As most of you already know, Branding Magazine was the official marketing website for the royal event in Zagreb, Croatia - The Marketing Kingdom. We have covered the whole event live, tweeted and shared opinions about branding with delegates and speakers.

The beginning of the conference was great. Shiny lights, lasers, music, everything was done brilliantly and we knew that we are going to be a part of an amazing experience. Kosta Petrov, Chief Experience Officer at The P World and Ida Pandur, Vice President of External Relations at iSTUDIO welcomed all delegates and opened the event.

What I quite liked about this experience is that there were a couple of hosts instead of only one – there were Ida Pandur, Tomislav Pancirov, Danijel Artenjak and Petra Ignjatovic – the Incredibles from iSTUDIO. The delegates also had the opportunity to be picked by the hosts and listen to the presentations on stage as royalty – by sitting on a throne.

Day One

The first speaker was Sietse Bakker, Event Supervisor at Eurovision Song Contest and Author for How To Live Wow.  It was very interesting to listen about the effects social media has when it comes to big contests such as the Eurovision contest, and how it can transform the whole audience into fans. The strongest message Sietse Bakker has sent us was that it is very important to share and create a story. He told us that all marketers need to think about the six psychological needs, to be realistic and to hire a guy in a garage who will be their brand ambassador.

Sietse Bakker, Event Supervisor Eurovision Song Contest

If you are coming to an event where an emplyee from Facebook is speaking, you know your up for some powerful experience. We had a chance to listen to Bruce Bale, Head of Sales for CEEMEA at Facebook, and watch a live stream of the Facebook Marketing Conference in New York the day before the Marketing Kingdom. The content from his presentations was mostly similar as the content from the fMC, but then again, effective and interesting. He talked about the key principles you should stick to in order ro complete a winning marketing campaign in todays connected world. It was also a good presentation about Facebook Brand Pages featuring their own timeline and advice on how to recommend content successfully on Facebook.

Bruce Bale, Head of Sales, Facebook

The next speaker was Daniel Ackermann, Co-Founder and CSO at iSTDUIO. I can say that his presentation was sort of an addition to Bruce Bale’s one. iSTUDIO is an excellent interactive agency focused on social media campaigns, and Daniel presented some of their tools for measuring the success on social media. I liked this message from him a lot: “Work for the numbers and the numbers will work for you.”

Daniel Ackermann, Co-Founder, iSTUDIO

I think that everyone had a feeling that the presentation from LEGO will be special. And you know what, the dream came true. Lars Silberbauer, Head of Social Media at LEGO Group put a real effort in his presentation. How can someone not love LEGO? It’s probably in the top five of enthusiastic brands in the world. Lars explained how LEGO is doing social media campaigns through engagement of their audience and creating social media platforms that raise creativity in LEGO consumers, therefore increasing sales. Maybe the most suprising fact from his presentation was that only 3 people are running the whole social media campaigns for the firm. Shocking, right? I very much enjoyed his presentation – he shared great advice for positioning your brand in social media.

Lars Silberbauer, Head of Social Media, LEGO Group

Timothy White, Head of eMarketing at Novartis talked about pharma marketing and why all regular methods don’t work in pharma as they do in campaigns for beverages, kicks, shirts and so on. One of the key rules in pharma marketing is you can’t talk to your consumers. Tim said that it’s time to digitalize everything in pharma. Hospitals should use tablets, because they are trendy and they are certainly the future. Through the technology you can connect to your audience.

Timothy White, Head of eMarketing, Novartis

What are the secrets of the best social media marketers and how do they target the audience were the questions which were answered by Martijn de Jong, Director Online & eCommerce at Tele2. He explained how telephone operators aren’t so much loved in social media as brands such as Coca-Cola or LEGO and that’s why brands like Tele 2 are exposed to both positive and negative interaction on their social media channels. Martijn has thought us that you can never ignore negative comments. You have to keep your wall posts opened.

Martijn de Jong, Director Online & eCommerce, Tele2

It was time for a little bit of football chat. Next on the stage was Julian Pate, Head of Marketing at Manchester City Football Club and he talked about developing an integrated marketing communications strategy. What I liked about his speech was that almost everything depends of the football pitch. Which is, I must say, true. But what is interesting about this football club is that they’re very engaged on social networks and that they are trying to make their fans happy through games such as FIFA 2012 and of course, new trophies.

Julian Pate, Head of Marketing, Manchester City Football Club

Next keynote speaker was Rebecca Jones, Head of Marketing Planning at BBC Worldwide. This presentation was about marketing versus technology and that sometimes you have to stick with traditional methods if you want to succeed. Rebecca explained how BBC treats a customer which is very important in management.

