Speakers:

Richard Holley
Digital Communications Manager
Geox S.p.A.
Richard is now leading the Digital Communications team for the premium Italian footwear brand Geox, where he is overseeing the brand’s integrated digital strategy. GEOX is known for its invention of the “shoe that breathes”, and has created a cult-like following in more than 100 countries with its blend of breathable technologies and stylish Italian design. Geox‘s mission is to diffuse technological innovation, enhancing people’s daily wellbeing through products with premium comfort, breathability and impermeability. Since starting their collaboration with Norwegian creative agency SMFB in 2012, together they have won Gold at the Cannes Lions festival for their campaign “Amphibiox Urban Waterproof Shoes”. Their follow up 2013 waterproof shoe collection launch “7 Days of Rain” also recently picked up Grand Prix at Euro Best, while the “Geox – Scream Challenge” sponsorship activation viral surpassed 1,000,000 organic unpaid views within only a few weeks of its launch.
Kristian Kristiansen
Account Director / Partner
SMFB
Kristian Kristiansen (KK) is an enthusiastic individual with a strong understanding of the brand marketing & sales process. Experienced in the hands-on deployment of related strategies and well skilled in project and team management. KK is always looking to further develop his marketing, communication & managerial skills, and gain deeper understanding of the full sales, consumer and marketing process. KK seeks to working with companies and brands that challenge him on a day-to-day basis and push him to the limit of his knowledge and expertise.

GEOX is based in Treviso, Italy. Mario Polegato, the founder of GEOX, decided to poke holes into his shoes to make his feet cooler. He found a membrane that make a “breathable” shoe. He was turned down by many companies so decided to make his own. It’s now a 1 Billion EUR per year company.

For the past 2 years, digital has been at the forefront of GEOX along with research into new shoe technology. They created a new product with an improved membrane for a waterproof shoe but still needed a Winter technology to increase “off season” sales.

Amphibiox

To execute this properly, there needed to be proof that was easy to understand and easy to experience. Here, the best thing to do was to take these shoes to the wettest place on Earth. Cherrapunjee in India was the destination at the Indian/Bangladesh border. Why not watch the video about the experience :)

GEOX then made a completely interactive microsite to experience all the collection and go into detail for the really technical (and emotional) store. They then decided to make the idea more technical and comedic, such as this “7 Days of Rain” campaign.

Speaker:

Koen Spiers
Social Media Manager
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
Responsible for: – Setting up and managing international online (Social Media) campaigns. – Campaign strategy – Developing new (commercial) campaign concepts – The Integration of Social Media in other online-marketing campaigns – The commercial use of Google+ – Social advertising

Koen has his job because of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010. The question for KLM was “are we going to respond” as if we did, there’s no turning back. They did respond and answered as many questions as possible.

1. Service – service is sales.
2. Brand & Rep – Brand actions speak louder than tweets.
3. Commerce – Make commerce social by design.

KLM’s challenges geographically.

• 65 countries
• 131 worldwide desitinations
• Over 100 languages
• 25,8000,000 passengers per year

Flying is a huge moment of stress people. More than 100 people working on social media now in over 10 languages. 35,000 interactions per week, 75% of which are through Facebook. They now take away forms and replace with social media interaction. Lost and found team have 3 dedicated employees to retrieve lost objects.

Crew now have an iPad to connect to airports during flights and connects with Salesforce to integrate social inflight.

Reactive – Proactive – Predictive. This process means managing expectations. KLM promise to respond within an hour but with this has to come transparency.

Social Payment is now active within Facebook and Twitter to make things really simple to do something such as an upgrade. This came to 100,000 EUR in payments in the first 2 weeks alone meaning it really works.