The Marketing Society 50th Anniversary

16th & 17th November 2009

The Marketing Society 50th Anniversary Gala Dinner & Conference

The Marketing Society appointed Hertfordshire-based agency Smyle to stage and manage their 50th Anniversary Gala Dinner and 50th Anniversary Conference held the following day.  

Piers Morgan hosted proceedings which took place on the 16 November at Battersea Evolution and luminaries including Richard Branson's son Sam, Tesco chief executive Terry Leahy, and representatives from Microsoft, Apple and Comparethemarket.com were present to accept awards on the night. The Marketing Society announced the winners of the 50 golden brands and 50 marketing heroes from the last 50 years - as voted by their members.

A feature of the event was a huge wall showcasing 50 different iconic brands from the last 50 years. This was constructed for both the gala dinner and for the conference held the next day at the Royal Opera House.

The conference brought together 18 speakers from the world’s leading brands and organisations, including Microsoft consumer and online UK managing director Ashley Highfield, Nokia UK marketing director Will Harris and Easyjet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou.
Among the other speakers were the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, COI chief executive Mark Lund and media consultant Peter Bazalgette.

Gemma Greaves, The Marketing Society’s Marketing Director commented:

“From all of us here a HUGE THANK YOU to you for leading your brilliant teams and for personally making our flagship events absolutely spectacular. It was a complete pleasure to work with you all, you are true professionals!” 

Rick Stainton, Smyle's  Commercial Director added, "The team at Smyle were very honoured and excited to  work with The Marketing Society and so many global brands from the last 50 years on these two projects . It is particularly significant timing for Smyle as the recent launch of our dedicated experiential dept has greatly boosted our engagement with the marketing industry."