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Richmond Events: All at sea with Stormin' Norman and the Beatles

When Stefano Hatfield found himself anchored off Atlantic City with the cream of American business at the US Marketing Forum, he only had eyes for the legendary Sir George Martin and his tales of Sgt Pepper.

Monday May 12, 2003

A tad late, granted, but I have been embedded! All I can tell you is that I was on a ship at sea stuffed full of ranking Americans, anxious to be inspired by General "Stormin'" Norman Schwarzkopf. OK, wrong war, but I was nevertheless one of just a few token Brits allowed aboard. Everyone complained about the food rations. And - of course - my location was a mystery.

Sadly, that was because of two days of blanket fog, not military restrictions. The issue over food was not the rations but the startling incompetence of the new Indian waiter crew on the P&O cruise liner Adonia. The Americans were SVP and VP marketing directors of major US corporations, plus assorted new business directors and other executives of ad agencies, media buying companies and market research firms fawning all over them.

It was of course the 2003 US Marketing Forum conference, and we were presumably anchored just off the coast of Atlantic City (so we can gamble at night in New Jersey waters) just as we were every year.

Stormin' Norman delivered the opening address and disembarked before we set sail. Wimp! Whatever happened to leading from the front? He delivered a platitudinous homily about leadership - "you are what you perceive yourself to be"; "you don't have to be loved to be a leader, you have to be respected"; "when placed in command, take charge" - to a double standing ovation from his rapt compatriots. We embeds were told questioning him was "off limits". Just to make it clear, there were green beret bodyguards at every exit.

Every year it's the same - the marketing directors come aboard breezily expecting a free cruise (clients don't pay, the suppliers each pay something like $25,000!) and every year they limp back ashore in Manhattan, shocked by how tough two solid days of continuous back-to-back half-hour business speed-dating sessions and assigned breakfast, lunch and dinner meetings can be.

The delegates on the UK Marketing Forum ship (out of Southampton, every September) employ a time-honoured British response to such adversity: they drink themselves silly in the bars, giggle over losing twenty quid in the casino and get down to a little white man's overbite on the dance floor. Then they get up for their breakfast meetings to swap stories about their exploits.

The American Forum has a reputation for being a little more conservative. True to form, the first night disco was deserted, bar a few homesick Brits puzzling over why the Yanks think we are all alcoholics. Where were the SVPs and VPs? Hunched earnestly over their mobile phones, Blackberrys and Palms, planning their next business battles.

What does one learn from being embedded with some of America's finer marketing brains? Right now they are all a little, um, at sea over what to do with a rapidly - if belatedly - changing media landscape. We are tentatively experiencing the beginnings of a mass rebellion against the extraordinary hegemony of network television here and its accompanying airtime inflation.

It was evident in panel after panel (these are scheduled in addition to the speed dating), from the outstanding presentation about America's multicultural shakedown on "Marketing to a New America" by Monica Cassidy, the managing director of Tapestry, to the inevitable hot topic of 2003 - "When Madison met Hollywood: Still a Honeymoon?"

But the dinosaurs stayed on land. In truth, because everyone was interested enough to attend and forward-thinking, it was two days of agreeing with each other, enlivened chiefly by two outstandingly bright clients. One was the astute Stuart Rudson of Motorola, who has long employed creative sponsorship and placement - particularly with the NFL - and has relaunched Motorola's once muddled marketing behind the innovative Moto campaign.

The other was Julie Roehm of Dodge: the kind of striking, all-action, super-smart American superwoman business executive, wife and mom that magazine cover stories and movies are made of. It's a strange kind of conference when a client from a sector as famously conservative as automobiles is vocally pleading from the stage for more controversial debate.

Perhaps it is not too surprising from a driven woman in rock and roll stiletto boots who relaunched Dodge's fusty advertising behind a "Grab Life by the Horns" slogan and Aerosmith's music. It would be difficult to imagine someone more in love with their job. And that's another big difference from the average downtrodden and cynical grey-suited British marketing director. Rudson and Roehm were the best of American business dynamism.

To be honest though, by the time Roehm and I chatted at the closing cocktail party I wasn't really listening. I was in love. Luckily, not with Ms Roehm, but with Sir George Martin. Yes, that George Martin, the legendary 77-year-old Beatles producer who had given a remarkable 75-minute closing address, detailing a life and career of extraordinary achievement in a world where celebrity is now picking partners on reality TV shows.

Martin's description of making Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, including the true story behind Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, was enthralling. It left many of us misty-eyed, touched by our own associations with the music that is the soundtrack to all our lives. Now that was worth a standing ovation.

I was allocated dinner with him that night sailing into Manhattan. He told wonderful and absolutely off the record stories about the likes of McCartney, Lennon, Yoko, Entwistle, Elton, UFO (!) and the Queen (for whom he produced the jubilee concert last summer). It was refreshing to revel in his dry understated humour. He represents the best of British cultural creativity.

After that there was only one thing for it: the white man's overbite! And then we all disembarked to go home and listen to "A Day in the Life".

· Stefano Hatfield is contributing editor to Advertising Age and Creativity