CATFOA with Jen Faucon - Thursday August 16

Ten years ago we launched an ongoing, always-in-beta speaker series called Conversations About The Future Of Advertising. Over 25 luminaries have participated since. In 2018 the series continues with a Summer of CATFOA—three different speakers, three different nights, and all kinds of ideas to expand your brain—presented by the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA.org).

THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 2018
FEATURED GUEST: JEN FAUCON 
AMSTERDAM BAR & HALL

6 W. SIXTH ST., 

ST. PAUL, MN 55102

HUMANIZING THE NEW SHINY OBJECTS OF ADVERTISING — Let’s talk AI, Blockchain and Mixed Reality in a way that’s useful for marketing and advertising in the near future. 

Our industry loves to throw the newest tool at a problem, even if we’re not 100% sure what the technology means or why it exists. So let's dig into the salient, close future of Artificial Intelligence — how data, machine learning, and algorithms both threaten and enable advertising as we know it. Then let’s talk about Blockchain — and the ways in which a new approach to currency might prevent ad fraud and enhance the trust we place in media. Last but not least, we’ll talk about the ways Artificial and Virtual Realities enable new approaches to content and marketing as a service. 

Jen Faucon has lived and worked in Dubai and Singapore, Sydney and Detroit—developing new e-commerce brands, payment platforms, user experiences and integrated marketing. Jen (LinkedIn) serves as Chief Customer Success Officer at Codelattice, a global digital solutions provider with expertise in cybersecurity, cloud computing, AI and digital marketing. She’s worked agency-side for MRM and BBDO and iProspect, and client-side for SendItLater. She graduated from Tufts University, hold an M.Ed. from Lesley University in English as a Second Language, and is a Babson College M.B.A. candidate in Entrepreneurship and Global Management.

REGISTER TO ATTEND THIS EVENT

CATFOA with Sung Chang — Wednesday July 18

Ten years ago we launched an ongoing, always-in-beta speaker series called Conversations About The Future Of Advertising. Over 25 luminaries have participated since. In 2018 the series continues with a Summer of CATFOA—three different speakers, three different nights, and all kinds of ideas to expand your brain—presented by the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA.org).

WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 2018
FEATURED GUEST: SUNG CHANG 

He helped build the future we’re living in now—so what does he see coming next?

Sung (LinkedIn) has built all kinds of mobile apps, payment systems, interfaces and experiential environments for Sony, Nike, Kraft and Time Warner. He's taught at Columbia University, Miami Ad School and the School of Visual Arts as well as designed album covers for the Wu-Tang Clan. 

He's spent the past 20 years leading creative teams, building new practices and departments, and helping brands and agencies embrace and integrate digital. He's currently the CCO of MRM//McCann East working across accounts such as the U.S. Army, NY Lottery, Cigna, IHOP and USPS. Most recently, he was the Executive Creative Director of AKQA NY, primarily leading the Verizon and Starbucks accounts And as ECD at Ogilvy & Mather he led Nestle, Motorola, American Express, Castrol, BP, Cisco, SAP, DuPont, Metlife and Yahoo!

REGISTER TO ATTEND THIS EVENT >

CATFOA with Jeff Kling — Wednesday June 20

Ten years ago we launched an ongoing, always-in-beta speaker series called Conversations About The Future Of Advertising. Over 25 luminaries have participated since. In 2018 the series continues with a Summer of CATFOA—three different speakers, three different nights, and all kinds of ideas to expand your brain—presented by the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA.org).

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2018
FEATURED GUEST: JEFF KLING 

He created Dos Equis’s “The Most Interesting Man in the World,” rubber-stamped Nike’s “Write the Future” campaign and authored the Miller High Life manifesto and campaign that still forms the playbook for many strategists, agencies, and brands. Recently Jeff gave Arby’s “The Meats,” helped America win their taxes for H&R Block, and helped Loctite win advertising’s Super Bowl. Just imagine what he has in mind for the future. 

