Lessons from Prolific North’s Northern Marketing Festival

Don’t you just love it when great events come right to your doorstep?  Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the Prolific North Northern Marketing Festival in Leeds city centre for a day full of insights, talks and inspiration. As someone who has worked in the marketing world for 7 years now, I look forward to days like these where you leave with a refreshed perspective and feel more connected to our roles.   

The event promised we’d leave with a golden nugget. Safe to say, I walked away with a blogful. Here’s what stood out and what I’m still thinking about: 

All gloss, no substance?

The day started strong, with Steven Hadden and Mark Cullen from Made Brave on effectively how brand challenges aren’t creative problems, they’re effectiveness problems. Too often brands hope a creative face lift will solve the problems they’re facing. A new font or a new website will be the thing to turn things around and simply put, it’s not true. A rebrand can’t just life in the marketing department, it must reach and mean something to the whole team.  

They shared a great example from First Bus – a rebrand they worked on that started with conversations on the depot floor, not in the brand guidelines. With employees at the heart of the change. That’s how belief takes root. When everyone believes into the change, the brand on the outside has real credibility. And that? That’s what builds belief.   

Experimentation and play: How two retails brands are writing their own rulebooks

The inside out mentality continued in the next fireside chat with La Redoute’s Sarah Link and Hub’s Senior Creative Lead Nina Rinks. They spoke about being bold, embracing creativity, and making sure their teams were fully behind and involved in those big creative decisions. Both brands embraced being bold, for La Redoute, that meant bold collaborations (even if you didn’t know who they were with…yet!) and quarterly in-person events to connect with community. For Hub, the agency behind 24/7 Blinds rebrand, it meant creating a real yet bold brand story instead of playing it safe. The big takeaway? Bravery in marketing should be embraced. 

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious

Next up, Jamie Peate and Holly Harper from McCann reminded us that being playful and being effective go hand in hand. Their work with Aldi is a case study in exactly what to do when you’re focused on reaching that new audience. Aldi wanted to reach a younger, pre-family audience and social was simply not effective. 

The solution? To become the ‘pirates of social’.  Be reactive, bold, and distinct. It wasn’t play for play’s sake – it was smart, ambitious, and incredibly effective in reaching pre-family audience. The results? Increased revenue directly from social and a legacy of being a leader in the social space.  

Beyond Likes: What does social media success look like in 2025?

Next, a talk which I was looking forward to all day – Naomi Horan from Cloud Nine reframing how we think about social media success. We’re past the days of measuring success in likes, and we’re looking for the bigger picture. Community, resonance, and earned media value are the new stars of the show.  

She spoke on delving deeper into the metrics that tell more of the story. Sure, we can look at view count on a Reel. Or we can look at average watch time and see if people tuned in for 1 second or for 1 minute – both tell a very different story. 

Search reimagined: The new organic playbook

Jess Atkinson, from Embryo, jumped into the shifting landscape of search. We all know the way we search has changed, from the foundations of google to the introduction of TikTok – the focus being findable and desirable. Her three Vs, Visibility, Vibes and Value, felt like a modern-day search bible. Highlighting the power of new language, repeated questions, and cultural shifts, she reminded us of all the different, and most valuable ways, for brands to stay relevant in search. 

Beyond the click: A practical guide to truly integrated marketing

Straight after lunch, Wolfenden’s very own Daniel Pratt took us through what it truly means to be integrated in marketing. He cleverly tackled the age-old siloed approach we so often see in digital marketing. It’s time for us all to move behind marketing in isolation and instead create collective creative momentum. He championed generosity and knowledge sharing. Something of which is not new news to us at Wolfenden, but sadly not the norm for others. If we’re all pulling in different directions, we’re not building anything meaningful.

Fireside chat: Building Northern brands with authenticity

We then went into a chat with Adam Zavalis, the VP of Marketing from Leeds-based super brand, ASDA. In this fireside chat, Adam talked through ASDA’s journey to getting back to their roots and bringing everyone internally along for the ride. ASDA has found itself in the doom loop cycle, which Adam is fighting to break through real leadership. Clarity, consistency, and helping teams understand the ‘why’ is crucial to uniting teams in the new vision and seeing their role in the transformation. And, crucially, making sure the balance between long-term brand building and short-term wins is always in check. 

Magic & logic: Using technology to fuel brand creativity

Rounding off the day was Caroline Kaye and Robert Quigley from Sun Branding. They discussed AI and its role within creative based organisations. Leaning on tools isn’t about replacing people, in fact the opposite. When you use tools in the right way, you enhance and automate tasks which allows people to shine. A human-led AI approach allows AI to handle the repetitive tasks and keep the human magic alive. 

Across all talks one theme kept coming back, that clarity, credibility and belief starts from inside out. No silos. No shortcuts. Everyone together on the same journey. When you build a culture of support and shared-knowledge, things don’t just perform, they actually matter.