Top Picks Across the Marketing Innovations Track at Adobe Summit EMEA

Every­one knows one of those peo­ple who couldn’t care less about clothes, music or parties—but put a shiny elec­tron­ic toy in their hands and you’ll lose them in a black hole of elec­tron­ic ecsta­sy for a day or two. To those peo­ple I say: “This is the track for you.”

The Mar­ket­ing Inno­va­tions track is all about the future, the wow and the just plain awe­some. Change in mar­ket­ing con­stant­ly accel­er­ates. This track pro­vides mar­keters and tech­nol­o­gists with fresh think­ing in the areas of tech­nol­o­gy, brand and organ­i­sa­tion­al inno­va­tion. It will inspire the next phase of their per­son­al and organ­i­sa­tion­al growth. It’s about know­ing the future in order to be ready for tomor­row today.

It’s tricky pick­ing a top four list when so many ses­sions are set to inspire, but I’ll give it my best shot.

M3: The new mod­el for mar­ket­ing which fus­es dig­i­tal and classic.

Ash­ley Friedlein is Founder of Econ­sul­tan­cy and author of M3, a new frame­work for mar­ket­ing that updates clas­sic mod­els like the 4Ps to fuse both dig­i­tal and clas­sic mar­ket­ing under a sin­gle, uni­fied mod­el: The Mod­ern Mar­ket­ing Mod­el (M3).

On the agen­da at this session:

• Under­stand the M3 mod­el: how do dig­i­tal and clas­sic mar­ket­ing come together?
• What skills and com­pe­ten­cies are now required in marketing?
• What will marketing/digital func­tions of the future look like and how will they work?

M15: Alexa, give my brand a voice!

Meryem Tom, UK Coun­try Leader for Alexa Skills at Ama­zon, takes us on a whis­tle-stop tour of the voice assis­tant rev­o­lu­tion, explain­ing why mar­keters need to take advan­tage of this explo­sive trend to dri­ve cus­tomer engage­ment and become part of their dai­ly journey.

MI4: AI & Oppor­tu­ni­ty: har­ness­ing tech­nol­o­gy for com­pet­i­tive advantage

With the rise of chat­bots and dig­i­tal assis­tants, most believe we are liv­ing in the AI age. In truth we’re still at the very begin­ning of this era, and have a long, long way to go before we hit human-lev­el AI. Smart com­pa­nies are already work­ing out ways to gain sig­nif­i­cant advan­tages over com­peti­tors using big data, machine learn­ing, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence or all three. They’re posi­tion­ing them­selves per­fect­ly for this new mar­ket­ing landscape.

The rise of IoT, web access and the increase in com­put­er pro­cess­ing pow­er is already direct­ly chang­ing how com­pa­nies inter­act with cus­tomers, ele­vat­ing both expe­ri­ence and ser­vice. Cru­cial­ly, it’s neces­si­tat­ed a fun­da­men­tal shake-up of cor­po­rate struc­ture. Though this rapid pace may be daunt­ing for some, one thing is for cer­tain: things will nev­er move as slow­ly as they are right now. Inno­v­a­tive com­pa­nies embrac­ing this change, how­ev­er, will be ready for a brave new world filled with opportunities.

Join WIRED’s Exec­u­tive Edi­tor, Jere­my White for a fas­ci­nat­ing deep dive into this cut­ting-edge topic.

M10: Tal­ent unleashed: How PlaySta­tion and Adobe feed the hid­den engine of dig­i­tal transformation

Every com­pa­ny is fac­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion. What worked in the past will not be a recipe for suc­cess in the future. Hav­ing the right strat­e­gy is not enough: your work­force is the most crit­i­cal com­po­nent in dri­ving trans­for­ma­tion. Plac­ing the right peo­ple with the right mind­set in the right roles to effect change is essen­tial. Gor­don Thorn­ton, senior vice pres­i­dent at Sony Inter­ac­tive Enter­tain­ment and the glob­al leader of the PlaySta­tion Store, and Don­na Mor­ris, EVP of Cus­tomer and Employ­ee expe­ri­ence at Adobe, explore how to future-proof your brand while organ­is­ing, attract­ing, and grow­ing a diverse and agile work­force in a con­stant­ly evolv­ing and com­pet­i­tive mar­ket landscape.

Find out more and reg­is­ter for Adobe Sum­mit EMEA here.