Kyle Lacy, Principal of Marketing Research and Education, ExactTarget, and author of ‘Twitter Marketing for Dummies’ and ‘Branding Yourself’

Author of two acclaimed books, Twitter Marketing for Dummies and Branding Yourself, Kyle Lacy is a Principal of Marketing Research & Education for ExactTarget, a leading global provider of interactive marketing solutions.

He has an in-depth understanding of the application of social and interactive media for both small and large businesses and regularly speaks on topics ranging from social media adoption to interactive marketing trends across email, mobile and social media.

Kyle has been recognized as one of Indiana’s  Forty-under-40 by the Indianapolis Business Journal, Anderson University’s Young Alumni of the Year and TechPoint’s Young Professional of the Year.

He also serves on the Board of Directors for Exodus House, Earth House Collective and the Paramount Theater

Andy Harding, Director of Ecommerce, House of Fraser

Econsultancy have known Andy at least since his early days in e-commerce as Head of E-commerce at Carphone Warehouse more than a decade ago. And he's a semi-regular on the Econsultancy Digital Ski trip (a very handy boarder...). 

House of Fraser were shortlisted in Econsultancy's 2012 Innovation Awards in the Multichannel Marketing category. Andy thinks they deserved to win. And it's true HoF have been doing some very innovative work like their virtual store in Aberdeen. 

Based on his many years in e-commerce we've asked Andy to paint a vision for us as to how he sees future shopping experiences evolving - we expect it won't just be digital but multichannel.

A bit more on Andy:

"Andy Harding is the Director of Ecommerce for the House of Fraser and is responsible for the UK and international, online and mobile strategy.  He has over 12 years experience in online and multi-channel retail. 

He began his career at Bhs but his fascination with ecommerce started when he joined the IT team at the Carphone Warehouse where he was responsible for the redevelopment of the first Carphone website.  A move to the commercial team as Head of eCommerce meant his passion for usability and online marketing could be utilised to exponentially grow their online sales. Later part of the team that delivered the market changing ‘Free Broadband’ initiative for TalkTalk and recently as Multi Channel Director at Ryman, he has a broad experience in managing successful online businesses."

Natalie Cowen, Head of Brand and Communications, first direct

first direct have a longstanding reputation for outstanding customer service and a very social, open, brand. And they have continued this online. first direct regularly tops polls and indexes for the best online service - have a look at this Engagement Index as one example. 

Natalie herself has contributed a number of articles to Econsultancy's blog on this topic and others. So who better to come and talk to us about social customer service in terms of what first direct have already learnt but also how they see it evolving.  

More about Natalie:

Natalie has worked for first direct since July 2007, taking over the role of Head of Brand and Communications in June 2010.  Born in South Africa, Natalie began her career in the world of sports marketing launching Cadbury Schweppes’ sports drink brand Energade, where she supported the sponsorships of the national ruby, cricket and hockey teams, as well as local regional teams and individuals.  

In 2008 she joined Matthew’s & Charter, Ogilvy & Mather, working across diverse industries such as development finance, travel and tourism, premium carpets, and medical and surgical.  After moving to London from South Africa in 2000 she worked for Chime Communications as an account director firstly at advertising agency Roose and Partners and then at Heresy (which subsequently merged with VCCP).  During her time at Heresy, Natalie ran the account for IPC Media’s Connect division – creating advertising campaigns for Now magazine, as well as launching weekly real-life title, Pick Me Up.  She also led the T.G.I. Friday’s account and successfully ran the pitch for Metro.  Natalie made the move up North to be close to family and for a life in the country!

James Keady, Global Digital Marketing Manager, McLaren

James has had a wide range of experience across various brands and industry sectors, including Automotive (McLaren), Finance (National Australia Bank), FMCG (Foster’s Group Limited), Healthcare (GlaxoSmithKline). Given his long experience with branding, digital, and strategy, we've asked James to give his views on how the marketing mix is evolving across owned, earned and bought media. How are marketers starting to use digital more to engage customers via 'content' in the broadest form to deliver on objectives, build brands and fuel conversations.

