All images by Osker Carmichael
We’re not ones to stand still at Marwick Marketing – and a few weeks ago, we supported the inaugural Out Of Office Marketing & Business Growth Conference, put on by DYSUJO who invited brand leaders, social media gurus, ambitious marketing managers and more to our home in Newquay.
There were many takeaways. And that was the point of having such a diverse range of characters in the mix. We also wanted to limit it to one stage, one setting with enough space to listen properly and interact with others who were there.
We may be biased, but there’s also something that hits differently about these types of events in Newquay. It’s away from everything else, the noise, the grind – and somewhere you can really lean into that Out Of Office mantra. Across the day, ten ideas popped out for us, in different forms. None of them offer a neat shortcut. They do, however, give brands a much better set of questions to work with.
1) Technology Is Moving Faster Than Planning Cycles
Out Of Office host, and Gadget Show hero, Jason Bradbury, opened the day with some useful insight: “Technological change is not moving in a tidy straight line. It is accelerating,” he said. That matters because a lot of business planning still assumes next year will look like this year, only with a few more tools layered on top.
The answer is not to chase every shiny release. It is to understand enough to make good calls; what can be automated, where human review still matters and which decisions should never be handed over completely. As Jason said: “You need to appreciate the exponential nature of growth.”
2) Better Tools Make Judgement More Valuable
One theme that continued to stand out was the integration of tech tools to alleviate heavy lift. As technology makes production quicker and cheaper, simply making more things becomes less impressive. The real value shifts towards taste, context, responsibility and knowing what is actually worth doing.
Used well, AI should clear away repetitive work and create more room for the human bits; empathy, instinct, experience and the confidence to say that something technically possible is still a bad idea.
3) Growth Can Weaken The Initial Offering
Karl Loudon, a Cornwall-based business leader, posed this dilemma neatly: “How do I do that without losing my soul, or whatever made the business and the brand special in the first place?”
Rich Sutcliffe, Founder of clothing brand Passenger, walked through his vision and where the brand currently is. Growth opens doors, but it also creates pressure to smooth out the edges, widen the audience and become a little easier for everyone to understand.
That can work commercially while quietly making the brand less interesting. The trick is not to freeze a business in time. It is to know which parts of the idea are non-negotiable, so everything else can evolve without the whole thing losing its shape.
4) More Content Is Not The Same As More Impact
When reach drops, the instinct is usually to post more. More formats, more trends, more channels, more noise. The mastermind behind RyanAir’s social media campaigns, Michael Corcoran, made the fairly obvious but often ignored point that platforms love volume. Brands only benefit when the work creates memory, preference or action. “You don’t own your audience. They do,” he said. The better question is not how often you should post. It is what you want people to remember you for. A million impressions can still leave no impression at all.
5) Social Has Become a Search Behaviour
Another common theme across Out Of Office was the shift in social media mentality. People are not only scrolling social platforms for entertainment. They are looking for restaurants, products, places, advice, proof and recommendations. At the same time, websites, reviews, social posts and third-party mentions are feeding AI-generated answers.
That means content has to do two jobs; catch attention now and remain useful later. Specific, well-structured expertise has a much longer shelf life than generic commentary dressed up as thought leadership.
6) Creators Are Moving Upstream
The creator’s conversation made it clear that the old model of handing someone a finished brief and paying them to distribute it is running out of road. Good creators bring audience understanding, platform instinct, production skill and often a much sharper sense of what will feel believable. “We have gone from one-off partnerships and very polished feeds to longer-term partnerships and co-created products,” said Robyn Pounds-Wood, Founder of Current Creative, a social-first media agency. Bring them in earlier and they can improve the idea. Bring them in at the end and you are mostly buying a delivery channel.
7) Community Credibility Has To Be Earned
When talking about the outdoor lifestyle industry, some brands believe they can move into the space and take profit without giving back or enhancing the culture. This is called out by consumers immediately. It is easy for a brand to borrow the look and language of a culture. It is much harder to earn trust inside it. The social-impact and outdoor panels both pointed back to the same basics; listen, contribute and stick around. Smaller brands may not be able to outspend global competitors, but they can often show up with more care, more consistency and a better understanding of the people they are trying to work with.
8) Commercial Discipline Grows Creativity
Here’s a theme that came out of left field; creative and commercial teams are often treated as if they are pulling in opposite directions. In reality, good commercial thinking can help strong ideas survive. It gives leaders a clearer case for investment, protects experimentation and stops every decision being reduced to this week’s conversion rate. The danger is being too narrow. Broaden the scope, do not cut the work that creates future demand.
9) Place Can Be The Product
“Destination needs a critical mass. Destination can’t just be one thing on its own,” said Andrew Marcus, a business strategist, facilitator and coach. A place is not only its campaign line or hero film. It is transport, access, amenities, accommodation, food, welcome and whether the whole thing works when a visitor actually arrives.
Out of Office benefited from being part of Newquay and the wider UK Surf & Skate Expo, which was organised by DYSUJO, the same group who organised Out Of Office. The location gave the event texture, energy and a reason to stay beyond the final session.
10) Real-World Connection Is Key
The final panel explored changing drinking habits, but the bigger conversation was about social health. People may be consuming differently, yet the need to gather, belong and share experiences has not gone anywhere. As more of life moves onto screens, the businesses that create something genuinely worth leaving home for have a powerful advantage. Hospitality, events and cultural spaces are not just transactions. They are where relationships happen.
Where Does This Leave Us?
The rules of growth are changing because the conditions around growth are changing. Technology is accelerating, discovery is fragmenting and audiences are quicker to spot generic content or borrowed credibility.
At the same time, the things that are harder to scale – judgement, distinctiveness, trust, community and a brilliant real-world experience – are becoming more valuable. That feels less like a problem and more like an opportunity for the businesses willing to protect what makes them good.
The Marwick Perspective: Be Part Of The Answer
These shifts also change how businesses are found. Customers are increasingly getting recommendations and comparisons without clicking through a long list of websites. A business can be genuinely brilliant and still be missing from the answer if its expertise, reputation and offer are not clear enough online.
Marwick’s AI Visibility Tracker is a useful starting point. It shows whether a business is being found, understood and recommended, then helps identify where the gaps sit; the questions it is missing from, the competitors appearing instead and the evidence that needs strengthening.
