Consumer.Innovation.Technology. One Step Beyond events are focused on these three crucial areas in any business’ future and providing you with the very latest developments both within the drinks and hospitality sectors and beyond.
At the end of 2019, when The Buyer and Sophie Jump introduced the One Step Beyond initiative to give the drinks industry a platform to analyse the changes taking place in technology and consumer behaviour – and their impact on our sector – the world was very different to what it is now.
Our inaugural event in March 2020 was to be last live event of its kind before Covid-19 hit. The changes in technology and consumer behaviour presented then have been on fast forward ever since.
To help the drinks, retail and hospitality sectors to keep on top of the most important innovations and their impact on consumer expectations, the One Step Beyond initiative is back with plans to host four quarterly online webinars, culminating, we hope, in a live event at the end of the year.
This follows the success of our autumn online webinar when our keynote speakers from the first conference gave an update on the initial impact of Covid-19. It attracted 350 registrations of which 176 trade professionals tuned in from 15 countries.
First 2021 Online Event: April 14 16.00pm-17.30pm (GMT)
Consumer. Innovation. Technology. REGISTER HERE
The first free webinar is now set to take place on April and is is designed to provide as much content as possible in an easy to watch, relaxed format. Speakers are allocated 15-minute slots to present and take questions and the sessions will also include interviews and panel debates to keep things fast and fresh.
The Programme:
- Introduction and welcome by Sophie Jump and Richard Siddle, editor-in chief, The Buyer.
- Alex Ririe, director, The Collaborators, a strategic branding and design agency:
Alex Ririe will look at key macro consumer trends
‘The 3 key macro-trends impacting the drinks industry and how businesses are adapting to these challenges’
- Paul Mabray, chief executive, Pix, new wine search platform:
Paul Mabray speaking at the inaugural One Step Beyond conference. Mabray is headline partner of One Step Beyond through his new Pix vertical search site for wine
- ‘2021: The Golden Age of Wine Online’
- Michael Becker, chief executive, Identity Praxis,a strategic product, market, and business development advisory and consultancy.
Michael Becker: how we will be able to use our own personal data in the future
- ‘The Phygital Economy – factors reshaping today’s marketplace and how to engage and serve the future personal data empowered, digital savvy, ‘phygital’ individual’.
Lucy Auld from Freixenet Copestick
- Interview with Kevin Shaw, founder, Stranger & Stranger (TBC) and Lucy Auld, head of marketing, Freixenet Copestick: ‘The big challenges and opportunities for brands’.
- Panel debate and Q and A. More speakers to be announced
If you would like to register for this event then please click here.
(Click here for a video of the full event).
Looking ahead
Things have moved on at such a pace in the last year but how do you sift through all the reports and insights to work out what is the most important and relevant to you?
That is what the One Step Beyond online events are about – starting with our first session on April 14 – partnering with the best talent in consumer behaviour, innovation and technology to give the most relevant insights for our sectors.
Richard Siddle, editor-in-chief of The Buyer says: “In the last year we have seen an astonishing amount of change, disruption and innovation. Not one business will have remained the same. But have we really had chance to take stock of what those changes have been? Just how well equipped are we as individuals and businesses to keep pace with the amount of change we continue to see in the way we are all now behaving. That is what these One Step Beyond events are about. A 90-minute online trip that hopefully makes the unknown a whole lot more familiar.”
Sophie Jump organises thought leadership conferences around the world for the International Wine Club Association and runs her own wine business consultancy
Sophie Jump, who runs her own wine consultancy as well as the International Wine Clubs Association, which specialises in direct to consumer commerce, says: “As an industry it is vital to keep ahead of the game in terms of technology and innovation and always with a consumer-centric focus. The buck begins and ends with the final consumer and this approach is crucial to all businesses.”
One Step partners
The WSTA’s Miles Beale said it is keen to play its part in helping the drinks industry address the “incredible amount of change and disruption” we have seen in the last 12 months
The One Step Beyond initiative is once again being run with the support of the Wine & Spirit Trade Association which is perfectly placed to hear and assess the big macro trends that the drinks industry needs to address in the coming years.
Miles Beale, chief executive of the WSTA, said: “Last year, we partnered with The Buyer and Sophie Jump to hold an event aimed at helping keep pace with consumer trends and understanding the technologies that drive them. In the last 12 months, we’ve all experienced an incredible amount of change and disruption, and that makes this next One Step Beyond webinar yet more important. We’re excited to be involved again in what is sure to prove a valuable event for the drinks industry.”
We are delighted to welcome back Paul Mabray as our headline technology partner with his new Pix business which is at the very heart of technological change in the wine industry. Pix is creating a new neutral, vertical search engine for wine or, as it says, “a better way to find and buy wine” the likes of which we have not seen in the wine sector before, or in many other industries.
Over the coming months, Mabray and his team of carefully selected top talent which includes some of the most highly respected content and technology experts in the field, (Meg Maker, Leslie Yake, Felicity Carter, Erica Duecy), will be sharing their insights on how technology is dynamically changing the way the wine industry works and what the average consumer will expect of it.
Here’s why he is so keen to be supporting One Step Beyond:
“In seeking the best conferences in the world to help unlock the future for the wine industry, One Step Beyond stands out for its quality, speakers, and leadership. The wine world needs better ways to understand the rapidly changing world of technology, One Step Beyond is a guiding light to help the industry build a better tomorrow.
“Our industry needs more conferences focused on helping wine companies bridge the gap between today and tomorrow. It’s wonderful to see One Step Beyond make this their mission and we are pleased to partner with them.”
Our other partners include Freixenet Copestick, one of the fastest growing and most influential drinks brand businesses, not just in the UK but, through its parent owners, Henkell Freixenet, across the world too. It is particularly well placed to share insights on the changing demands and opportunities for major wine brands, and also on how fast the direct to consumer and drinks e-commerce sectors are growing through its online wine site, slurp.co.uk.
We are also delighted to welcome a new partner in 2021 – arguably the drinks industry’s most influential brand development, design and packaging specialist Stranger & Stranger, led by the inspiring Kevin Shaw. He and his team will be sharing insights into how quickly brands are having to change and adapt everything they do.
Cutting edge speakers
What helped One Step Beyond to stand out and quickly establish itself in 2020 was the quality of its speakers. Our speakers are carefully selected for the original insights they can offer that you will not hear at any other drinks or hospitality event.
In 2020, for example, we were able to share experts advice both in our first live conference and then our follow up autumn webinar:
- To read a full report from the inaugural 2020 One Step Beyond conference click here.
- To watch the full webinar from the follow up online session in the autumn then click below.
- The consumer insights expertise of world leading consultancy, Wunderman Thompson Commerce.
- (Click here for its analysis of e-commerce and dos and dont’s of DTC at the last One Step Beyond webinar and a clip from their presentation below)
- We stepped into the world of voice search with Vixen Labs and the enormous impact that audio and voice are going to have in the way we live our lives. (Click here for an analysis from their presentation at the first One Step Beyond webinar last autumn)
(Click here for James Poulter of Vixen labs on why voice search is becoming big for business)
- Changes in shopper behaviour on the high street and in our major grocers through the IGD.
- How technology and packaging being deployed in other sectors is going to change drinks packaging down the line, with Cambridge Design Partnership.
- Click here to sign up to the first 2021 free One Step Beyond webinar here.
