The Value Engineers Kids and CITV collaborated recently to host a kids seminar with the theme of ‘Measuring Up’. There was a great turn out from clients to witness an excellent and stimulating range of presentations from CITV, Dr. Amanda Gummer (Child Psychologist), Ella’s Kitchen and of course The Value Engineers Kids.

The opening session reviewed the current dynamics and challenges of the kids market and contextualized this in a critique of key trends over the last few decades. The presentations then took on a positive and practical perspective on the opportunities for future constructive brand development with a mix of academic theory, strategic principles and practical case studies from Ella’s Kitchen and CITV, all of which successfully highlighted how this new generation of kids can be engaged to build long term positive brand relationships with both kids and parents.

If you missed this event and would like to know more, you are very welcome to email me – or if you’d prefer to talk please call +44 (0)1494 680999…

On Wednesday 17th March I was a guest speaker at the seminar entitled ‘Children in the Commercial World’. This was hosted by the Westminster Media Forum whose remit is to facilitate debate of key social issues to help inform policy making. It was extremely well attended with a mixture of both commercial companies, charities, lobby groups and politicians. all of which boded well for stimulating and construct discussions. However I was quickly disheartened to witness the chasm of opinion between those that support the involvement of children in the commercial world and those that are vehemently anti-brand and called for nothing short of the termination of all kids brands and media channels.

Industry groups such as the Advertising Standards Association and ISBA were present and helped to highlight how tightly-regulated the kids marketing sector already is and how seriously brand owners take their moral reponsibilities. Sadly this seemed to aggravate rather than appease the anti-brand extremists and as such the debate tended to go round in circles rather than finding common ground for us all to agree on and move forwards.

On the basis of this experience I sense that the kids marketing debate will rage on in political circles and further underlines the importance for companies to ensure that their kids marketing activities leaves little scope for future lobby group and media attacks.

Following the success of last year’s inaugural Cello Group Conference, we are very pleased to announce this year’s theme.

For our second annual Cello Group Conference, we bring you a viewpoint from which to survey the expanding landscape of Health and Wellness: ‘Welcome to Wellbeing’.

This wide-angled approach will give you a broader perspective on Wellbeing, access to latest thinking across sectors and marketing disciplines, and the chance to consider how to best position your brand and business for healthy growth.

Featuring speakers from across our sister Cello companies and their clients in the public and private sectors, we also have a special appearance from Professor Kate Pickett, author of influential book, ‘The Spirit Level’.

This free event will be held at the Wellcome Collection in London, on 27 April, and will run from 1030-1600.

For more information on the conference and to register, please visit the Cello Conferences website.