Iterable’s Activate Tour returned to the UK for the fourth year in succession earlier this month, bringing a dash of much-needed San Franciscan sunshine to London.
Set in the heart of the city’s financial district at Convene 22 Bishopsgate, this year’s event was once again set in impressively auspicious, ultra-modern surroundings.
Bringing together some of the best and brightest minds from the data marketing sector, Activate London 2025 saw the likes of Grant Bailie, head of CRM at Secret Escapes, Devina Seth, acting VP of digital commercial at BBC Studios and Sara Riis-Carstensen, head of brand strategy and brand management at Lufthansa Group share some of their valuable wisdom.
The campaign is dead. Long live the moment.
In an online dominated-world, brands now need to be ‘always-on’ more than ever before as they fight to stay relevant in an increasingly saturated market.
Customers move fast – and marketers cannot risk letting their brands fall silent for months on end and risk falling behind competitors, and being pushed to the back of people’s minds when it comes to purchasing time.
This is why Iterable’s Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Samuels, boldly declared in his opening remarks that the campaign is now dead, and that we have entered a new era of moments-based marketing, where brands adapt to their consumers’ habits instead of sticking to rigid campaign calendars.
Reflecting on Iterable’s role in helping brands remain as always-on and by extension, as always-relevant as possible, Samuels said: “We’re not just building better campaigns. We’re rewriting the playbook entirely.”
AI is here – but proceed with purpose
The AI revolution is here, this we all know very well. But as Seth and Bailie explained in their panel session on the hot topic, the technology should not be adopted without clear intention – and only in cases where it will be of solid benefit.
AI has already re-shaped the ways in which businesses interact with their consumers, helping them interact with more potential clients than ever before in real time and across a wide variety of touchpoints.
Joined by Nedko Geshev, head of marketing at ActivTrades, the BBC Studios and Secret Escapes brand leaders explored how senior marketers are no longer simply using AI as a shortcut, but instead as a catalyst for smarter, more human experiences.
Naturally, Seth did strike a note of caution, highlighting that AI is not the solution to any and all problems – but rather a very capable helping hand; and more importantly that it can never replace human creativity.
Not all personalisation is created equal
In one of the pre-lunch sessions, Sophie Phillips, CRM at fresh dog food brand Butternut Box, introduced the idea of a “personalisation spectrum,” which questioned whether a brand’s personalisation efforts were impactful or just performative.
With personalisation at the core of its business model, the brand’s ability to create authentic customer journeys is essential to its long-term success, and as such they are very careful to manage how and when they communicate with clients.
Elaborating on how her team approaches customers by dynamically inserting pet data (name, breed, food preferences), Phillips illustrates how crucial it can be that people feel ‘known’ by brands, instead of receiving by-the-numbers, tick-box communications.
For example, Phillips’ team will also use different messaging tones for each region, pointing out that meaningful personalisation requires more than just good technology tech, it also demands taste, context, and cultural fluency.
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Great brands know when to trim the fat
When discussing how to build truly iconic brands, Lufthansa’s Carstensen-Riis drew on her previous experience at the Lego Group, explaining how the historic Danish firm lost its way by veering into product bloat.
By focusing on Lego’s tried and trusted ‘iconic core’, Carstensen-Riis was able to help turn the business around. By reconnecting it with its core values and product proposition, it was able to ‘trim the fat’ and streamline its performance.
Centred around her guiding question: “What would the world miss if our brand disappeared tomorrow?” she implored the marketers in the audience to focus deeply on the important basics.
Carstensen-Riis also argued that modern brand building means acting small, thinking big, staying relentlessly values-driven, and avoiding an unwitting slide into corporate bloat.
Burnout is a business problem, not a personal one
In one of the day’s most human talks, marketing consultant Lauren Spearman reframed self-care as a strategic imperative – after all if marketers aren’t in the right place mentally, how can they produce good work?
She argued for a range of potential measures to help staff who might be suffering from burnout, including rethinking meeting formats or even implementing “rainy day folders” filled with positive feedback.
Throughout her talk, Spearman aimed to offer marketers concrete tools for burnout prevention that were practical, powerful, and rooted in leadership accountability.
Closing remarks
In all, at 2025’s Activate Tour London, we didn’t just see a showcase of the latest tech harnessed by marketers to optimise their revenue streams, we saw a rallying cry for those within the industry to lead—with speed, empathy, and vision.
“As Iterable’s Jeff Samuels put it: “AI isn’t just raising the ceiling. It’s raising the floor.” The brands that adapt fast—and make every customer feel like their only customer—will define what comes next.”
If you want to see what you missed, you can watch all sessions on demand now here.
