8 July 2014

Visual Media Conference sees print companies looking to the future

The Visual Media Conference took place on Wednesday 25 June at the Rose Bowl in Leeds, inspiring a record number of delegates to look to the future of marketing communications and the innovative and creative ideas emerging in their industries.

At the one-day Conference organised by BPIF’s SIG in the North, CDi PrintYorkshire, over 100 delegates attended. This included a strong showing from the print industry, benefitting from an excellent programme of speakers who discussed the current and future state of marketing communications.

Lyle Rainey of HP discussed digital integrated campaigns, going into great detail on the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign, how it was implemented and how effective it was. The Visual Media Conference also went to Budapest, via a live link at the Dscoop Grandmasters Summit, with Julia Cole (HP), Peter Van Teeseling (Dscoop) and Jon Bailey (ProCo) giving their insight into what the future has in store. Tim Cox of Vpress focussed on web2print, described action points, and forecasted growth for the web2print and printing industries in the upcoming years.

In a pre-release of the sector survey being carried out by BPIF CDi PrintYorkshire, CEO Robert McClements commented that over 60% of respondents were confident of expansion of business and employment over the next 12 months. Those findings were echoed by a show of hands at the conference.

The afternoon session took delegates to the future, quite literally, with Henk Vermeulen of GOC looking to 2020 and the jobs and skills that will be evident in the future market. How print plays its part in the communications mix was discussed by Cathy Barnes of Leeds Metropolitan University, and Mark Eggleton of Sun Branding Solutions, with an engaged audience questioning what the future holds for packaging. Okke Zitman, Media Plaza, gave real life examples of how you can make the best of a bad situation. The final speaker of the day was Alex Craven, Bloom Agency, who introduced ‘Whisper’, a software algorithm that makes real sense of big data, using it to inform advertisers which brands are best suited to a specific soap commercial break.

Peter Dodd of Welcome to Yorkshire, informed a packed lecture theatre how Yorkshire got the opportunity to host the Grand  Depart of the Tour de France.

Platinum sponsors of the event, Sky Media, presented Sky AdSmart – a revolutionary approach to TV advertising. David Sanderson, BSkyB, informed delegates of the innovation in the advertisement sector, with households being selected to view specific adverts depending on certain factors such as age, location and life-stage.

The expert panel ended the conference, concluding the day and encouraging the audience to use their passions and influence to look to the future.

Feedback from the event has been excellent, with many people saying they have been inspired and gained priceless information from the day. A special thanks to all of our speakers, sponsors and supporters.

Be sure to watch this space and keep an eye out for next year’s conference!

VISUAL MEDIA CONFERENCE

A one-day summit meeting organised by BPIF’s SIG in the North, CDi PrintYorkshire. Supported by a host of sponsors including Sky Media, HP, Sun Branding Solutions, Bloom Agency. For more information go to: www.visualmediaconference.com

For further information, please contact Amy Hutchinson on 020 7915 8373 or email [email protected].