Marketing luminaries from around the country gathered at Sydney venue Fortress on Wednesday night to celebrate the latest The Marketing Academy cohort of scholars as they graduated from their year-long leadership program.
The event, run by the graduating class, was billed as ‘Ripplefest’ and featured a range of initiatives, designed to have an ongoing impact on the Australian marketing industry.
One of these initiatives was the unveiling of a super premium ‘marketing adjacent’ whiskey, ‘infused with a Huon Pine wall clock stolen from Mark Ritson’s home office’. “We’re using it to bribe Australia’s top marketers to do more mentoring,” says 2023 scholar and Director of Marketing at Mona, Robbie Brammall. “Each bottle comes with two glasses and recipients must pledge to never drink it alone, but instead always share it over a conversation with the next generation. Don’t tell Ritson about the clock”.
Another highlight of the Ripplefest event was the launch of a dubious new book of leadership wisdom, titled: ‘The Little Book of Massive Fuckups’, which features glorious stories of failure from high-profile Australian leaders. The book includes ‘fuckups’ from Australian Men’s Test Cricket captain Pat Cummins, leading CMOs and 2023 Scholars.
“We actually learn more from our failures than our triumphs, so we gathered up all that horrific wisdom and published it in a book with a sweary title,” said senior VP global marketing at Lyre’s Spirit Co, Kristy Bloomfield.
The event finished with the entire 2023 cohort being accidentally let into the raucous ARIA’s after-party, as security mistook their Ripplefest lanyards for VIP party passes. “In our defence, we didn’t know it was a private party, “ said scholar and client services director at BMF, Edward Hughes.
Today is the final day of nominations for the 2024 The Marketing Academy scholarship program.
