Digital Edge Live announces its marketing contenders

Digital Edge Live has announced the guest-speaker line-up for its upcoming event in Cape Town, South Africa.

The event, which bills itself as “the ultimate showdown in digital marketing”, will see a number of South Africa’s best digital marketing minds face off against each other in what Digital Edge is calling the “ultimate cerebral rumble”.

According to Digital Edge, the line up to date includes:

Gavin Rooke, Managing Director of Trigger/Isobar, one of South Africa’s full service digital agencies and digital agency of the year 2010. Graham Warsop, Group Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of the iconic and highly acclaimed The Jupiter Drawing Room. Ivan Moroke, Marketing Director of powerhouse TBWA Hunt Lascaris, as well as Nikki Cockcroft, Head of Online for Woolworths and Chairwoman of both the DMMA and Bookmarks Awards. Other panelists in the line-up are Brent Shahim, Managing Director of Aqua Online, Pete Case, Founder of Gloo, Rob Stokes, CEO of Quirk, Farai Madzima, Interaction Designer at NATIVE, as well as Jason Xenopoulos, CEO of NATIVE.

The event’s main draw card, however, is Bob Garfield. Garfield is a heavyweight in the marketing and advertising sphere, having written for the likes of USA Today, the Washington Post and Advertising Age. He is also the advertising analyst for ABC News.

For the duration of the four hour event, marketing contenders will enter “into the ring to fight for their particular view on the way forward for digital marketing”.

Each round will focus on a different aspect of the digital marketing landscape, with former IT journalist of the year Erich Viedge playing the role of “Fightmaster”.

While a number of the topics up for discussion have specifically South African flavour, questions applying to the marketing and advertising world in general will be covered.

Some of the questions to be covered include:

• How will traditional agencies deal with their digital foes?
• How will the South African telecoms scenario support or hinder online marketing?
• Are we ahead or behind the rest of the world, and can we keep pace?
• What does the future hold for marketing in the digital space?

Digital Edge Live is will take place in October.