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Something Digital Festival 2018 – Wrap-Up

Last week saw the inaugural Something Digital Brisbane Festival take place over two days. The event was the first of its kind for Brisbane, bringing together a range of stakeholders within the digital space. From startups to enterprise organisations, it was a gathering of the very best minds in the community and a platform to share knowledge on all the latest and greatest in digital, tech and marketing.

Day One – Something Digital Conference

Day one of the festival was the main event – an all-day conference which featured an impressive roster of speakers, panels and facilitators. The lineup included four international keynote speakers with respective expertise in artificial intelligence, block-chain, machine learning, media and technology. Reload’s own founder, Llew Jury was also up on stage facilitating two panels around the topics of Marketing and Digital Thought Leadership.

We had a small team present at the conference, featuring representatives from both Reload Media and Reload Consulting. All of them described the day as non-stop and action-packed and a true indicator that Brisbane is helping to lead the way in digital. Here are some of their key takeouts from the conference:

Business Intelligence MUST Come Before Artificial Intelligence

The event kicked off with keynote speaker Adam Bonnifield of AirBus, who highlighted how AI has been completely reinvented in the past decade. We are now at a point where technology is not just a way of catching up, but a way of driving new possibilities for the future. However, we must keep in mind that these developments can be a double edge sword. In the case of AI, we need to monitor what datasets it is being fed in order to ensure unbiased outcomes.

Technology Can Enrich Businesses of All Kinds

Using technology to enrich the customer experience doesn’t have to be limited to ‘traditionally digital businesses’. For example, Dominoes has been using technology consistently over the last decade to help improve the pizza ordering and delivery process. Most recently, they have developed AI technology which further improves quality control and customer satisfaction.

Refocusing the Customer Journey

In a panel discussion facilitated by Reload’s very own Llew Jury, Vanessa Brennan of Michael Hill emphasised that we can all benefit by taking the time to plan out and understand who our customers actually are. Understanding the journey these individuals and groups experience helps us realise how to connect with customers most effectively at each stage of their journey. Sometimes it’s necessary to take a step back and ask the question – are we using our channels in the ways which customer would appreciate? How can we make the journey of the customer more focused on what they actually want and need and not just on what we assume they’d want and need?

Capitalising on Innovation

Executives recognise the disruption around us with the uptake of digital innovation and emerging technologies. Deon Libenberg from Optus Business highlighted that our future is a “connected one” and that we need to be reflecting on how this will genuinely affect us and our organisations. We need to capitalise on this innovation, let it work for good, and use the data we capture to help us understand all the journeys involved. If we don’t, we’ll be left behind.

There are Tech Leaders in Our Own Backyard

Homegrown Australian businesses are proving that the need to go to Silicon Valley to find leaders in digital technology is a pure misconception. We have tech leaders in our own backyard that are helping shape the way businesses can utilise technology to improve themselves. This point was driven home by Holly Cardew of Pixc, a graphic design and photo editing business born here in Australia, but staffing freelancers from all around the world. By harnessing the power of the internet, Pixc is essentially able to operate 24/7, every day of the year, with clients from all around the world.  It’s time for Australians to stop holding ourselves back and realise that our own tech companies deserve a place in the innovation discussion.

Day Two – Open Studios

 

Day two of the Something Digital Festival saw industry leaders across Brisbane open their doors to the public and share their own expertise and knowledge through workshops and presentations. Reload was proud to participate in the first ever open studios and hosted a casual discussion on Behavioural Marketing across Digital. With beers on offer, it was a great way  for many to conclude the two-day festival.

Led by Hayley Vale of Reload Consulting and Emily Forrest of Reload media, the discussion focused around how digital marketing works best when businesses focus on marketing to their customers behaviours, rather than thinking strictly in channels.

Hayley kicked things off by explaining the importance of understanding your customer and your own business and how they both interact online. Through the use of pixels, tracking and data capture, we can better interpret the way that customers are interacting with our brand. By mapping out the customer journey and understanding the questions and pain points raised each stage, businesses are able to make more informed decisions when it comes creating and implementing a digital strategy.

Emily carried on from this point and gave insight into some of the tactics that implemented once a business has a greater understanding of their customer journey. While there are countless tactics that can be considered, Emily chose to focus on five in particular:

  1. Email Marketing
  2. Remarketing
  3. Social Media Marketing
  4. Programmatic Advertising
  5. Geo-Fencing

For more in depth look at what was discussed, you can access the slide deck from the presentation below.

So the inaugural Something Digital Festival can only be described as a fantastic success. As mentioned, it was great to see the Brisbane digital community come out in droves and share in each others knowledge and expertise. We’d also like to once again the team at Something Digital for allowing Reload to host an Open Studio. We had a great time and can’t wait to get involved again next year.

Until then you can follow @Reload_Media and @ReloadConsult on Twitter, for all your digital updates and news.

Reload Team
Reload Team

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