MAD//Insight
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Opinion: Why Patagonia's Data Reveals An Uncomfortable Truth For Purpose Brands
In the first of a series of occasional columns, All Conditions Media Co-founder Matt Barr reflects on the recent Kendal Mountain Festival, stark lessons from Patagonia's recent impact report and why we need to bust the AI inevitability fallacy.
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MORE SPACE, NEW TECH, FEWER QUEUES: HOW WE’RE DOING MAD//NORTH DIFFERENTLY
Love great content and networking, hate queues? Here’s how we’re upgrading the MAD//North experience on 25-26 Feb at Aviva Studios.
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REVEALED: Personalisation - what do consumers find creepy?
In a world where marketers know more about us than ever, personalisation can thrill or creep us out. MAD//Fest and Customer.io put 7 real campaigns to the test in Personalisation: Cool or Creepy? The results might shock you.
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Flirting With Algorithms: How Brands Court Machines to Reach Humans
Step inside The Intuitive Advantage, a ten-part look at how intuition, AI, brand and experience are set to reshape 2026. In Part Seven, Future Platforms CEO and MAD//Fest host, Livia Bernardini asks the question, In a world where algorithms make decisions for humans, how do brands connect with people they can no longer directly reach?
Sweating Less About the Future: Why Direction Beats Prediction
Step inside The Intuitive Advantage, a ten-part look at how intuition, AI, brand and experience are set to reshape 2026. This week in Part Six, Future Platforms CEO and MAD//Fest host, Livia Bernardini, argues that the industry does not need more predictions. It needs more leaders who can read the present with accuracy and act with intention to shape a better future.
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What are you about to say yes to that you'll regret by March?
Tired of the endless stream of “expert” advice that all sounds the same? High-Stakes Leadership Mentor, Sally Henderson, offers something different, practical, grounded, and designed to help you step into 2026 on your own terms.
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INTO DEEPER WATERS: Encouraging marketing to stop playing safe and start fixing things
Halfway through the decade and amid global uncertainty, marketing expert and ex-Diageo Global Marketing Director, Annalisa Tedeschi, makes her debut column with a bold reminder: marketing can spark real change.
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Maisie Adam to Bring Laughter + Levity to MAD//North 2026
This February, MAD//North is thrilled to announce that Maisie Adam, one of the UK’s most exciting comedic voices, will take to the stage as part of the festival’s Northern Soul‑themed programme.
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WPP Media Announced as Factory Stage Sponsor for MAD//North 2026
MAD//North is proud to announce WPP Media as the official sponsor of the Factory Stage for its a partnership that reflects a shared commitment to creativity, innovation, and the future of modern marketing.
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What Are You Already Noticing but Not Acting On?
Step inside The Intuitive Advantage, a ten-part look at how intuition, AI, brand and experience are set to reshape 2026. With 2026 fully underway, somewhere between the first catch ups and the first decisions of the year,week, Future Platforms CEO and MAD//Fest host Livia Bernardini asks the question most of us are thinking, what actually matters now?
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There's No Such Thing as a Commoditised Category. Here's Why.
When brands label their category as “commoditised,” ambition dies, creativity stalls, and price becomes the only lever left. But commoditisation isn’t real, it’s a failure of imagination, writes former Kimberly-Clark Marketing Director, and consultant, Noam Buchalter.
Atmospheric Sensing: Detect the Silent Signals That Predict What Comes Next
Step inside The Intuitive Advantage, a ten-part look at how intuition, AI, brand and experience are set to reshape 2026. This week, in part four, Future Platforms CEO and MAD//Fest host Livia Bernardini turns her attention to the intuitive system that detects the edge before the mind catches up. My favourite of our thinking organs: the heart.
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Five predictions for CMOs navigating the modern agency ecosystem in 2026
CMOs are under more pressure to move faster, prove impact and manage complexity, yet too often the legacy systems and models they inherit have been built for a very different era. Richard Robinson, Executive Director of Ingenuity+ explores five shifts redefining the brand and agency relationship in 2026, from the decline of the Agency of Record to value-based pricing and the growing role of cultural fit.
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2026: Where Authentic Connection and Great Experiences Become the Heart of Women’s Sport
As we move into 2026, women’s sport will be defined not just by growth, but by authenticity, purpose, and real experience, believes Emma Ballard from the Women's Sport Trust.
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Manchester's Creative Surge: Northern Soul Turned Up to the max
Manchester is booming - Cranes, creativity and chaos! There is a creative surge powering its future. Dive into how Northern Soul is turned up to eleven and why 2026 is Manchester’s moment to lean in, writes our man in Manchester, Andy Garner.
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Dull Media: The theory itself is dull without detail.
Les Binet’s “dull media” idea is clearly shaping today’s media-planning debates. In a recent pitch, three of four agencies devoted a slide to it. By the third time, it genuinely felt a bit… dull. But the message resonates; with budgets tight, everyone is eager to avoid waste, writes Former Fentimans Marketing Director, Jayne Andrews.
