Events20 March 2026 · 5 min read
We went to The Marketing Meetup so you didn't have to
A day of campfire stories from some of the kindest, sharpest people in marketing. Here is what we are taking back to the studio.
On the 19th of March we swapped the studio for Church House in Westminster and spent a day at The Marketing Meetup Conference, this year themed Campfire Stories.
One stage, no clashing sessions, around three hundred marketers, and a lineup asked to teach through real situations from their careers rather than slides full of theory. We took a lot of notes. Here are the bits worth passing on.
Every speaker was briefed to wrap their framework inside a real story from their working life. It is a simple idea with an outsized effect: you remember the story, and the lesson rides along with it. If you want a room to keep your point, give them something to picture, not a bullet to skim. We are stealing this one for our own decks.
Dave Harland of Copy or Die opened with a talk called In Odd We Trust, and the argument stuck: the specific, slightly strange detail is the thing people actually remember. Train yourself to notice the odd, then use it. Safe, sensible, sanded-down copy is forgettable copy, a theme you may have spotted running through our writing here.
Mimi Turner from LinkedIn made the sharpest B2B point of the day. Getting noticed is the easy part; making someone feel confident enough to actually buy is the hard part. In B2B especially, the job is to lower the perceived risk of choosing you. Reassurance, evidence and proof move more people than another impression ever will.
Phill Agnew of the Nudge podcast walked through the behavioural science of why we buy, and left us with a useful reminder: small amounts of effort and friction shape decisions far more than we like to admit. Make the thing you want people to do easier, and make the choice feel safe. A lot of persuasion is simply removing reasons to hesitate.
Helen Tupper of Amazing If argued that you build a brand, and a business, by listening properly rather than broadcasting harder. It pairs neatly with our Currys piece next door: the brands winning right now are the ones paying real attention to real people, then reflecting them back.
Two talks, one message. Heather Murray of AI for Non-Techies cut through the noise on what actually matters in AI for marketers this year, and Chima Mmeje of Moz showed how lean teams can scale content with it, including the shift toward AI-driven search. The takeaway was calm and useful: AI is a lever for small teams, not a monster to hide from, as long as a human still owns the judgement.
Sam Conniff, who wrote the Uncertainty Toolkit, closed the day on the psychology of not knowing what happens next. In an industry that reinvents itself every eighteen months, that might be the most useful skill of all: treating uncertainty as fuel rather than a threat.
Here is what really stayed with us. The whole day ran on generosity. Speakers gave away their best material, the hosts went out of their way to make an intimidating format feel safe, and last year the event scored a net promoter score of 98, which is almost unheard of. Kindness was not the soft bit around the edges. It was the strategy, and it is exactly why people come back.
Tell more stories and fewer stats. Design for confidence, not just awareness. Use AI to free up thinking rather than replace it. And treat clients, and each other, the way TMM treats its community. Worth every minute, and the train fare.
Want a marketing partner that actually turns up, reads the room, and brings the lessons home? Get in touch.