Welcome to Unofficially MAD//Fest — the official media-partner newsletter bringing you speaker scoops, creative hacks, and festival buzz straight from MAD//Fest London.

When Klaviyo’s Robin Marchant sat down with Ogilvy Vice Chair Rory Sutherland at MAD//Fest, the conversation quickly zeroed in on a core truth: algorithms don’t understand people — but brands should.

That set the tone for a conversation that challenged the obsession with efficiency and urged marketers to think behaviour-first, not just data-first.

Here’s what stood out:

🔸 Emotion beats automation
We don’t choose based on features or price alone. The brands we remember made us feel something. That mental availability — the way a product shows up in someone’s head before it lands in their hands — is what drives long-term value.

🔸 Avoid designing for the average
Marchant highlighted that personalisation doesn’t mean building a single journey. Real marketing impact happens when brands offer multiple entry points, respond to unpredictable paths, and keep relevance high throughout.

🔸 Automation supports, not replaces, human insight
Marchant was clear: tools like Klaviyo are only as effective as the thinking behind them. The goal isn’t to replace marketers — it’s to help them scale smart decisions based on behavioural nuance.

🎥 Watch this moment

In the following clip, Rory Sutherland shares why marketers need to rethink how they use addressable media—and why generosity could be the most underrated lever in brand-building. It’s slower to prove, sure. But as Rory puts it, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.

🧠 Not everything that matters is measurable immediately.

As Rory points out, some of the most impactful marketing takes time to pay off—which is exactly why it often gets overlooked. It’s easier to double down on what’s fast and measurable at the bottom of the funnel. But that doesn’t always lead to real, long-term growth.

📈 That’s where Fospha comes in.

Fospha’s platform helps retail brands measure the full-funnel impact of their campaigns—even when results take time to show up. Whether it’s Meta, Google, TikTok or even addressable mail, Fospha reveals how your upper-funnel activity drives incremental revenue on platforms like Amazon and beyond.

💡 Why brands trust Fospha:

Duolingo’s Rebeca Ricoy took the MAD//Fest stage to break down how one of the world’s most downloaded education apps wins hearts and headlines across LATAM, EMEA, and beyond — not just through localisation, but through unexpected cultural alignment.

Key Takeaways:

💡 Local marketing ≠ local language.
It’s not just about translating creative. Rebeca shared how Duolingo taps into cultural cues — from holidays to humour — to make campaigns land with relevance.

🤝 Partnerships, not promotions.
Whether teaming up with influencers or piggybacking on fan-favourite brands, Duolingo focuses on organic alignment, not forced co-branding.

🎯 Virality isn’t the goal — resonance is.
Duolingo’s playful tone may lend itself to memes, but every campaign is built around authenticity and audience insight, not chasing clicks.

This session showed that when growth is your goal, fandoms beat funnels — and cultural fluency can be more powerful than paid reach.

📍 Venue:
Old Truman Brewery, Ely’s Yard, 15 Hanbury Street, London, E1 6QR.

📲 Download the App
Check the latest schedule, bookmark your sessions, and access venue maps. (Available via the App Store & Google Play – search “MAD//Events”)

Thanks for reading today’s edition — we’ll be back tomorrow with more insights from the floor. Enjoy day 2!

— The Unofficially MAD//Fest Team