Prolific North’s Northern Marketing Festival kicked off its 2025 event with a powerful opening day from Liverpool, bringing together over 150 marketing professionals for a vibrant day of insight, creativity, and collaboration spotlighting the North’s most exciting voices and forward-thinking brands.
Held at Liverpool’s iconic Royal Liver Building, the event opened with an engaging session from Nicola Docking, Managing Director at Poke Marketing. Nicola lifted the lid on the creative thinking behind Alder Hey’s Ignite the Sparks campaign, which used the universal language of play to tackle inequality in the UK. She showcased how a Top Trumps-inspired card game became a unique tool for children’s healthcare advocacy, positioning Alder Hey as a voice for policy change and equality.
“Being playful doesn’t mean being trivial,” Docking said. “With the right execution, it can be a serious catalyst for change.” Her talk provided behind-the-scenes insights into the creative journey, along with practical takeaways on emotional storytelling, iteration, and stakeholder engagement.
The campaign involved sending packs of cards to key stakeholders, cleverly reframing serious medical inequalities in an accessible, human way. Docking explained how the project avoided pity or sensationalism, instead centering young voices in the narrative.
She also shared earlier campaign iterations that were discarded, offering a rare glimpse into the thought process behind the final concept. “It’s important to look at what didn’t work,” she said. “Some earlier ideas were too focused on poverty, which felt too singular to capture the necessary nuance.”
READ MORE: Prolific North’s Northern Marketing Festival 2025 kicks off in Liverpool
Docking closed with advice for marketers tackling complex issues: keep the audience front and centre and use creative formats to reframe the conversation. A key campaign strength was the tangible physical cards, which despite being in a digital world acted as a ‘cornerstone’ of this groundbreaking initiative.
Following this opener, the day moved to a session on Weightmans’ rebrand. The 200-year-old law firm has reinvented itself as a modern marketing innovator, putting people – and its culture – at the heart of its brand. Sarah Walton, the firm’s first female Managing Partner, joined Dr Catriona Wolfenden and Valerie Bounds to discuss how authenticity, innovation, and purpose repositioned Weightmans as a top 40 UK legal player.
Next, Harriet Tuite from Embryo and Chris Grimes from Novaro led a fast-paced session on social selling, sharing actionable tips on converting followers into customers through scroll-stopping content, platform-specific storytelling, and TikTok Shop’s growing influence. As Grimes put it, “You’ve got 1.7 seconds to make people stop.”
In a thought-provoking solo talk, Tony Lewis, CEO of Vision One, urged the audience to move beyond traditional brand building, focusing instead on ‘velocity’ – energising the brand to cut through the noise. “It’s not about brand building, it’s about brand energising,” he said, highlighting energy, participation, and movement as real marketing currency to today’s market.
Another highlight was a fireside chat with Anna Babilinski-Barker, Senior Brand and Marketing Manager at Chester Zoo, who shared the zoo’s bold brand repositioning. With national conservation at its core, Chester Zoo now stands as a purpose-driven brand committed to a future where nature thrives – not just the visitor attraction many people remember from their youth. “We brought Northern grit to a global cause,” she said, illustrating how marketing can drive both impact and growth.
After lunch, a lively panel celebrated Liverpool’s creative economy through music, film, and gaming. Becky Ayres (Sound City), Barrington Robinson (Redbag Pictures), Glen O’Connell (Games, Sports and Entertainment Agency), and Helen Cross (Liverpool City Region Combined Authority) highlighted how the city’s cultural richness sets it apart. They explored how gaming, film and music are all shaping Liverpool’s future – and what brands can learn from their creative agility.
Barrington, a Liverpool resident for nearly nine years, said, “Liverpool is one of those places that once you come, it’s very hard to leave. We have everything.” He praised the city’s stunning architecture, which has featured in blockbuster films from Batman and Harry Potter to period dramas and sci-fi franchises. But he said Liverpool’s true unique currency lies in its people and communities, as well as its growing creative workforce.
The panel stressed the importance of celebrating the city’s cultural assets and opening pathways for young people to enter the booming creative sectors.
Nina Kehagia, Head of Content and Marketing at Shesaid.co, delivered an inspiring talk on the power of community over audience. Drawing from the music industry, she referenced artists like Doechii and Lola Young to demonstrate how credibility, authenticity, and co-creation foster meaningful brand growth. “Audience is passive, community participates,” she said. “Brands should stop chasing trends and start building culture.” Her practical advice? “Start small. Start honest. Start today.”
The final session was a sharp reality check from Richard Walker, Director at research agency Mustard. Using notorious marketing flops – from Leeds United’s ill-fated badge rebrand to Tourism Australia’s “Where the hell are you?” campaign – he showed how poor or absent research can derail even high-profile campaigns. The audience voted Leeds United’s rebrand the worst offender.
This year’s Northern Marketing Festival is made possible with the support of headline sponsors SBS, Automated Analytics and Embryo, alongside regional partners Royal Liver Suite, Growth Platform and Poke Marketing, and a host of industry supporters including Hub, Pathway, ICG, Vision One, Canny Creative, Made Brave, Buy Media, Lucid Link, Print.com, Tal Agency, Wolfenden, Colony, McCann, Be Broadcast, Impression Digital, Sun Branding and Tall.
For now the festival moves to Leeds, before finishing up in Manchester on Thursday. Stay tuned to Prolific North for all the latest from the Northern Marketing Festival 2025.
