FEIBP General Assembly 2021 – Keynote Speakers

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Jordi van den Bovenkamp, MediaMonks - “Social Media: For the Love of Advertising”
Rob van Hoesel, President of the FEFPEB - “Wood Pallets and Packaging: Timber Market Trends”
Juerg Koch, DSV Air & Sea AG - “Freight and Transport Costs Worldwide”

Jordi van den Bovenkamp, MediaMonks - “Social Media: For the Love of Advertising”

The first keynote speaker of the day was Jordi van den Bovenkamp, Creative Director of MediaMonks, Amsterdam, Netherlands. MediaMonks has grown to be the world’s largest creative, “digital-first marketing and advertising services company connecting the dots across content, data & digital media and technology services”, with the emphasis on “changing the work, how the work gets done, and what the work can do!”

Jordi’s presentation, entitled “Social Media: For the Love of Advertising”, focused on how to improve the branding and marketing of your products in the most effective way.

As a strong proponent of the use of humour in advertising, particularly in social media settings, Jordi shared some entertaining examples of how comedy can capture the attention of the consumer within an instance, thus creating positive emotion around the brand. This he endorsed further by suggesting that using humour in this way makes your story easier to tell, lowers buying resistance and increases the persuasiveness of a message.

He gave tips for using social media in the most effective way by keeping content authentic, encouraging consumer interaction, sticking to your own views and remaining visually consistent.

To stop the reader from scrolling quickly on, Jordi advised being mindful of the length of your sentences and story, steering clear of using lots of data, creating visuals that aren’t too detailed, updates that look too polished or are too frequent. Most of all, he stressed the importance of not over-branding or using complex language, both of which have a negative impact on the consumer.

For more information about the information shared in his presentation or for advice as to how MediaMonks can help you and your business, please email Jordi van den Bovenkamp directly.

Rob van Hoesel, President of the FEFPEB - “Wood Pallets and Packaging: Timber Market Trends”

Rob van Hoesel, President of the FEFPEB (European Federation Wooden Pallet and Packaging Industries), was the next to speak. His presentation “Wood Pallets and Packaging: Timber Market Trends” drew parallels with the brush industry which is, of course, a big consumer of wood and user of pallets and packaging of this nature.

Even before the onset of the pandemic, the timber industry had already experienced problems in recent times, with the 2019/20 period in Europe having seen hot, dry summer conditions leading to a bark beetle explosion in Central Europe, particularly affecting spruce trees. This resulted in large quantities of damaged wood which had to be harvested quickly and was of far poorer quality than usual.

Then, with the advent of COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, sawmills across the globe either slowed down or closed completely. Coupled with the poor quality, already-low levels of stock, on the offer side of the industry the situation quickly became dire.

At the same time, global lockdowns saw more people than ever being forced to stay at home and worldwide demand increased dramatically as people sought timber for their DIY projects.

With more timber also being used nowadays in the construction of houses due to its CO₂ neutrality, the requirements from both sectors equated to enormous demand for sawn timber which, when coupled with the poor offer of raw materials, led to a never-before-seen timber price explosion in the first half of 2021.

This industry was of course also affected by the transport frictions and, whilst there has been some recent easing of pricing, the forecast for the immediate future is difficult to predict.

Juerg Koch, DSV Air & Sea AG - “Freight and Transport Costs Worldwide”

The final speaker, Juerg Koch, Sales Manager DSV Air & Sea AG, was invited to discuss “Freight and Transport Costs Worldwide” which, as we have seen, is a very pertinent topic.

COVID-19, with its worldwide lockdowns, has led to the disruptions of global supply chains, whether employing ocean, air or road freight transportation. Companies such as DSV were constantly on the lookout for solutions for their customers and needed to be creative and innovative in order to achieve this. In an industry traditionally used to paper documentation, the switch to online processes and meetings was a challenge and they had to learn to adapt quickly.

Suddenly, there were no more flights or ocean vessels ongoing. With no capacity available using the regular means, forwarding companies had to be resourceful, for example by deploying their own charter flights or shipping cargo from “belly carriers” i.e., in the hold of passenger flights. They had to fight for each Kg of space and many trade routes became critically impacted.

Looking at the resultant trends, since just a year ago, the industry has seen huge price rises, in some areas up to a massive 15 times higher than before. To sum up the present situation, Juerg stated that the transport and logistics market is currently in chaos.

When asked by a delegate what his thoughts were for the future regarding availability and pricing, Juerg said that his best prediction is that the current situation would remain until at least February 2022. This depends partly on capacity levels with new, larger ocean vessels to be deployed from next year, and also whether we see the return of significant lockdowns as more passenger flights will hopefully mean greater belly flight capacity. A downward pricing trend should then follow.

Juerg expressed that the key to survive is communication, remaining open and sharing the latest information with customers.

Juerg Koch DSV - Presentation Slides

Rob van Hoesel - Presentation Slides

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