As you would expect from the leading foodservice digital agency, much of our time is spent ensuring we are abreast of the latest trends in our industry. And so it was that I found myself bound for this year’s Digital Food and Drink Conference held at America Square in London.

With a truly impressive selection of speakers I was looking forward to the thrust and parry of debate as retailer and brand alike took to the stage to put forward their presentations and debate how each can help one and other deliver success in the digital space.

For those of you not lucky enough to have attended, here are my top 10 take outs from the day’s speakers. Ready? Right, here goes.

1) Kate Douglas from Twitter talked about their exciting new products – namely Amplify, Moments and Niche. Want to keep up to speed on social? Go and read up on those.
2) ASDA noted that ‘incentivised’ emails outperformed Supplier Branded emails by a factor of 30%. Looks like money off or a giveaway still reigns supreme.
3) Steve Millard of Burton’s Biscuits revealed that the value of online sales in food is set to double by 2020 – those not exploiting digital are missing out – big time.
4) A straw poll of attendees showed zero plans for adoption of iBeacon technology – the need for an app, bluetooth enabled, lack of signal in store all seems too high a barrier.
5) Jamie Nascimento from Orangina spoke of his ‘comma, not full stop’ approach – always think of the next step you wish a consumer to make to continue their marketing journey.
6) Gordon Morrin of Kerry Foods shared the success of Sausage and Chip – his Christmas campaign, and how emotional marketing drove great results for Richmond sausages.
7) Jamie from Orangina talked of ‘thumb-stopping’ video – quick, video edits from a longer cut without audio that encourage mobile users to stop in their scrolling and take note.
8) Dan Jeffreys from Bettys / Taylors of Harrogate showed the room his case study for how a viral video of their £250.00 Easter Egg drove online chatter and ultimately sales uplift. Seems like a good stunt, well executed is still a very powerful way of getting virtual tongues wagging.
9) Nick Bamber of Asda and Joe Comiskey of Unilever spoke of the power of customer reviews online, and how they even power shopper behaviour in store as well as via the e-commerce experience.
10) On average we unlock our phones 150 times a day, Twitter sends 6000 tweets per second, 1 in 5 of us follow a food brand on Twitter, we tweet more about #meat than #chocolate, and Greek food is fastest growing food trend on Twitter. Enough stats for one day? Thought so.

So an all-round great event, and a fascinating collection of speakers from the world of foodservice digital. Thanks to Global Insight Conferences for a great event and for providing a platform for us digital foodies to congregate and thrash out the hot topics. Events as thoughtfully curated as this are hard to come by in my experience. We’re looking forward to next year’s event already!

Jellybean Creative is a leading foodservice digital agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, foodservice marketing, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.