The first-of-its-kind marketing and creative trading show brought experts from across the creative industry together this year at GITEX, which was hosted at the Dubai World Trade Centre from Monday, 10th October till Friday, the 14th of October.
In its 3rd year, Marketing Mania attracted over 300 professionals from across the globe in its audiences. The show ran the course for the first three days of GITEX, presenting over 10 different speaker addresses and panels every day.
While the show aimed at targeting a very niche audience with its agenda this year, Mimi Nicklin told Communicate how this year saw a wider group of enthusiasts tuning in. “The show is as much about community as it is about content. “This year, the audience has also shifted and while it's absolutely targeted at marketers and everyone interested in marketing, we witnessed another segment of the audience from startups and tech platforms, who are looking for effective insights into the changing world of marketing,” said Nicklin.
The event agenda covered a wide range of topics through fireside chats, panel discussions as well as keynote addresses including - Web3 marketing, investing in Cryptocurrency, consumer experience, music and media, personalization in a cookie-less world, digital trust, and inclusive marketing.
Tariq Shalabi, Head of Partnerships and Sales at Dmenta, was one of the many speakers on a panel discussing, “Driving growth with social,” said, “The abundance of in-depth insights around key topics succeeded in emerging the attendees with real-life top-class expertise that you would not find or could not read about it on Google. The show this year attracted a myriad of outstanding talents who weren’t short on providing an audience experience of no other. The amount of engaged audience during and post the panel discussion could tell the effectiveness of each one of them.”
Nicklin describes this year’s show as a ‘driver of growth.’ “We try to focus on providing our audience with actionable case studies, insights as well as connections that allow them to build their brands and careers,” she explains. The show also attracted a large group of professionals from start-up and entrepreneurial backgrounds this year. “The key difference between the existing corporate names and SMEs is the connection to a new purpose. They look at things in a different way.”
Namrata Balwani, Partner at Tough Love Advisors, said, “Marketing Mania had fabulously curated topics and great speakers - everything was relevant to the future of marketing. Data, CX, AI, Social, Metaverse, MarTech - the variety of topics and the nuggets of insight were fantastic. Overall, GITEX was outstanding, the scale and the exhibits made me feel like Alice in Wonderland, the business version. Marketing Mania was a true reflection of this, of adding the marketing lens to the overall display of futuristic tech across industries.”
GITEX 2022 kickstarted on the 10th of October and went on for the week. Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister, and Minister of Finance officially opened the tech event. Government bodies including RTA, Dubai Police, and The Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security (ICP) also announced updates at the event throughout the week. Marketing Mania was held under the umbrella of GITEX 2022 along with all the other shows targeting different audiences including – Global Dev Slam, Fintech Surge, North Star, AI Everthing, and Future Blockchain Summit.