Red Flags, Green Lights: The Patterns Your Gut Notices Before You Do
Welcome to The Intuitive Advantage, a ten-part series on how intuition and AI will shape 2026. This week, Livia Bernardini dives into the tiny signals you feel before the data shows up - your red flags and green lights
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Target Didn’t Announce an AI Feature. It Redefined Retail.
Retail loves its buzzwords. But sometimes something truly new lands. Target putting a full shopping journey inside ChatGPT is one of those moments, argues Automated Creative's founder, Tom Ollerton.
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How retailers can advertise to purchase-ready audiences
Turn ordinary travel planning into a revenue opportunity for your fashion, retail, or lifestyle brand. Learn how to reach valuable shoppers your competitors haven’t even found yet, writes Expedia's Vice President, Angelique Miller.
The Intuition Gap: When Your Gut Speaks Before the Data Even Wakes Up
Step inside The Intuitive Advantage, a ten-part series on how intuition, AI, and experience will shape 2026. In Part Two, Future Platforms CEO and MAD//Fest host, Livia Bernardini, reveals why leaders feel intuition before data and why mistaking habit or fear for instinct could make or break their biggest decisions.
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Why ExpressVPN is teaming up with sports brands to bolster defences off the pitch
Online threats are moving fast. Much like the world’s leading sports teams, digital privacy and security tools need to combine speed with elite performance. Zac Eller, GM, Global Partnerships and Business Development at ExpressVPN, discusses the similarities between digital privacy and sports brands and how to foster winning partnerships off the field.
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Is Sponsorship the laziest form of advertising?
Sponsorship can be the laziest form of marketing — a cheque, a logo, and the illusion of effort. It only works when there’s genuine intent and a story people can rally behind. Here’s why Jazz Hands backs the Lionesses Supporters Team, from founder Samantha Dolan.
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What Marketers Can Learn from Mariah Carey: How to Own Christmas in Under Four Minutes
Why one overplayed Christmas song has a better strategy than most brands. Brands spend millions chasing festive sparkle, but Mariah Carey shows up with one song and steals the season. It’s the ultimate low-effort, high-impact strategy. Santa wishes he had this business model, argues Ian Maskell, Founder, P E C O R I N O, and former VP, Global Marketing at Unilever.
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Paralympic Sport Is the $5 Billion Market Sponsors Are Sleeping On
It’s one of the fastest-growing markets in sport, yet most sponsors still treat it as charity instead of commerce, argues Fabien Paget, CEO & Co-Founder, 17 Sport
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The Quiz That Raised £500k: Marketing, Mayhem + The Proclaimers
What started as a silly idea, a pub-style quiz all about marketing, has grown into a fundraising phenomenon, raising over £500,000 for charity. Packed with CMOs, catchy 90s hits, and high-stakes trivia, the MASSIVE Marketing Quiz proves that great fun and meaningful impact can go hand in hand.
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What a smuggled teabag taught me about Marketing
When the British School at Rome couldn’t survive without Yorkshire Gold, a covert tea-smuggling operation kicked off. Academics, contraband, and Yorkshire Tea combined to remind us that even the smallest rituals can forge the strongest bonds, writes Ingenuity + Executive Director, Richard Robinson.
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Remember to celebrate!
You can’t control the world around you, but you can control the mindset you bring to it and what you focus on quickly becomes the atmosphere you create. For leaders especially, your inner weather sets the tone for everyone around you, making positivity not a façade, but a powerful responsibility, believes High-Stakes Leadership Mentor, Sally Henderson.
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The Prediction Paradox: Why We Are Terrible at Foresight But Cannot Stop Trying
Step inside The Intuitive Advantage, a ten-part look at how intuition, AI, brand and experience are set to reshape 2026. This week, CEO and MAD//Fest host Livia Bernardini tackles The Prediction Paradox, our uncanny ability to get the future wrong, and our irresistible urge to keep guessing anyway.
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SharkNinja: Taking the Me Out of Media
In this week's partner podcast, Shiny New Object, SharkNinja's Media and Planning strategist, Nick Cedar, says marketing magic is made when you treat data like a creative brief, not just a number - look for the story behind the numbers and what it's telling you about the audience.
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The 'Up North' Pity Party Needs to End
Former Fentimans Marketing Director, Jayne Andrews, has worked in the North East for three years (and loves it), but one thing still bugs her at local events: we end up talking about ‘the North’ instead of our actual work. It's time we stopped.
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The Ad Game: Why Every Brand Wants a Piece of the Pitch
For all the billions spent chasing eyeballs online, the most valuable impression is still the one that hits when someone actually cares. And nothing triggers that emotional chaos like sport, the joy, the heartbreak, the VAR fury. It’s the original attention engine, argues MAD//Sports' Ben Phillips.
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Coca-Cola, Christmas, and Why Being Wrong Matters
In the UK, Christmas ads are our Super Bowl. They are the one moment each year when the entire industry piles into the same cultural conversation. And if Christmas is our Super Bowl, when Coca-Cola dropped their AI-powered Christmas ad - Coca-Cola didn’t win, writes Tom Ollerton.
