MAD//FEST: A View From The Street Market

A couple of weeks ago, I ( along with what seemed to be the whole of media agency land) attended MAD//FEST - my first in-person conference in over two years.

It was only my third trip into London since the beginning of the pandemic. The sheer number of people was overwhelming at first and I’m pretty sure I lost all my social skills during lockdown but I soon got back into the swing of things.

If you didn’t get a chance to go, here are some highlights from my day.

Old Media

In media your network is everything. I am forever grateful for the amazing people that I have met in this industry, which I was reminded of when I saw so many of my old media friends. People that I’ve known for the best part of 15 years and have grown up alongside – like Angelique Whittaker (Inskin Media), Dan Jones (Cavai) and Rob Garber (JustPremium). One the first day, it took me 1.5 hours to take the 10 minute walk to the food cart because I kept bumping into people along the way!

New Media

I also got a chance to meet people IRL who I had met for the first time over Zoom / Microsoft Teams / Google Meet during the last year and a half. People like Dan Calladine from Carat and Ben Fraser from Publicis, who were kind enough to give me the time of day during lockdown.

The Big Leagues

As a startup media consultant, this was a prime opportunity to meet new startups as well as those that I’ve been working with but hadn’t yet met in person. So a big part of the two days were spent in the Startup Street Market.

Yet, one of the highlights for me was seeing the (six year) “overnight successes” Good-loop and A Million Ads migrate from the startup scene to pitch along side the "more established" media owners in the main hall.

I first met Amy Williams at Ad:tech London back in 2017. I was sitting next to her when she won the Nestle Henri innovation pitch. This year she was moderating a discussion on Brand Purpose up on stage. Similarly, I remember meeting Steve Dunlop and Silke Zetzsche early on when they were first taking their dynamic audio solution to agencies. I have a certain amount of (misplaced) pride in seeing those startups standing shoulder to shoulder with the big boys & girls. These are two examples of companies that any aspiring martech startup at the beginning of their journey should aim to be like.

Scaled Up Startups

When I used to go to startup conferences, I was acutely aware that a large percentage of companies pitching demos wouldn’t make it in the long run. And often it wasn’t down to the product or the solution, but more about getting in front of the right people. That’s why I have focused my consultancy on helping startups access brands and agencies to help combat this lack of exposure.

It was therefore amazing to see Ricardo Varela from Localistico and Jonny Grubin from SoPost win the M&S and Reckitt Benckiser Brand Challenges. Startups that I have known for years, that continue to go from strength to strength.

You (May Have) Heard It Here First

Okay cool story about reflected glory – so what?

Seeing these companies doing so well, made me believe that I have an eye for startups who have a future in the industry. I also have the belief that the startups I am currently associated with, will go on to be household names in the industry in the next few years.

I spent a good part of the conference with Jason Binks from Personalyze and David Bell from Flux Outdoor. Both have made good inroads into agencies but who are severely underutilised in my honest opinion.

And finally, I spent the majority of my time with a new startup called NumberEight – a company I started working with in November but had yet to meet in person. They pitched for the Diageo Brand Challenge and were part of the startup street market.

Abhishek Sen and his team have built a platform, which I believe is the future of privacy first on-device contextual audiences, something they have been working on for a good few years now. They are genuinely ones to watch over the next few years. You couldn’t miss them, they were next to the Campari stand and with the adorable dog, Aurora.

Please don’t sue me

That’s it from me. I was so busy meeting people that I forgot to take any photos – all photos you see here are from people more conscientious that myself. Very grateful to Jim Kite for the invite, to Jeremy Basset and the guys at CoCubed for putting on the awesome startup sessions and Dan Brain and the team at #MADFEST for an excellent conference.

If you didn’t get a chance to go this year, I highly recommend you check it out next year. And as always, if you are a startup reading this please do get in touch. I love to learn about new ideas and to support you to grow. Network really is everything!