Sally Hooton reports on industry events last month in Madrid.

International marketers gathered in Spain’s capital last month for two days of debate, followed by a surprisingly entertaining awards gala.

While some awards events can be tedious for those who aren’t contenders, the Spanish turned their annual IMAN ceremony into a well-attended delight for all, with humour top of the agenda. Alongside a very lively comedic Master of Ceremonies, three marketers’ mothers were chosen to give out the gongs – plans to get all the winners’ mothers on-stage had to be scrapped due to organisational problems.
The madre concept was the conclusion of a promotion which poked fun at marketing jargon, using the slogan: ‘If your mother doesn’t understand, it’s impossible to be proud of you’.

At the awards event, the winner of the inaugural FEDMA and Holmen Paper Direct Marketer of the Year Award was revealed by Michael Leander, chairman of the judges and the first head of the newly-formed FIMAC (of which, more later in this report).

Leander said: “The jury chose Dr Diane Rinas from a number of highly qualified European direct marketers, all of whom have accomplished remarkable achievements in the field. We agreed that Dr Rinas, senior marketing manager at DHL Global Mail, deserves official recognition from within the industry for her consistently high performance in the planning and implementation of international direct
marketing campaigns.”

Holmen Paper was the main sponsor of the new FEDMA award (Federation of European Direct and Interactive Marketing), together with silver sponsor, Jet Republic.

Accepting her glass trophy, Rinas said: “This prize is a great recognition of DHL Global Mail’s high-quality services and our strategic focus on direct marketing as a revenue driver, even during the current economic downturn.”
 
Around the world
Day One of the gathering in Madrid opened with the first of the year’s FEDMA List Council Breakfast meetings (the second of which will be held in October in the US), attracting more than 30 members from countries including Australia, Argentina, South Africa, Belgium, Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the USA.

FEDMA director general Alastair Tempest gave an update on data protection regulations (page 41) and there was debate about environment pressures and the liberalisation of postal markets – both issues which, Tempest said, “will see enormous changes for our industry in the next few years.”

His words were echoed by USA DMA vice-president, global compliance, Jodie Sangster, who presented details of updated DMA codes of practice and stressed that a policy of transparency was paramount. 

There were also informative case studies presented by sponsors Andreas Boo, of the Swedish-headquartered Holmen Paper (www.holmenpaper.com) and Portugal’s Bernardo d’Orey of Jet Republic (www.jetrepublic.com).

News was also given of the formation of FEDMA’s Interactive Marketing Council (FIMAC), which will provide a networking platform and forum for professionals to discuss and exchange pan-European marketing experiences, focusing on interactive campaigns.

Later, members of the bi-annual IFDMA symposium gathered (International Federation of Direct Marketing Associations) to discuss direct mail in the digital age, education, growth and legislation issues – chaired by Argentina’s Mary Teahan. There were presentations by the Universal Postal Union’s Raquel Ferrari, from Switzerland, and Joost Van Nispen of ICEMD, the Spanish Institute for Direct and Interactive Marketing. IFDMA’s second symposium will take place during the USA DMA09 event in San Diego in October.

Day Two saw an excellent full conference programme (with simultaneous translation facilities) for an audience of more than 300, organised by the Spanish DMA – FECEMD (Federación de Comercio Electrónico y Marketing Directo) in partnership with national postal service, Correos.

The speaker line-up included Spanish, British and American marketing luminaries and featured a motivational lecture from the gently humorous Edward de Bono – a Maltese author of 70 books on innovation and creativity.

He declared ‘inadequate thinking’ to be the biggest problem facing modern society but added that, fortunately, everyone can learn to be more creative – the trick is to look at things differently in order to generate new concepts and ideas . . . which is clearly just what the Spanish did when planning this year’s most enjoyable conference and awards events.