On June 20 we’ll hang with Jeff Kling (LinkedIn), former Chief Creative Officer of Fallon. A man who hopes: 1. His ambient dislike of advertising has bettered his own work; and 2. That no one will mind his not having fulfilled his imagined potential as a world-champion surfer. In his fourteen-hundred thirty-seven-thousand years in the business, Kling has quarterbacked national and global work for Heineken, Coca-Cola, Jaguar, EA, Nokia, Volvo, Honda, The Eye Film Institute Netherlands, Miller Genuine Draft, ESPN, Clearasil, Gore-Tex and many, many more—and for a host of dead dot-coms, for whose busted first-wave bubble he is personally responsible.

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CATFOA with Faris Yakob - July 19 2017

He's back! Seven years ago strategist (and now author) Faris Yakob regaled the CATFOA audience with thoughts on "Stuff that doesn't work properly: How technology changes the nature of advertising," during our third year of hosting speakers.

After traveling the world, working nomadically, Faris returns to Minneapolis on Wednesday, July 19, 2017 at 6:00pm at the Fine Line Music Cafe to talk further about the future of advertising -- presented by the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association, sponsored by BBDO MPLS and Fredrikson & Byron.

>> REGISTER NOW TO ATTEND

Faris will leverage his global experience to talk about four key themes, which present challenges and opportunities for the advertising and marketing industries: Attention Collapse, Everything is PR, The Great Blur and Integrative Branding. He'll share useful insights from his experiences developing strategies, creative briefs and presentations inside agencies and marketers all over the world. And he'll reference themes from his 2015 book Paid Attention.

It's certain to be a very useful and engaging event for strategists of all stripes, brand planners, insights junkies, design thinking aficionados and all manner of idea people.

Don't miss it!

Conversations About The Future Of Advertising
with Faris Yakob
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
Fine Line Music Cafe
318 N 1st Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55401

5:30pm - Registration
6:00pm - Presentation

Presented by MIMA. Please register to attend. 

CATFOA with Peter Nicholson, CCO Periscope - August 17, 2016

UPDATE:  Many thanks to the 120+ attendees and especially Peter Nicholson for elevating our 24th Conversation About The Future Of Advertising.

Click here to watch the video from the August 17 event via MIMA.org.

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Here we go again (but with a twist for you CATFOA loyalists). This time the Conversations About The Future Of Advertising speaker-series features Periscope’s newly minted Chief Creative Officer, Peter Nicholson. We're going to talk about the difficulties of change (see below). Doors open at 5:30pm on Wednesday, August 17, 2016. The twist? We're in a new location: The Minneapolis Event Centers' Riverside Ballroom next to St. Anthony Main. (Loyalists: please don't go to the old venue.) Huge thanks to the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association for hosting this event.

YOU MUST REGISTER TO ATTEND >



Peter Nicholson has led an impressive 20+ career in creativity and ideas and leadership -- from Leagas Delaney to Goodby Silverstein, Deutsch, JWT, McKinney and now here in Minneapolis at Periscope.

On August 17 we're going to talk with Peter primarily about change management. It'll be a useful conversation for agency leaders, owners, creatives and pundits. 

Specifically, we'll talk about the challenges in making an agency or a marketing organization more fluent in the technology of modern advertising. We'll talk about how the efficacy of advertising has changed - and what that means for advertising ideas. And the changes in client/agency relationships, revenue models and staffing models. We'll also talk about what needs to change within agencies so there is a more even balance of genders and races (especially in leadership positions). 

It's going to be a rich, nuanced conversation. Don't miss it. 

AND DON'T FORGET TO REGISTER >

The Return of CATFOA with Rick Webb - July 15

[UPDATE 07/27/15: VIDEO EMBED AT END OF POST]

We're excited to reignite Conversations About The Future Of Advertising with Barbarian Group co-founder, VC and author Rick Webb, who recently published Agency: Starting a Creative Firm in the Age of Digital Marketing.



Rick’s book is really strong. He’s cornered a lot of useful insights for agency owners, managers and anyone curious about how to improve their agency -- be it an advertising, design, technically-focused and/or in-house agency. You'll learn a lot!

We’re going to talk primarily about culture -- and how culture influences everything from great ideas to client relationships, budgeting to contracts, creative briefs to cash projections, lawyers to exit strategies.

