The Union hosted the second-largest World Meeting gathering for Worldwide Partners in Edinburgh recently. Beginning with a cocktail reception on Sunday, May 17, 2009, the meeting kicked off on May 18th with an enthusiastic welcome from Scottish Cabinet Secreatry Kenny MacAskill. Attendees then conducted regional breakout sessions, followed by an afternoon of presentations featuring Jim Fraser of Unwin, Wittering & Zigo Ltd. on “Virtual Globes: The Challenge to Marketing” and 23red’s Adam Wyle on Branded Entertainment and Property Brokerage.” Rick Milenthal of Engauge presented “Trading Down, The Emergence Of The Middle Tier Brand” and Frederica Falchero of InAdv presented a new idea of developing an interactive network, “WPI Interactive Division”.
On the evening of the 18th of May, delegates attended a party at The Union, complete with samplings of haggis, scotch whisky tastings, a pipe band, a clan sword fight and Scottish dancing into the wee hours.
Jerry Rosen of Rosen & Brichta kicked off Day Two on May 19th with Greg Stuart, author of the book “What Sticks” presenting his ideas on “What’s Next For Agencies.” Deputy Editor of Contagious Magazine, Jess Greenwood finished the morning session with “What Advertising? The Art Of Getting People To Forget That They’re Watching An Ad.” The Founder of search agency Source Martin, Brian Martin presented an afternoon kick off entitled, “Positioning Yourself To Succeed In Today’s New Business Environment.” Which was followed by presentations by Concept Farm’s Griffin Stenger on working together to present Greenpeace with social media concepts in December 2009, and Roxana Bannach-Lin from JUICE Pharma Worldwide, on demonstrating on to use the network via the Gardasil Case Study.
The WPI Board of Director’s Update and PR Update; were presented by WPI Chairman Ian McAteer, President/CEO Al Moffatt and Secretary/Treasurer Mary Farrell. In short, the network is financially strong with 94 partners in 55 countries with $3.4 billion in capitalized billings.
On Wednesday, May 20th day three was led by Marin de Munnik of LaMarque, and began with a presentation entitled, “Change Happens—The Demolition and Reconstruction of The Consumer Landscape” by Yannis Kavounis, Director of Futures Company. A lively presentation by author, Ron Alsop on “Maximizing the Talents of Younger Employees” finished out the third morning session. Mark Tyndall of Artemis presented “Worldwide Economic Trends and Projections.” Followed by HPI Research’s David Iddiols and Simon Foster in a session entitled “Where Next? Positive Thinking In Global Research.”, whereby HPI’s virtual focus group was a big hit for partners.
The final session was delivered by Nick Meyern, Director of Branded Content for BBC World News on “Branded Entertainment.” Al Garcia-Serra, COO/Co-Chairman, Machado|Garcia-Serra Communications offered a formal invitation to the WPI 2010 World Meeting in Miami, Florida.
The Meeting Attendees were then treated to an evening of Scottish tradition and hospitality at Hopetoun House. Approximately 30 attendees took to the wearing of the kilt and the evening involved Burns poetry, more whisky and dancing. The Union would like to thank the WPI staff for organising a great event and to all the attendees for visiting Edinburgh to make such a success of the event.
Delegates at the final evening’s event at Hopetoun House outside Edinburgh.