As Global Digital Marketing Manager for McLaren Automotive, James is responsible for the digital marketing strategy and delivery including brand awareness and advocacy through to class-beating ownership experience. Previously as Senior Digital Manager at GSK Europe James was responsible for driving change, building capability and digital initiatives across Europe.

Simon Andrews, Founder, addictive

We've worked with Simon for many years. He's very smart. Addictive's blog (http://www.addictivemobile.com/blog/) is one of the best around for all things mobile. So who better to talk some sense about where you should be focusing this year in terms of mobile?

More details on Simon:

"addictive is the full service mobile agency Simon launched in 2010. Clients include Diageo, Hearst Magazines, Liverpool Victoria, SportingBet & VisitBritain.

Simon has been running digital agencies since 1995. He was one of 3 partners who launched what became Modem Media in Europe – growing a business from 6 people in one room in Soho to 250 people in London, Paris and Munich. Clients included IBM, GM, PlayStation, Amazon, FT.com and Unilever.

He then joined DLKW in 1999 at the time of their MBO and built DLKW Dialogue into one of Londons most respected digital agencies before launching Big Picture in 2005, which focused on emerging media such as mobile & social.

He joined WPP MindShare in November 2006 as Global Chief Digital Strategy Officer - focused on ensuring that key clients receive the best digital thinking and doing. Simon was also highly involved in developing the talent, product and processes necessary to deliver this thinking and doing.

Before going digital Simon was Media Planning Director of Young & Rubicam and Zenith Media, and then Account Planning Director of Ogilvy Direct.

Simon lives in East London with wife Deb and his two sons Ethan and Isaac, who he is trying to have share his enthusiasm for obscure soul and jazz records and the thankfully less obscure Leeds United."

Nick Fuller, Director of Strategy & Analytics, e-Dialog International

Nick Fuller has over 25 years’ experience in direct marketing spanning digital (over the last 12 years particularly in email and mobile) and traditional channels (including direct mail and call centres.)  He has worked across brands as diverse as Peugeot, Legal & General, Capital Radio, Dell and Thomas Cook in both client and marcomms service organizations including Lloyds TSB and Experian.

Nick leads e-Dialog’s strategy and development initiatives within EMEA which includes consultancy engagements and proposition development with a particular focus on multi channel.

Nick is a Fellow of the Institute of Direct Marketing (F IDM), a former member of the board of the Direct Marking Association and former Chair of the DMA Mobile Marketing Council.

Glen Conybeare, Chief Commercial Officer, Stickyeyes

Stickyeyes was recently named as one of the fastest growing technology, media and telecoms companies in the UK in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 and is the first agency in Europe to achieve Mobile Marketing Association accreditation for its entire client-facing team. They have been shortlisted for the Econsultancy Innovation Awards for the last three years and their market insight is regularly featured on the Econsultancy blog – most recently in a study on the balance between social volume and engagement in the retail sector. Experienced in the retail, financial, legal, travel and gaming sectors, Stickyeyes currently work with GSK-owned Maxinutrition, LOVEFiLM, ghd and Phones 4U amongst others.

Glen is a member of the Senior Executive team at digital marketing agency Stickyeyes with direct responsibility for business development, New Product Development, R&D, Insight and Marketing teams. Prior to co-founding real-time content optimisation company Cognitive Match, Glen held positions at digital media agency i-level, was the Head of Poker for Mansion.com and also Client Services Director for Touch Clarity (acquired by Omniture).  He has also previously consulted for web design agencies on projects for Victor Chandler, Intercasino, Ladbrokes and Camelot.

Ling Valentine, Boss, LINGsCARS.com

In Ling's own words (there's no other sensible way to do it) from her LinkedIn profile:

"I don't have much "professional woman" experience, never having worked as a prostitute. 

However, LINGsCARS is already the UK's favourite car leasing company. I have well over 100,000 unique web visitors a month. That is over 1.2m per year. This just keeps growing and growing. My sales figures keep growing, for example in the month of March 2011 my Gross Profit was in excess of £40,000.

I have some exciting new concepts up my sleeves. One is a business retailing clothes into China, and I turned over £100,000 in a 3-month trial Jan to March 2011, prior to formalising the business in China. I have proved the success of this business, proved it can be done.

