Navigate Turns 7

7 years on it was a very different day with us hosting our first breakfast session at Soho House where we invited speakers from an array of channels to inspire and inform our audience of clients and media partners alike. Our audience of 50 guests heard from Google, Twitter, Collective Media, PerformanceIn and Richie Jones, Head of Ecommerce at EWM group. The focus of the morning was very much geared towards exploring how digital marketing channels can improve the customer experience, build brands and allow brands to gain a competitive edge.It was an insightful and varied morning with a range of topics covered. Collective Media touched upon how pure brand spend across digital is still a tiny percentage of ad spend; 2013 saw ad spend increase to £6.3 billion but only £200 million was estimated to be true brand focused advertising . Chris Johnson, Content Director at PerformanceIn, highlighted that convenience, not always price, can be the fastest way to a consumer’s heart.One of the things that personally stood out was the need to connect the online to the offline experience. Whilst this insight isn’t new, combined with the fact that consumers’ expectations of brands are constantly increasing just makes it ever more important. Neil Dulake, Industry Head of Retail at Google, showed us the incredible example of Meat Pack in Guatemala and their unique use of GPS tracking technology. The recent example from Walkers and their Twitter vending machine also brought home that this can be applied across a number of sectors. Our final speaker Richie rounded up the morning perfectly with the following ‘serendipity enhances the known peaks and creates new ones’.Having been at IAB’s engage conference last month the morning just emphasised how as an industry we have only just begun. For Navigate it has been an incredible 7 years for us. Here’s to 7 more with many more breakfast sessions along the way.Sharan Cheema, Client Services Director.