Steve George from Savage Marketing shares more about the powerhouse marketing conference coming soon, Savage.Z 2019
Social Media Portal (SMP): What is your name and what do you do there for Savage Marketing and Savage.Z 2019?Steve George (SG): I?m Steve George, project director at Savage Marketing. I manage program development, topic research, and speaker acquisition for Savage Marketing and Savage.Z.
SMP: Briefly tell us about Savage.Z 2019 SG: Savage.Z is our Gen Z specific event on
30 January 2019 in Berlin, Germany. The event will showcase brands that are actively engaging with the future consumers and winning them on their terms.
Gen Z has proven to be a digitally hyper engaged consumer segment and brands need to think of channels, means and methods to effectively and authentically market to them.
SMP: How long has the event been going and what does it strive to achieve?SG: This is the 1st annual Savage.Z event. Conceptualized at Savage Marketing 2018, it?s where brands like Coca Cola, Philips, Business Insider, BBC Online, Huawei, and others shared the importance of engaging future consumers and predicted what the future of shopping should look like. Savage.Z is a response to the markets need to better understand strategies to market to the next biggest consumer group in a personalised and engaging manner.
The event aims to:
- Open a genuine dialog between senior B2C marketing leaders across numerous industries.
- Create better consumer marketing and advertising strategies, campaigns, and practices.
- Help marketers make informed decisions and meet with their target audience at the conference.
- Meet with a select group of tech vendors who are paving the way towards rapid innovation.
SMP: What do you hope about Savage.Z 2019 delegates will take away from the event and why?SG: Major takeaways would be:
- The benefits of hyper segmentation.
- Hinging brand success on transparency and brand trust.
- Thinking ahead on brand collaboration and product innovation.
- The changing landscape of social and its impact both online and offline.
Marketers need to take the next step and get out of their comfort zones. Usual practices of geographic and demographic segmentation aren?t going to cut it. Gen Zers like to be well informed and are conscious of their environmental and health impact. Companies will need to work with them rather than sweep one under the rug and pray the young generation don?t find out.
SMP: Why is Savage.Z 2019 conference an important event for the industry?SG: Sharing stories is a natural human behaviour. Whether it be a good or bad experience, we want to share it. The same is true in marketing!
Senior marketers have read through a number of theoretical scenarios, but they want case stories. They are interested in learning how the marketing teams are set up and which KPIs to measure for success. While these change for various industries, consumer behaviour remains the same.
This added element of no bulls💩💩t, pure facts, and being open about the limitations we as marketers face to find new ways to engage with audiences and share stories of amazing campaigns is what Savage is all about.
SMP: How can stakeholders get involved?SG: That?s simple.
If you are an enterprise marketer, publisher, or advertiser, reach out to our head of customer experience,
Jason Clowes at Jason[at]savagemarketing.io.Service providers with amazing tech solutions, innovative products and agencies, should contact
Saida Ayupova, our head of partnerships, at
saida[at]savagemarketing.io.
Thought leaders who have a strong case story or experience to share as speakers, keynotes, workshop leaders should email me (
Steve George) at
steve[at]savagemarketing.io. I?m always looking for interesting content, thorough research, and to talk all things digital.
We are also quite active on social platforms like
LinkedIn,
Twitter,
Facebook and
Instagram. Use
#SavageZ,
#SavageMarketing or
#SavageMktg in your communication and we will respond ASAP.
SMP: Provide a flavour of what delegates can expect to experienceSG: Think of every question you have about Gen Z, every assumption you make, every campaign you run to engage them. Now, we won?t promise to answer all of it. But what attendees will get is a healthy dose of what other marketers from leading B2C brands are doing, what they have learned, and how they communicate with Gen Z.
The participants will meet with young marketers and consumers and hear from them on what excited them about products, marketing campaigns, and ads. Plus you get to ask our thought leaders all those questions you want answers to. See our program and
agenda at the Savage.Z website.
Personally, I couldn?t relate to Gen Z when I started researching the topic. I remember thinking of brands like Luis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, and Facebook as Gen Z brands, but boy was I wrong!
My awesome Gen Z advisors - Bianka, Kate, Martin, and Nora - were quick to point out the most trending brands, ad campaigns, and products they buy. I wrote a short article based on the
numerous conversations I had with them.
Another challenge is to find marketers and brands who are confident to share their experiences. Brands have not yet shifted their focus to Gen Z and this is a huge error on their part. We were all late addressing Millennials, we should not repeat the same mistake, or else face the dangers of irrelevancy.
SMP: What are the high moments of what you have been experiencing?SG: There are many highs in putting together a Savage event. I remember my first conversation with Antje Hundhausen from Deutsche Telekom on a topic for the event. She was ecstatic that we were planning a Gen Z specific event. Her work on Fashion Fusion, the amazing brand collaborations she has achieved, and the type of smart products they are creating are testament to the products we can all expect Gen Z to be excited about.
Since then, I have had amazing conversations with Nestle, Volkswagen, ESL, Facebook, Tomorrowland, and hundreds of marketers on their work in 2019. And it?s exciting to be in my position! To be aware of the changes before being implemented and to see how these changes improve the overall customer journey and create multiple touch points. Simply Savage!
SMP: Is there anything else we should know, or is there anything that you?d like to?SG: Come with your thinking cap on, be ready to learn, share and engage with the audience, the speakers, and our tech visionaries. We place a lot of importance on engagement and interaction ? this is why Savage was born, this is why we work so hard on our events.
In addition to Savage.Z, we also have
The Future of Shopping Workshop on 31st January for a select group of attendees due to limited spaces and the highly interactive nature of the workshop. It will dissect popular practices in the B2C industry such as omni-channel marketing strategy, reimagining experience hubs, psychographic marketing, budget allocation and tech to invest in.
Each workshop session features two parts: an in depth-presentation by a workshop leader and a group discussion following it.
SMP: Best way to contact you and Savage.Z 2019?SG: You can reach us
through the website, where our awesome chat bot is always on duty. But otherwise, I?m available on steve[at]savagemarketing.io or via my LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevegeorgemathew
Now some questions for fun
SMP: What did you have for breakfast / lunch?SG: Lunch was breaded chicken with mashed potatoes. Not my favourite but it?s food made with love.
SMP: What?s the last good thing that you did for someone?SG: Ooh, you?ve put me on the spot to name the good things I do. I teach a free self-defence class every summer for kids and adults.
SMP: If you weren?t working on Savage.Z 2019 what would you be doing?SG: Working on Savage Marketing ;-). But seriously, I would be working on another event where tech meets business in daily life.
SMP: When / where did you go on your last holiday and why?SG: I was in India last summer exploring North India, visiting the usual suspects: Taj Mahal, the Pink Palace, the amazing Forts made by the Mughals, Rajputs, and, of course, visiting family.
I love India. Chaos in India is relaxing, it puts me at ease.
SMP: What?s the first thing you do when you get into the office of a morning?SG: Shout ?Good Morning!? to an empty room as loud as I can while listening to 80s hits. I come in early, so this helps me to start the day on an extremely high note.
SMP: If you had a superpower what would it be and why?SG: To be wolverine, filled with Adamantium and fearless. Wolverine represents every man on the planet ? daring, caring and does what?s needed, throwing caution to the wind.