I will soon be also supplying a Chinese web service for other UK companies with goods that will sell in China, enabling UK businesses to have selling web pages to Chinese public within the Great Firewall. The websites will be selling goods in Chinese RMB and remitting to their UK bank in GBP. A major Chinese payment processor will handle the shopping cart sales. Goods can be despatched via a Chinese courier company direct to the end users. All this, without a Chinese company and 100% legal with a ICP licence to operate in China. Interested parties, please contact me.

I also have another, different, car advertising business in build.

Busy, busy.

Specialties: Dealing with awkward car dealers, delighting customers, annoying any idiots who may stumble on my business website LINGsCARS.com."

Karl Havard, Client Strategy Director, TBG Dgitial

Econsultancy have worked with Karl over many years. Karl has delivered a lot of training for Econsultancy among other things. Karl is very smart, a great thinker, particularly on topics such as social, trust, strategy, influence, branding online etc. Indeed, he's currently working on a PhD on "Brand Engagement Strategy and the impact of Social Media". 

More on Karl from his LinkedIn profile:

"Karl joined TBG Digital at the end of March 2012. He has been involved in the online world since 1996. During the last fifteen years or so, Karl has immersed himself in a number of digital disciplines including web performance, web analytics, search, social and user experience, with a key focus on consumer motivation, behaviour and measurement i.e. who does what online, and why. 

The accumulation of these disciplines enables Karl to focus on all aspects of the consumer and customer journey, which encompasses interaction between consumer and brands, and between consumers themselves. 

Karl has previously set up, led and sold a number of digital agencies in the UK and is now the Client Strategy Director of TBG Digital. He is also an Econsultancy lecturer and delivers courses covering online engagement and social strategy. He also delivers modules around digital strategy for Digital Marketing MSc students. Prior to entering the agency world, Karl served 10 years in the British Army.

Specialties: online trust, brand consumer trust, digital brand engagement, digital brand experience, social media, social web."

Rob Walk, Director, easel tv

Econsultancy has worked with Rob over many years, particularly drawing on his expertise in the area of interactive TV over the last few years. 

As well as being a director, and CMO, of easel tv, Rob is founder and Chairman of NovaRising, the leading Interactive TV UX agency and co-founder of the Digital Innovation Group. He has over 12 years experience within interactive TV, originally bringing a UX team together within NovaRising to innovate around the infant Sky Interactive platform in 2000.

Since then he has spearheaded scores of initiatives across interactive TV, IPTV and the connected TV for Europe´s leading broadcasters, media companies and consumer brands.  Most notably developing the BBC’s Freeband prototype in conjunction with IBM which became the foundation for YouView.  

easel tv was set-up in early 2009 when connected TV’s showed signs of becoming a mass-market phenomenon.  As the leading TV App developer easel have integrated the TiVo platform into Virgin Media and have developed a TV App framework to get apps onto all major connected TVs and most recently launched Spotify on TV.

Rob has an MBA from Imperial College, London.  In his spare time he plays correspondence chess, playing for England and winning the British championship in 2001 and reaching the World ICCF semi-finals in 2007.

Tom Wood, Founding Partner, Foolproof

Econsultancy have long known Foolproof and respected the great work they've done in the user experience field. We've asked Tom to give us his view, and some demos, on what's coming, and what will be possible, in terms of interactive experiences. This will include things like Augmented Reality (e.g. Aurasma), NFC (Near Field Communications), Voice Navigation, HTML5 etc. 

A bit more from Tom about his background:

"After business school my education began in Soho at Ogilvy & Mather Direct. Very talented and clever people like Steve Harrison and Rory Sutherland helped me learn the importance of ideas and charm in advertising.

Later, as Head of Advertising at Virgin Money, I learnt new skills to help me understand customers and try to see the world through their eyes. It also convinced me that digital is the centre-of-gravity for modern marketing because it’s the place where a business can be most intimate with its customers.

I’m a marketer, not an engineer. The idea that user experience is primarily a marketing discipline – rather than an IT discipline – was the founding insight for Foolproof. Peter and I have always believed that advertising is only a starting point in the customer’s journey to sale and a satisfying customer experience. Marketing investment is wasted if digital sales and service environments aren’t persuasive and useable.