It's an honor to regroup with the team at MIMA to produce this event (REGISTER HERE). And a huge kudos to Fredrikson and Byron for sponsoring the rebirth of CATFOA.

Event Details: 

CATFOA with Rick Webb 
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Fine Line Music Cafe
318 N 1st Ave., Mpls.
Doors at 5:30pm
Rick at 6:00pm
This event is free to MIMA members only. Please register to attend.

David Armano - Monday, April 27, 2009: "The Future of Advertising. WTF?"

UPDATE: What a great crowd last night! We had around 200 show up. The video of David's presentation is embedded at the end of this post.

David Armano, newly Senior Partner at Dachis Corp (previously VP Experience Design at Critical Mass), and blogger at Logic+Emotion, will be joining us Monday, April 27 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. (doors open at 5:00 p.m.) at the Fine Line Music Cafe in Minneapolis.

The event is free. No RSVP required.

David graduated from the Pratt Institute, studying computer graphics and visual communication, before starting a 14-year career in digital marketing and experience design. He's held creative and strategic leadership roles at Digitas and Agency.com, as well as Critical Mass, working for clients such as HP, Allstate, Fifth Third Bank, Miller Brewing, Grainger and Bally Total Fitness. David's work blends strategy with design to look for new opportunities around the evolving Web (otherwise known as Web 2.0) to enhance customer experiences and bring brands and people closer together.

David's blog, Logic+Emotion, is ranked in the Top 20 Media and Marketing blogs by Advertising Age. His writing and visual thinking have been cited by Forrester, The Boston Globe and Businessweek. (Follow him on Twitter @Armano.)

David's presentation: "The Future of Advertising. WTF?" will draw from his experience working with major brands in the digital space, connecting and mashing up advertising as PR, enhancing service design and integrating product innovation. He'll speak to the relevance of micro-interactions and macro word-of-mouth; the future of work—from silos and assembly lines to networks and signals—and the effects these forces are having on the (currently) fuzzy agency model. As always, David will discuss the power of value, utility and a good story, regardless of where it's communicated.

Read David's post about his presentation here. Lots of good set-up. And here's his slideshow:

This promises to be yet another engaging event. Carve the date into your iPhone. Don't miss it.

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Here's David's presentation from MIMA.org/live (the video starts approximately two minutes into his speech):

Kristina Halvorson - Monday, March 9, 2009: "Content Strategy - The Care and Feeding of Your Biggest Brand Asset"

UPDATE:  Great attendance (150+) last night! The UStream video is embedded below, along with Kristina's slideshare. 

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Kristina Halvorson, president of Brain Traffic and nationally-renowned content strategist, will be joining us Monday, March 9 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. (doors open at 5:00.m.) at the Fine Line Music Cafe.

Admission is free. No RSVP required. And we'll have free food. So tell your friends!

Kristina's presentation, "Content Strategy - The Care and Feeding of Your Biggest Brand Asset," asks us to rethink our preconceived notions of marketing and how marketing gets done in the digital age. 

Often, the way we talk about content makes it sound like something that will magically create itself, an omnipresent commodity that can be StumbledUpon with ease. But what about our core marketing messages? How are we communicating - and demonstrating - our brand positions online? With our branded content, of course. Clearly, this content is a critically valuable asset that can make or break our customers' online experience. So why are agencies and their clients constantly forgetting to consider their online content until the eleventh hour?

You've heard a lot about how to 'listen' to the customer using social media. Content strategy creates a consistent, clear roadmap for your (ongoing) online communications. What should you publish, and why? Where? How? Who will own the content, both before and after launch?

This event promises to be a must-attend for anyone involved in marketing planning, strategy, budgeting, creation and production. Kristina will bring valuable insights for creative directors, media planners and account strategists - anyone with an interest in What Gets Said.

(Did we mention it's free? And there's free food?)

Kristina will look past today's "bright shiny objects" towards a future where a company's (and their customers') content is treated as a valuable asset, not an afterthought. You'll appreciate her challenging yet very useful insights, examples and suggestions.

(Here's the video from last night. Sorry about the lighting. The club was set up for Atmosphere's show later on.)