Was in Estoril last week at The Congress Centre in front of 600 Portuguese marketers and retailers – aided by my trusted Tech producer, Mark Fitzpatrick, celebrating 22 years on the road together.

Estoril is magical.  James Bond creator, Ian Fleming spent time here during the Second World War as an MI5 agent – Estoril and Portugal were neutral and Estoril became the hotbed for spies from both sides to mix/mingle/plot in the Casino, where the Allies frequented one bar and the Germans another.

(On this note, have you seen Operation Mincemeat on Netflix?  Ian Fleming plays a role here too.)

It was great to be back on stage in such a well-organised, well-conceived, well-executed conference – talking about the future of Marketing in our post-Pandemic, crazy world.

The audience were engaged, lively, upbeat – and just glad to be out and about with other people.  We talked about the Three HUMs, the Four S’s, the Three C’s and of course, Lovemarks.

(I stayed in a Lovemark of mine – the beautifully refurbished Hotel Albatroz on the beach in Cascais – five minutes away from Estoril and only 40 minutes from Lisbon.)

So good to catch up with old friends, talking about brands, and sport (an ex Portugal Rugby National Team Captain is now President of CentroMarca and loved the clips we showed of the All Blacks) – and socialising over Sogrape’s fine wines – in their home country.

Hello World!

KR