Skills: The Innovation Spotlight Series

Shining a light on the technologies shaping the future of marketing.

The rapid rise of AI, AdTech, and MarTech presents endless opportunities but also overwhelming complexity. With thousands of tools, constant innovation, and shifting trends, staying ahead can feel like a full-time job. That’s where we come in.

In partnership with Alchemy Network, we offer marketing leaders a smarter way to stay informed, inspired, and ROI-focused. Through personalised, interactive sessions (no more than one hour every three months), we cut through the noise to connect you directly with handpicked, proven innovators.

✔ Bypass months of research with curated introductions to the best-fit solutions
✔ Discover breakthrough technologies that enhance—not disrupt—your workflows
✔ Gain exclusive insights on emerging tools before your competitors do
✔ Stay ahead of the curve and avoid FOMO on what’s next
✔ Drive real business impact with tech that solves your specific marketing challenges

This bespoke, light-touch experience transforms technology from a time drain into your competitive edge with no pressure to buy, just actionable value.

Join over 580 marketing teams already using this service to unlock smarter, faster innovation.

"The Innovation Spotlight Series is a treasure trove of innovative ideas and learning opportunities. It’s the key to unlocking competitive edge in the ever-changing world of marketing”

James Thomas Global Media Director, Mars

"I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing a number of The Innovation Spotlight Series sessions, they’ve been brilliant. They have supported us in keeping up to speed on new tech and businesses which could support our marketing agenda. The sessions are educational, practical and speedy. We love the elevator pitch format as it saves time liaising with lots of potential suppliers. I would recommend it.”

Rachel Kneen Strategy and Innovation Lead, Just Eat

HOW THEY WORK

STEP 1: REGISTER YOUR INTEREST

First, simply fill out the quick form to register your interest by clicking the "Book Now" button below.

STEP 2 – A SHORT BRIEFING CALL

This call is an opportunity to better understand and explore your specific areas of interest, walk you through how the series works, and give you a clear sense of what to expect. The series is designed to spark innovation, provide fresh inspiration, and support your ongoing learning, helping you stay ahead of the curve.

STEP 3 – SCHEDULE YOUR SPOTLIGHT SESSION

During your exploration call, yourself and Alchemy Network will arrange a time for your first The Innovation Spotlight Series session. The audience size is uncapped.

STEP 4 – SOLUTIONS PREVIEW

Alchemy Network will email you two weeks before the session with details of the three proposed solutions. This gives you the opportunity to review them, suggest any changes if needed, and extend the invite to other team members who may benefit from joining.

STEP 5 – 1 HOUR ZOOM CALL

Join the one-hour virtual session hosted by Alchemy Network, featuring three carefully curated tech solutions delivered by experts who each present for around 15 minutes.

WHO CAN BOOK THESE SESSIONS?

This programme is available exclusively to all Members as part of your membership. Members can book up to one session per quarter.

Book your free Innovation Spotlight Session

Book now

Popular Tech Themes currently being covered by Alchemy Network

Creative Tech

There’s been an explosion in creative tech in recent years and we’ve been getting more and more requests to help marketing teams find tech to help them scale up and optimise content production without increasing headcount. This theme will focus broadly on technologies that can help improve creative optimisation (e.g. streamline production processes) and technologies that can improve creative effectiveness (e.g. improve the quality of creative output).

Artificial Intelligence

2023 was the year AI came of age. We were inundated with requests from brands to see AI technologies and this hasn’t let up. Given the ‘generative’ nature of AI there’s a bit of crossover with creative tech, but AI has such a broad appeal, it can be used across multiple niches, including media. This theme will focus on how AI can help generate content, improve creativity and plan and analyse media/content.

Audience Planning & Insight Gathering

This never goes out of fashion! There’s always a steady demand for innovations in the audience planning and insight gathering space. This theme will showcase new innovative solutions in market that are challenging some of the bigger, more established players in this space. Expect unique data-sets and methodologies and innovative approaches!

New Ad Formats & Channels

Many brands understand that ad-fatigue is a real problem. Consumers are bombarded with messages on a daily basis and achieving cut-through can be difficult. We all love the shiny new toy, and new ad formats and channels are a great way to help marketers stand out in a cluttered market. We will introduce you to a mixture of new ad-formats, channels and marketing approaches that can help their clients stand out from the crowd in 2025.

Data – 1st Party Data, Cookie-less & ID

Data is at the heart of what we do but accessing it can be difficult and making sense of it can be even harder still. Our data theme will connect you to new solutions that can help marketers make better decisions from their data with a particular focus across cookieless, gamification, ID and audience solutions.

Social Media

Although dominated by two or three large players, there are plenty of smaller, disruptive players innovating in this space. We can introduce you to businesses that are driving performance across organic and paid or simply improving the creative output of your social content.

Sustainability

Many of the brands on the programme are focused on better understanding the impact their marketing is having on society both at a physical level (e.g. carbon footprint of marketing campaigns) and at a ‘purpose’ level (e.g. diversity of content). We can connect you with new technologies and solutions that can drive ESG goals in 2024.

Research & Strategy

Research has traditionally been dominated by a handful of big players, but the ‘res-tech’ space has expanded rapidly over the last 5 to 10 years. As a result, there are lots of innovative and disruptive tech solutions that can help you access research at the touch of a button and a fraction of the cost. Improving speed to market and strategic decision making. This theme will introduce you to some of the most innovative players in this space.

Omni-channel & Measurement

We live in an increasingly atomised media world. Developing, activating and measuring audiences is more complicated than ever. Our final theme is dedicated to uncovering technologies that can help you better navigate the omni-channel challenge primarily through the lens of pre-planning and measurement.

eCommerce & Retail Media

Advertisers have been trying to get closer to the point of purchase for years and this rationale is at the heart of the recent explosion of retail media. Most of the tech solutions we come across broadly fit into two themes. a) tech that can help you maximise your investments across 3rd party marketplace and b) tech that can help you improve your owned commerce channels.

Please note The Innovation Spotlight Series was formally known as Tech Acceleration Showcase