Ben Shelley, Marketing Manager at BMN, tells of the unique opportunity he had recently to spend half a day at the latest BMF Marketing Forum, surrounded by marketers from across the industry.

The ways and means in which marketing is conducted (whether by stealth, search or speech) is up for debate and in many ways, very much based on the context, but what we should be able to agree on is that marketing is essential.

Campaign Management 

Our speakers were from Lawsons, Siniat, Velstar and Talasey, with the focus being on AI-based search, bringing campaigns to life and brand recognition.

Trowel Man

Matt Watson from Lawsons took us through the inception of the company’s Trowel Man campaign, outlining its origins and how it emerged from a desire to re-invent and challenge the 'it's worked for years, why change it' mentality. 

Trowel Man was an attempt to break the long-established mould with a seemingly innocuous pop art image that ended up being the focus of a company-wide campaign. Here the core takeaway was that resilience is key and change takes time.

Purple Reign

Next, Livvey Wadsworth took us on the supplier side of the journey, with an overview of how Siniat personified its brand personas and integrated them into a brand awareness campaign titled Purple Reign.  

She showed us how each communication strand was tailored to each persona in order to ensure that they feel part of the whole and the product offerings were for them.

-> Purple Reign Campaign

Generative search 

The future of marketing is endless and the race to adapt is already being run.

Voice search is the latest trend and the battle to optimise this solution has begun as Matt Donelly and Gina McGurk, from Velstar, made clear. They spoke about generative search optimisation and how important it will be to optimise content for AI and, in particular, voice search.

It is something that I have been aware of over the last year but to hear about that key generational shift in person was eye-opening. It emphasised to me that, in marketing as in any other sector, you can never sit still.

Brand development

While all speakers echoed the sentiments that the battle is never finished, Rebecca Hughes, the closing speaker, from Talasey, asked us a simple question: What do you know about us?

An innocuous question in most industries but it is the imperative of achieving positive instant association that drives marketing, that fuels our passion to strive for more. This led to discussing how best to bring together a group of well-known brands under one identity. How do you do best it?

  • Do you allow the legacy elements to go one being promoted as they have been but underpin their touch points with the new umbrella identity? 
  • Do you instantly bring them into the fold and ensure consistency across the new identity but risk losing that instant recognition?

These are questions without easy answers and yet it is clear that nothing can work in isolation. Marketing is and always will be a never-ending balancing act of identity, promotion and development, and this is what makes it exciting. 

A final thought

Forums such as the BMF Marketing Forum provide an opportunity for like-minded individuals to network and offer a handy insight into the professional lives of others, and be reminded that you are not alone.

I feel privileged to have been presented with those insights into the various aspects of the marketing activity, and I have taken away many ideas that will be essential over the course of the next year when it comes to the future of BMN.

BMN will be 50 years old next year and as such, we are making final preparations for our anniversary celebrations, which will not be possible without you, our readers.