I see experience design as a creative process: a way of discovering new, more engaging forms of online interaction. While many people still think of UX primarily as a defensive discipline (to test and de-risk interactions during development) I also see it as an offensive tool within the marketing mix: better customer experience is a source of competitive advantage.

In my spare time I’m interested in classical art, football and butchery. Analyse that."

Richard Brooks MA, Director of Search Strategy, Fresh Egg

Richard has 11 years of diverse online experience with specific expertise in SEO, PPC, social, affiliate marketing and re-targeting. He has recently joined leading digital marketing agency Fresh Egg to run its new London office. In prior roles, including his most recent tenure as EMEA Technical SEO Director for the Interpublic Group, Richard has enjoyed responsibility for inter-agency multi-lingual search projects across Europe, the Middle East and Asia, working with brands including Exxon, Tesco, Pfizer, Microsoft, Merck, Glaxo Smithkline, SC Johnson, Mastercard, Hertz, Burberry and Quorn. He is very excited to have joined one of the UK’s most innovative digital marketing agencies and is looking forward to driving the fast growth of its operations in London.

Robin Goad – Head of Digital Analytics, Experian Marketing Services

In this role, Robin analyses the trends affecting businesses across all digital channels and works with Experian Marketing Services clients to identify opportunities and threats to online business growth. Robin writes regular Insight Reports on a range of industries, covering affiliate marketing, search, and audience profiling. Robin is a regular speaker at industry events in Europe, North America and Asia, and has been widely quoted in the media, including the Financial Times, the BBC, DM Review and Information Age.

Prior to joining Experian, Robin worked at the Corporate Executive Board and as a Lead Technology Analyst with Datamonitor, where he authored research reports on a wide variety of topics including eCommerce, direct marketing and customer relationship management.

Matt Isaacs, Founding Partner, Essence

Matt spoke at this event back in 2010 but we're keen to have him back because his agency Essence continue to do innovative and impressive work for some of the most demanding and sophisticated clients including Google, eBay, Expedia, betfair, eHarmony etc. Indeed Essence won Econsultancy's 2009 Most Innovative Digital Agency award and were shortlisted in 2011.

One of the things that Essence have always been good at is mixing cutting edge technology (often their own) with shrewd business/marketing nous and compelling creative. The topic we've asked Matt to spend all of 7 minutes on, 'Social Advertising', requires this same mix and Essence have been at the forefront of this emerging area. 

A bit more about Matt:

Before launching Essence, Matt was CMO at Create Services, a subsidiary of Lloyds TSB Group that handled all of the bank's non LloydsTSB branded retail banking business including the Goldfish and the Create brands. Create Services was a serious organisation, managing income of £200m and marketing budgets of £25m per annum. Create also established and managed an internal agency serving the rest of LloydsTSB.

Prior to that, Matt was Head of the UK Retail Financial Services Practice at McKinsey spin-off Mitchell Madison Group (MMG) and part of the core team that built MMG Europe from 14 consultants to 400. Matt also co-founded their Internet Strategy practice.

Vikki Chowney, Head of Community, TMW agency

Vikki Chowney is head of community at intelligent influence agency TMW. She's a former journalist, most recently as news editor for Econsultancy.

Prior to that she was content editor for the JaguarFuture.com project, created by Jaguar to tell the stories behind the C-X16 concept car.

From 2009 - 2011 Vikki was editor of Reputation Online, a sister title to new media age at Centaur Media that presented both editorial and user-generated coverage of the digital PR landscape. During her time there she penned a weekly column for NMA on the same topic.

She helped to co-found The Really Mobile Project, contributing to the site regularly during its early life - and penned a monthly column for Communicate magazine throughout 2011.

Neil Mason, Director of Professional Services, Global Dawn

With over 25 years of experience in data and marketing, Neil is Global Dawn’s Director of Professional Services. His experience has encompassed working on both the client side in the dotcom days as CMO from QXL (an online auctions business) and also as a consultant. Econsultancy have worked with Neil for many years. Neil has done a lot of training for Econsultancy and we've worked with Neil in his capacity as Board Director for the Web Analytics Association.

