This conference's speakers included:

 

Brent Hodgins, Mirren Business Development covered the Client trends that were now defining new business and gave us insights on what were the biggest challenges with clients and prospects right now and what we could do about them.

 

Annie Spilsbury, Xchanging Procurement explained how one of the world's leading procurement outsourcing companies operated and agregated artwork, media and production to achieve cost reductions. She also provided insights into the chemistry that makes up a successful client / agency relationship and how to negotiate with procurement.

 

Chris Hoyt, Shopper Marketing Consultant, Hoyt & Company highlighted the shopper marketing opportunity for consumer marketing agencies. He explained the different mindset of a shoppper vs a consumer and their different needs from 'couch to purchase'.

 

Dawn Hudson, Vice-Chairman Parthenon and former President/CEO Pepsi North America showed how the recession impacted purchasing decisions and the consumer shift to value shopping. In particular she showed where we should focus as we come out of recession.

 

Peter Fitzpatrick, Gundersen Partners took us through why great talent join great companies and what they are looking for as well as what we should be looking for from them. He also gave us a plan to optimize the performance and value of our people.

 

Bart Haney, Program Manager at Fuse Project talked about the different roles of futurists, humanists and naturalits in brand and product innovation and the importance of strategy and execution being seemlessly integrated. He left us with an integrated design process covering context, opportunity, design strategy, product attributes and design concepts.