On Thursday and Friday last week my hometown of Cincinnati hosted its second annual Digital Hub Initiative Non-conference. I was able to deliver a keynote speech Friday, following in the footsteps of A-list speakers such as John Battelle, Peter Kim, Brad Berens, Allan Adamson, Pete Blackshaw, and Winston Binch. I was very proud to see our event attract a large, engaged crowd and I can’t wait to see how we take it to an even higher level next year.

Obviously I was speaking to share the concept of my new book, The Next Evolution of Marketing, and the topic of this blog, Marketing with Meaning. Every time I speak I like to try something new and personalize my presentation based on the specific audience at hand. For my speech on Friday I decided to come down hard on my fellow digital leaders for choosing to adapt to the existing, traditional, interruptive model of marketing, and I challenged the room to lead the move to meaningful marketing, which happens to provide a powerful path for digital to win.

I thought this built very well on earlier presentations in the day from Peter Kim and Brad Berens, who both showed how digital technology is a groundbreaking societal change. My link was to show that such a dramatic shift in society means that there must be a similar dramatic shift in marketing strategy. I also used my presentation to share how a simple model of focusing on business objectives and higher-level insights can lead to meaningful marketing ideas in no time. You can see my slides above.

Overall I think it went pretty well.  The Twitter feedback was strong and several people came up to me to praise it. Hopefully a couple hundred digital marketers take my challenge and go back to their offices Monday ready to lead!

What I really love about this conference is that it is a way for the digital leaders of Cincinnati to practice Marketing with Meaning. Led by Jack Streitmarter and a diverse group of volunteers, the Digital Hub Initiative is about attracting, developing, and retaining digital talent in the Cincinnati area by investing in great events such as this. I was proud to see many groups come together and pool their efforts around this effort, including local chapters of the AdClub and American Marketing Association, big companies such as P&G and Kroger, and diverse digital services companies such as Nielsen and Empower.

Thanks again to the DHI leaders volunteers for inviting me to speak, and to all of the volunteers who pulled off a great show.