What I Learned At The Art of Marketing

Last Wednesday March 19, I had the privilege of attending the “Art of Marketing” conference in Vancouver. It took place during the TED festivities so many of the speakers were in town regardless. I’m talking about people like Mitch Joel, John Jantsch and Keith Ferrazzi, all who did a good job with their presentations.

One of our speakers, Brian Wong of Kiip spoke in the afternoon. I may be a bit biased, but he brought the house down! Brian wowed the audience with his proclamation that advertising should be viewed through the lens of “rewarding” customers rather than marketing towards them. He did a wonderful job and I was very proud of him.

Some of the best tweets regarding Brian’s talk:

“Wow! Blown away by @brian_wong’s brilliance; great speech! #TheArtOf”

“@TheArtOf I could feel the passion from @brian_wong. He really brought his energy to the crowd. Just brilliant!”

“I’m in love with @Brian_Wong. What an amazing hour of inspiration! #TheArtOf Thank you Brian!”

Along with Brian, Seth Godin was one of the best speakers of the day. He opened the day and took the audience to school, effortlessly weaving case study, motivation and humour into a brilliant powerpoint and talk. He challenged us as marketers to push harder, take risks, do more to standout not be afraid of failure.

A few of my favourite quotes from his talk:

“The guy who invented the ship invented the shipwreck”

“If failure isn’t an option, neither is success”

“Human beings like doing what other human beings are doing”

“If they don’t think they (customers) want it (your product) – you’re invisible”

“If there was a map, it wouldn’t be art”

The one big question I was left pondering as I went to sleep that night was one of the final questions Seth posed to the crowd. It stuck with me in its raw simplicity:

“What is it like to be one of your customers?”

Over the coming weeks and months, I will seek to answer that question honestly. Eventually, the goal is to make every speaker and client I work with proud to call me a partner for their events. I don’t think I’m close to there yet, but my experience last week pushed me to fly a little bit closer to the sun.