Neil is a specialist in marketing and consumer analysis with a strong blend of skills and experience including:

• Data and analytics

• Consumer and marketing analysis

• Predictive analytics and modelling

Neil’s brings his pedigree in marketing analytics and his expertise in the application of consumer insight to Global Dawn’s social business platform to help businesses extract more value from the social web.

Neil has spoken at numerous events of the years on the topic of data, analytics and marketing, including a number of Econsultancy events. 

Andrew Davies, Co-founder and Director, Idio

Econsultancy use Idio's semantic technology on our site to power automated recommendations. We've also been impressed with what they've achieved in content curation for other clients, both B2C and B2B. But, despite Idio being a technology company, we're most impressed with the quality of their thinking and strategy around content marketing in general and content curation, and the application of semantic technologies, in particular.

Andrew is a co-founder of Idio, and leads the go-to-market strategy. He regularly speaks at industry events and writes for the trade press, about topics such as marketing automation and social media analytics. He previously worked for Deloitte Consulting, serving major technology and media clients, and is also a Warwick University alumnus.

Ilicco Elia, Head of Mobile, LBi

As far as it is possible to be a veteran in the mobile space, Ilicco is one.

He spent 18 years at Thomson Reuters in a variety of roles (including "Next-Generation Products Design Manager", "Head of Online Customer Experience") before focusing on mobile, becoming "Mobile and Emerging Media Manager" back in 2005 and then Global Head of Mobile from 2010. As Ilicco says on his LinkedIn profile "...as well as overseeing Reuters mobile apps, sites and servies, I have collaborated extensively with bloggers to pioneer the use of social media tools and innovative approaches in news gathering and was featured in the Guardian Media Top 100 in 2010."

In 2011 Ilicco moved to global agency LBi to head up its mobile division, so he now has experience both client and agency side with a deep knowledge, and hands on experience, of all aspects of mobile.

Steve Richards, MD, Yomego

Steve Richards is MD of social media agency Yomego, working with brands like Tesco, AQA and British Airways to devise social media strategies to harness the full potential of social spaces.

A digital marketing expert with over 15 years’ experience agency-side, Steve specialises in helping brands to explore the potential of new channels, driving consumer interaction and exploiting new revenue streams.

He is also non-exec Director of HuzuTech (formerly MD), a software company developing white-label social media platforms for clients / agencies who want their own customised digital community site.

Yomego is a Communisis company.

Ashley Friedlein, CEO, Econsultancy

Ashley is one of the most influential and connected figures in the UK digital marketing and e-commerce sector. As a recommendation for him on LinkedIn reads, “If Ashley doesn’t know it – it ain’t worth knowing.”

He writes for a range of publications and is the author of two best-selling books which have been translated internationally. Ashley speaks worldwide at industry events, as well as making media appearances to promote both his own company, Econsultancy, and the interests of the sector in general.

He founded Econsultancy in 1999 with business partner Matthew O'Riordan. This award-winning company now has over 100,000 members worldwide, opening its first US office in New York in January 2009, and now also operating in the Middle East and Far East.  It's members include the cream of international media, retail, cultural and financial service organisations, as well as government departments. Econsultancy helps its members learn, make better decisions, build business cases, find the best suppliers, accelerate their careers and lead the way in best practice via research reports, how-to guides, training and development, forums and professional networking.

After graduating in 1995 with a 1st Class degree from Cambridge University, Ashley started out working in digital TV. After a brief spell as Producer at FT.com, his career took him to digital communications agency Wheel (now LBi) where he rose to Lead Strategist and launched numerous multi-million pound websites for major brands like Marks & Spencer, Five, Argos, Autoglass etc.

Following the dotcom crash he spent a pleasant year in the South of France writing the first of two best-selling books on web management (50,000 copies sold world-wide, translated into 4 languages). He is 38, married with two children.  In his spare time he enjoys photography, art collecting and a range of sports including skiing, walking, cycling and yoga. More recently he has taken up boxing, polo and poker...

Ashley contributes to many publications as well as the Econsultancy blog and his Twitter feed.