Secret Summit 02: IYKYK
54% of younger adults say constantly being on their devices is bad for their wellbeing. Phone-free nightclubs are filling up. Dumbphone sales have seen double-digit growth for two consecutive years. The logging off trend is real and it's a live question for every brand trying to stay relevant.
We brought together 65 events and marketing professionals from brands including Disney, Hasbro, Canva, Bacardi, Google, LinkedIn, Red Bull and Sony PlayStation to explore exactly that: how do you stay connected to an audience that is deliberately disconnecting?
The evening opened with web psychologist Nathalie Nahai in conversation with our MD Cat Botibol. Nathalie unpacked how persuasive technology is driving a natural cultural backlash and made the case for brands as a genuine force for digital self-regulation. Her closing thought landed hard: algorithms can remix the past, but only human imagination can dream the future.
Then our staff burst into song, revealing themselves as performers from Showstopper! The Improvised Musical. A moment that could only have happened in that room, with that audience.
The evening closed with our Presence Panel, chaired by Experiential Director Dean Rodgers and featuring Pinterest's Seán Doyle, comedian Shappi Khorsandi, DJ Jodie Harsh and Secret Cinema's Senior Creative Director Matt Costain. Seán shared how Pinterest is seeing the shift in real time. Gen Z searches for "analog aesthetic" are up 260% on the platform, and searches for "dumb phone" have risen 150%. He also shared how their phone-free Coachella activation turned that insight into one of the festival's most talked-about brand moments.
Secret Summits are how we meet the people we want to work with. If you'd like to be at the next one, get in touch.
IYKYK
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