The new business case for advertising

Speaker biographies

Laurence Green, Director of Effectiveness, IPA

A strategist turned business director and agency founder, Laurence has started, grown and sold two creative agencies: Fallon London (twice winner, Campaign Agency of the Year) and 101.

Along the way, he’s worked with some of the world’s greatest brands and got some of the world’s best work: from the BBC, Coca-Cola, Škoda, Sony, Stella Artois and the Tate all the way through to start-ups and scale-ups such as innocent, Nando’s, Green & Blacks and Ben & Jerry’s. But he mainly gets asked about Cadbury’s ‘Gorilla’.

An IPA Fellow for services to effectiveness, Laurence has edited two books on marketing best practice. He was the only agency strategist named in the Financial Times’ Creative Business Top 50; a founding member of c&binet (the Department for Culture, Media & Sport’s creative industries thinktank); and a founding trustee of the Marketing Academy.

Jane Christian, Managing Director Analytics & Insight, EssenceMediacom UK

Jane has been at EssenceMediacom (formerly MediaCom) for 23 years and she is currently MD of Analytics and Insight. Her background is in econometrics and she has a passion for marketing effectiveness. Jane has worked with businesses across most sectors. She has been recognised in both the 30 under 30 and 40 over 40 accolades.

Dom Charles, Managing Director, Audience Intelligence & Marketing Science, Wavemaker UK

Dom has been at Wavemaker (previously MEC) for 17 years and has worked in a variety of roles including digital activation, planning, client leadership and marketing effectiveness.

Dom’s current role is Managing Director of Audience Intelligence & Marketing Science (AIMS) bringing together all of Wavemaker UK’s data and technology specialisms be that audience insight, marketing effectiveness, data strategy or technology solutions and is responsible for leading the agencies data and technology proposition supporting their clients to maximise the value of their data in media activation and build the case for advertising investment.
Across his career, Dom has worked with a broad range of brands including Morrisons, Merlin Entertainments, Nationwide, Transport for London & Rightmove.

Nic Pietersma, Group Director, Marketing Effectiveness UK, Ebiquity

Nic is an economist who has been working in marketing effectiveness for 18 years.

He is Group Director at Ebiquity where he has specialised in retail and financial services with a sprinkling of travel and FMCG. Nic is also responsible for the Ebiquity toolkit, techniques and best practice.

Across his career, Nic has worked on Boots, B&Q, Dreams, Direct Line Group, Confused.com and various FMCG brands.

Kate Waters, Director of Client Strategy and Planning, ITV

Kate is a creative strategist by background, having worked at several ad agencies across a wide range of categories and clients, including Financial Services, FMCG, telecoms and public sector.

In 2011 she started her own agency, Now, working with clients including BT, Public Health England, New York Bakery and the Women's Equality Party. In 2019 she moved to ITV to set up a client strategy team within the Commercial Division. Five years on, the team includes creative strategists, comms planners, data scientists and cultural strategists, who work with ITV's clients to shape partnerships, plan campaigns and innovate new techniques to measure effectiveness.

She has a strong interest in behaviour change and effectiveness. She is also the climate action lead for ITV Commercial and was the 2021-22 President of WACL (Women in Advertising and Communications Leadership).

Sameer Modha, Measurement Innovation Controller, ITV

Sameer co-leads the team which makes tools to help every advertiser reveal the unmeasured business impacts of TV advertising.

Before ITV he ran a data science team at Google, and in the twenty-something years since his mongrel Cambridge degree (spanning Physics, Philosophy and Social Science) and his WPP Fellowship has worked as a marketing strategist in every kind of agency - creative, direct, digital and media - and led a wide range of insight, analytics and data teams.

Along the way he has wrangled everything from qualitative and survey research data to small but perfectly-formed panels through to planet-sized behavioural data; across all of them the goal has always been the same - to unearth useful truths for marketers, in a systematic and scalable way.

Simeon Duckworth, Founder, Melt

Melt, a data science consultancy, helps clients make smarter decisions through the selective adoption of innovative, cross-discipline analytical techniques. It's not just about AI!

Before founding Melt, Simeon held global analytics and strategy leadership roles in WPP's media and creative agencies for over 25 years, most recently as Global President of Analytics and Strategy at Essence.

Simeon is researching an economics PhD at UCL on data sharing, advertising and economic power (sponsored by WPP).

Matt Chappell, Global Client Success Officer, Gain Theory

Matt is responsible for ensuring their clients have the right measurement and optimisation solutions at the right time. Having been a modeller and analyst in his youth, Matt brings a keen eye for how analytics can drive smarter business decisions.

An accomplished writer, Matt has authored several industry reports, including the award-winning Profit Ability: the business case for advertising and The nine golden rules of measurement.

He is also a regular speaker at industry events, such as Marketing Week Live and EffWorks.

Richard Warren, Director Brand, Marketing and Corporate Affairs, Nationwide

Richard joined Nationwide in September 2023, and has been involved in the October brand relaunch and new advertising campaign.
Prior to Nationwide, Richard was Director of Marketing Communications for Lloyds Banking Group for five years, where he was responsible for the Lloyds, Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Scottish Widows brands. Before that Richard worked agency side in both media and creative agencies, being a founding partner in Delaney Lund Knox Warren which grew to be the UK’s largest independent agency before merging with Lowe.

Agenda for the morning

09:30am: Introduction to the morning with Lindsey Clay, CEO, Thinkbox

09:40am: Effectiveness: A View From The Hill…And The Hurdles Ahead with Laurence Green, Director of Effectiveness, IPA

09:50am: Profit Ability 2 with, Jane Christian, Managing Director Analytics & Insight, EssenceMediacom UK, Dom Charles, Managing Director, Audience Intelligence & Marketing Science, Wavemaker UK, Nic Pietersma, Group Director, Marketing Effectiveness UK, Ebiquity

11:10am: Break

11:30am: Jam Today: how brand advertising on TV creates short term value with Kate Waters, Director of Client Strategy and Planning, ITV, Sameer Modha, Measurement Innovation Controller, ITV, Simeon Duckworth, Founder, Melt

12:00pm: Panel discussion with Matt Chappell, Global Client Success Officer, Gain Theory, Richard Warren, Director Brand, Marketing and Corporate Affairs, Nationwide, Kate Waters, Director of Client Strategy and Planning, ITV, hosted by Matt Hill, Research and Planning Director, Thinkbox

12:45pm: Ends