Rebecca Jones, Head of Marketing Planning, BBC Worldwide

Frank van der Heijden, Commercial Director at Coca-Cola Hellenic started his speech about understanding the needs and habits of shoppers which will help you to sell more. He gave delegates an excellent example of how branding can be a key to complete success comparing Coca-Cola and Walmart spendings on advertising.

Frank van der Heijden, Commercial Director, Coca-Cola Hellenic

The last presentation for day one was from Marc Rougier, President and Co-Founder of Scoop.it. The point of his speech was to focus on a content and deliver it through social media channels.

Day Two

The second day started with two amazing speakers and their unique introductions. Chris Stock, Managing Director at FourThirds and Ian Hunter, Global Head of Cloud Marketing at Fujitsu entered the conference hall on bicycles in a Mission Impossible style. That kind of introduction made the whole crowd ready for something different and unique. They named their presentation: “Marketing From The Heart”. The message that they tried to send us is to focus on our health and energy. We need to be team players. That’s also a formula to success. My personal opinion is that similar events have to have presentations like this one. They simply just boost you up!

Chris Stock, Managing Director at FourThirds & Ian Hunter, Global Head of Cloud Marketing at Fujitsu

The next speaker was Head of Yahoo! Expansion Markets, Joshua Patridge who talked about new rules in digital marketing. He explained what were the reasons which were holding Yahoo! to develop its digital marketing.

Joshua Patridge, Head of Yahoo! Expansion Markets

After Yahoo!’s presentation, the crowd had an opportunity to listen Andrija Frincic, Business Development Director at SAGENA. His presentation explained how to engage your customer through social enabled digital signage. His firm was credited for creating the (may I say, fantastic) Twitter Wall at this manifestation.

Andrija Frnčić, Business Development Director at SAGENA

I’ve listened to this gentleman twice. First time in Belgrade, and now in Zagreb, and I knew that he is going to make his speech memorable again. Mads Holmen is the Planning Director at Go Viral. Video content is an important part of every brand and its position on the market. He told us that an average user spends eight times more time on a page where there is a video, therefore, video and social networks are soulmates. You need 4 things to make a social video work: content, technology, brand channels and distribution. What I liked about this topic is that for all educational definitions there were video examples. Finally he got a big round of applause which he deserved.

Zuzanna Gierlinska is Global Agency Director at Microsoft Advertising and she talked about new dimensions of screens and why is touching the screen the most intimate moment with your phone or a tablet, comparing them with “lovers”. This statement is so true, just think about forgetting your phone somewhere with all your personal stuff and information in it! You certainly wouldn’t be happy about that, right?

The next lecture was from Alex Conabeare, Head of Digital and Brand at Citi. He talked about global and local branding and what is the meaning of the term digital brand. His definition was that the digital brand is the emotional experience that people have through digital mediums and digital brand strategies. The point is to make a bond between users and a brand, creating powerful digital campaigns.

Alex Conabeare, Head of Digital and Brand, Citi

Ryan Eckel is an afterhour athlete and Head of Marketing for Eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa and India who works at PUMA. He started his presentation with asking the delegates to pass their mobile phone to the person next to them. This made the whole crowd laughing and showed that we’re treat our phones exactly like “lovers”. What I liked about PUMA is that it’s a brand full of energy. Ryan said that it’s important to focus on your visual presentation and design. He said that PUMA is focusing on afterhour athletes who are its audience. The presentation was full of great video clips which made the audience in the hall fully concentrate.

Ryan Eckel, Head of Marketing for Eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa, PUMA

The last speaker at this event was Dennis van Heezik, Program Director of Digital Marketing at Philips. He named his presentation “Digital Marketing as a Service” and told us that multi channel branding is very important for positioning service, products or a brand on the market.

Dennis van Heezik, Program Director of Digital Marketing at Philips

To sum it all up, the Marketing Kingdom was one irreplaceable experience. Over 400 delegates were at the event and they have changed the complete regional marketing industry. We should all be thankful for the people who supported this event, people from The P World and iSTUDIO. Without their creativity and organization this fantastic event wouldn’t be possible.

You can see that the speakers have been focused mostly on digital marketing. Why digital? Digital is certainly the future and most audiences and consumers are reachable through digital services. The point is to create a complete package of content which will engage your consumers. You can choose whether it’s going to be viral video, smart phone app, QR code, and get to the core of your target group. Sometimes you should stick to the traditional assets if you know that something like that will have an effect on your audience.

All in all – Interact, because interaction is a great tool of finding out who are really your consumers. Get proper feedback, invest your trust into consumers, share, connect and respond.