for our clients and our
Contagious Conference. From the conference brands means that we have to not only be keen
speakers, event organizers and volunteers to listeners, but be willing to give a voice to a brand and
the engaged audience of delegates, the stay involved in relevant conversations.”
conference was a unique gathering of Courtney johnston, client service manager
marketing minds. concerto marketing group inc.
“The issue with BCAA is typically resources. We do not have enough
to do all the things we want to. We need to see that a new practice
can add value before we can justify allocating scarce resources into
testing.”
colin macphail, director membership marketing
bcaa

10. www.concertomarketing.com www.bcaim.org