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Secret Escapes: Even the best hotels have empty beds
Is your brand really standing out, or just blending in? In our latest of MAD//Insight's partner podcast, Shiny New Object, Pete Durant, Interim Head of Brand and Marketing EU at Secret Escapes, reveals why story, not data, is your most powerful marketing tool, and why human insight still matters in an AI-driven world.
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Why Authenticity Outperforms Advertising on Social
People scroll Instagram and TikTok for moments that make them feel, not for ads. Rexona has seen that authentic, culturally in-tune content during tournaments like WAFCON and the UEFA Women’s EUROs cuts through harder than any big production ever could, argues Em Heath, Brand Director for Rexona.
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February Flashback: MAD//North 2025 Highlights: Factory Stage
Can’t wait for February to get your next MAD//North fix? Let’s rewind to the biggest stage at MAD//North 2025, the Factory Stage. Across two days, top brands delivered unmissable insights, and we’ve rounded up the highlights just for you.
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MAD//North partners with Manchester Union Brewery to create a festival lager with a northern soul
MAD//North is thrilled to announce a new partnership with Manchester Union Brewery, who this autumn will be crafting a special MAD//North lager to celebrate the spirit of creativity, community, and Northern soul.
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Did your brand’s sponsorship ignite the conversation this year?
If your campaign has made waves across the sports world, now’s your moment to be recognised on the industry’s biggest stage. For 25 years, the Sport Industry Awards have honoured the partnerships and brands pushing sport and business forward.
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M&S Marketing Director: "Boring doesn't build brands"
In the latest of our MAD//Moments interviews with the great and the good from this summer's MAD//Fest, M&S Marketing Director, Sharry Crammond, tells Tom Ollerton why bold thinking and creativity are needed to power brands today.
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What Marketers Can Learn from Piers Morgan
He is a polarising figure, but whatever your view, Piers Morgan is a masterclass in how to own the conversation. He has courted outrage for three decades, cultivated influence, and remained impossible to ignore, argues Ian Maskell, Founder, P E C O R I N O, and former VP Global Marketing, Unilever.
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Until Clients Can Write Briefs, I’m not worried about AI.
A few months ago, Jayne Andrews, former Marketing Director at Fentimans, thought AI might destroy the creative industries. Now, she’s changed her mind. Creativity isn’t dying; it’s evolving, and the agencies that win will be those who invest in strategy, service, and the human touch.
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Inside the Feedback Void: The Hidden Risk of Leadership Isolation
When was the last time you received a piece of feedback about your own leadership and performance that stopped you in your tracks with its insight, accuracy and impact? Did you realise that when you became a senior leader, you would step into the feedback void, asks High-Stakes Leadership Mentor, Sally Henderson.
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Lollipop Live: Building a More Inclusive Creative Industry, One Mentor at a Time
This Thursday, 23rd October, lollipop mentoring hosts an evening of creativity, connection, and community — designed to help Black women in the creative, media, and tech industries thrive. Here’s why you should be there, and how you can get involved.
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We want to know where your head's at?
MAD//Fest is gauging how the industry is feeling about the year ahead in a brand new survey + report. We'd love you to help build a clearer view of the state of marketing in 2026 by sharing your priorities, opportunities + challenges.
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Where learning meets life: How Edcom ADventure and Kraft Heinz are shaping the marketers and agency teams of tomorrow.
Where learning meets life: How Edcom ADventure and Kraft Heinz are shaping the marketers and agency teams of tomorrow.
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Why Marketers are best placed to drive Profit
Growth at any cost is dead, today’s real challenge is sustainable Profit Growth. In this piece, International Chief Marketing Officer, Gareth Abel, explains how trained, evidence-led marketers are the key to building brands that grow margins, not just metrics.
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From Brand Hero to Gaming Villain: My Duolingo Confession
Duolingo hooked me hard, and I loved every compulsive, dopamine-fueled minute, until I didn’t. Livia Bernardini, CEO of Future Platforms and MAD//Fest host, shares what happens when emotional memory turns into emotional hijack.
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How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything. (Care is the craft )
How a smudge of olive oil on a restaurant menu changed how I think about experience design. Kenny Lauer, former CMO of US basketball team, Golden State Warriors, explains all.
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Bloom & Wild CMO: How to Raise a Brand That’s Growing Up Fast
Some parts of your brand are just learning to walk, others think they know it all. Bloom & Wild CMO, Charlotte Langley, explores how to parent them all, without losing your cool or your budget.
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Break the Rules, Make Your Mark: Nominate a Rival 50 Brand!
The Rival 50 celebrates the brands that refuse to follow the rules and redefine their categories. Now, we want your voice, who do you see as a true challenger and disruptor in their space? Nominate a brand today and help shine a spotlight on the innovators shaping the future.
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Is AI creativity's amplifier, rather than its executioner?
The creative industry is in the grip of an existential crisis, with fears that AI is killing jobs and creativity itself. But what if, instead of the end, this is the start of a new way to see creativity, asks ECD, Jellyfish, Jo Wallace.
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