Across the world, new ideas, new businesses and new solutions are transforming every market. “Gamechangers” think and act differently. They innovate every aspect of their brand and marketing.
From Alibaba to Zipcars, Ashmei to Zidisha, Azuri and Zynga, a new generation of businesses are rising out of the maelstrom of economic and technological change across our world. These are just a few of the companies shaking up our world.
Gamechangers are disruptive and innovative, start-ups and corporates, in every sector and region, reshaping our world. They are more ambitious, with stretching vision and enlightened purpose. They see markets as kaleidoscopes of infinite possibilities, assembling and defining them to their advantage. They find their own space, then shape it in their own vision. Most of all they have great ideas. They outthink their competition, thinking bigger and different. They don’t believe in being slightly cheaper or slightly better. That is a short-term game of diminishing returns.
We asked 1000 business leaders to nominate the companies who they believe are creating the future in each different sector. The top 100 innovators are big and small, spread across every sector and continent, from Asia to the Americas, finance to fashion. And then we wanted to understand what they did differently.
They range from well known innovators like Amazon and Apple – the magic Dash buttons creating a direct link between consumer and brands, the ecosystems that go beyond devices – to new brands like Brazil’s Beauty’in fusing the world of food and cosmetics, or even Zespri redefining the obscure Chinese gooseberry as the superfood Kiwi fruit.
They capture their higher purpose in more inspiring brands that resonate with their target audiences at the right time and place, enabled by data and technology, but more through empathetic design and rich human experiences. They fuse digital and physical, global and local, ideas and networks. Social media drives reach and richness, whilst new business models make the possible profitable. They collaborate with customers, and partner with other business, connecting ideas and utilising their capabilities. They look beyond the sale to enable customers to achieve more, they care about their impact on people and the world, whilst being commercially successful too.
As they say in the GoogleX moonshot factory, in seeking to reinvent everything from cars to healthcare, “Why be 10% better, when you could be 10 times better?”
Agenda
- Exploring new markets and opportunities for growth
- Learning from the new generation of business and brands
- Creating disruption that shapes and reinvents markets
- Harnessing the power of new technologies and networks
- Living in a “me and we” world, what customers really want
- Fast and personal, social and mobile, collaborative and intelligent
- Design thinking to discover more, harnessing data and analytics
- Experiences beyond boundaries, enabling people to achieve more
- Brands with purpose, going beyond products and sales
- Storytelling that engages, ideas that spread faster
- Influencers beyond advertising, platforms beyond channels
- New tools to win, AI and VR, social and games, prizes and more
- New markets, new business models, and new ways to win
- Driving innovation to go beyond today’s categories and conventions
- Growth hacking and experiments, delivering results fast and agile
- Being the leader of disruption, innovation and exponential growth
Around the world in 80 marketing ideas
What are the best marketing ideas around the world right now? From new products to innovative campaigns, new pricing models and unusual channels to market, where can we look for inspiration and ideas to apply to our businesses. Jules Verne set off on a voyage Around the World in 80 Days.
Global Marketing Summit 2015
I’ve just launched a modern day Treasure Hunt to bring together the 80 best ideas in marketing, and then sharing them over 2 inspiring days at the Global Marketing Summit that I will be chairing in Istanbul on 9-10 December.
To help us, we’ve brought together marketing innovators from each part of the world. From Asia, Kaiser Kuo, Communications Director of Baidu will be joining me, talking about everything from the Chinese internet giant’s battle with Google, to the rapid growth of O2O (online to offline, offline to online) business models across Asia, Baidu’s smart chopsticks to detect unsafe food, and his Chinese heavy metal band. I will also be interviewing HRH Princess Basmah Bint Saud to explore the Middle East, with particular focus on the emerging role of women in business. Virgin’s ex digital guru Alex Hunter will be talking all things entrepreneurial USA, including his grassroots marketing model used by Virgin America to challenge the regulators, and Hamish Taylor, former boss of Eurostar will give a view from Europe, and what CEOs look for in great marketing ideas.
And to accelerate the search, we have two expert treasure hunters, Anouk Pappers and Maarten Schafer from CoolBrands in Amsterdam, who spend six months every year traveling around the world looking for the world’s next big marketing insights. They hang out with the most interesting entrepreneurs and business leaders, communicators and innovators, and then tell their stories. Each year they publish a coffee table book called Around the World in 80 Brands. But their insights go much deeper – into the culture of markets as distant and diverse as Rio de Janeiro and Shanghai – and into what drives personal and brand reputations in today’s hyperactive world.
2 Extraordinary Days in Istanbul
We will travel the world – 4 continents in 4 half-days – Americas, Africa/Middle East, Asia/Pacific, and Europe (incl Turkey). It is like Jules Verne’s “Around the world in 80 days” brought to life with music, food, staging to reflect each region. We will find/share the treasure in three ways
- Marketing gods – one “super-speaker” each half day, a marketing hero/practitioner from each continent, who will deliver a 45 min keynote or interview, but also stay the whole half-day to participate.
- Expert treasure hunters – Anouk Pappers and Maarten Schafer will tell the stories using video, image, skype and storytelling of 40 treasures – 10 from each region – which they have collected on their cool brand world tours
- Crowdsourced treasure hunt – anyone can add the best treasures they find around the world (through personal travel, reading articles etc) and upload to the TreasureHuntTurkey.com. The best 40 – 10 for each region – come up on stage to tell their story.
80 treasures (80 new marketing ideas) over two days … bringing the best new marketing ideas back to summit for marketers to explore and apply to their own businesses. Follow the event live on livestream and #pz2015
Agenda
Get ready to explore the world … to find your treasure, inspired by great explorers – from Ibn Battuta to Christopher Columbus and Elon Musk.
Day 1 morning … Treasures of Middle East and Africa
Special Guest: HRH Princess Basmah Bint Saud joins me to explore the changing mindsets and markets of the Middle East, with focus on the emerging role of women in society and business.
10 Treasures from the Hunters, 10 Treasures from the Crowd
Day 1 afternoon … Treasures of North and South America
Special Guest: Alex Hunter, Digital Guru of Virgin joins me to explore the new digital world, including an insight to his grassroots marketing campaigns to challenge the rules, and launch new businesses.
10 Treasures from the Hunters, 10 Treasures from the Crowd
Day 2 morning … Treasures of Europe
Special Guest: Hamish Taylor, former CEO of Eurostar and Sainsbury Bank joins me to explore a business leaders perspective on what makes a great marketing idea.
10 Treasures from the Hunters, 10 Treasures from the Crowd
Day 2 afternoon … Treasures of Asia Pacific
Special Guest: Kaiser Kuo, Communications Director of Baidu, the leading Chinese internet business, joins me to explore the rise of a new generation of Chinese businesses ready to take on the world.
10 Treasures from the Hunters, 10 Treasures from the Crowd
Midday on day 1 … The Gamechanger Awards 2015
I will be hosting a Gala Awards ceremony, to find the winners of this year’s awards, in a wide range of categories, including large and small companies.
End of day 1 … The CEO Moonshot Dinner
I will again be hosting a VIP invitation-only dinner for business leaders, and special guests. Moonshots are the big ideas that can solve the biggest problems and change the world.
In particular we will explore the best new moonshots from around the emerging world.
Searching for treasure in our own companies – our assets, capabilities and people.