Last month, dozens of the UK’s most exciting digital companies opened their doors for OpenCo – part of NewCo Festivlas – which was hosted in the UK by IPG Mediabrands and tech City UK.
The launch event kicked things off in style, with an open and informal format that helped create a huge amount of energy in the room. Ten of London’s most influential tech stars took the microphone for a two-minute summary of what innovation means to them – with UM strategists Hamish Kinniburgh and Ella Goldner first to stand up and talk about why Mediabrands chose to bring OpenCo to the UK, and why it is such an important property for us and our clients.
On the day itself, 52 London companies (and over 100 nationally) opened their doors to the public, to share their secrets of success and give a ‘behind the curtain’ look at their business. Many UMers attended sessions in the hopes of bringing back what they learned to their own jobs and clients. Here’s some of what they saw:
Creative studio Jotta, co-founded with Central Saint Martins college, showcased its spectacular installation work with Sony and Latitude festival. It provided ideas around creativity we could bring to our own client campaigns, but also highlighted the strengths of building great partnerships. According to founder and creative director Ben James, Jotta’s unique link to London’s arts universities gives it a “creative team of around 25,000 people.”
VisualDNA explained how its team of psychologists, creatives and data analysts draw startlingly accurate personality profiles from big data and testing. “All entrepreneurs are now psychologists by default,” explained the team. “By tailoring advertising to personality type, we can raise ROI by around 60 percent.”
After lunch, theAudience – who also recently featured in Initiative’s ‘Millennials’ launch in London – explained the secrets behind its enormously successful social media page management for celebrities as diverse as Lethal Bizzle and U.S. President Barack Obama.
As the UK’s largest peer-to-peer lending service, Zopa exemplifies the start-up success story – a mentality that we should all learn from. From its position as a challenger brand at launch in 2005, the key to growth was building trust. Innovation charity Nesta now predicts the P2P lending market share to grow from 1% to 20% in the next 5 years.
Other sessions included Spotify, whose session was recorded for London Live TV and King and Bompas & Parr.
OpenCo proved to be a hugely positive collaboration for Mediabrands UK. The network achieved a significant amount of PR around the event, including two television interviews for OpenCo co-founder and UM’s Global Chief Strategy Officer, Hamish Kinniburgh.
