Insights from Go Ape, Fuji Hero, Macs Adventure, Cox Automotive, Channel Factory, the Royal Armouries and Black Lab on how empathy, data and AI are reshaping digital marketing.
Every few months we gather a room of marketers, leaders, and curious minds for the Digital Leaders’ Collective. It’s not another sales-heavy conference but a space to get behind the noise, share the truths behind the metrics, and look each other in the eye as we admit: “this industry is complex, unpredictable, and sometimes a little chaotic.”
This September, the theme was “Plot Twist: The Stories Behind the Scroll.” The title captured the spirit of the day. In a digital world dominated by slick carousels, polished campaigns, and AI hype, the real stories often sit beneath the surface.
The event was held in Leeds, bringing together speakers from Go Ape, Fuji Hero, Macs Adventure, Cox Automotive Europe, Channel Factory, and the Royal Armouries Museum, plus our own Black Lab team to close the loop with a forward look at AI. From leisure and travel to automotive and heritage, the industries were different, but the themes resonated across the board.
What emerged was not a neat playbook but a series of provocations: simple fixes that outperformed big investments, stories of consistency and originality, warnings about wasted spend, and glimpses of a near-future where AI agents reshape how audiences find and trust brands.
Here we attempt to capture some of those learnings:
Everyday Data, Outsized Impact
Matt Jones from Go Ape set the tone with a refreshing truth: you don’t always need shiny new tools or million-pound budgets. Sometimes the biggest wins come from looking closer at the data you already have. From analysing exit rate data on specific page types Mat shared how they were able to create two wins which didn’t just point to navigation or labels.
Plot Twist: It’s about listening to the data and making sure your digital experience mirrors the way real people think, not the way internal teams describe things.
As Matt put it: “Sometimes the most transformational marketing comes from the simplest fixes.”
For marketers, it was a reminder that before chasing AI tools or new platforms, squeeze everything you can from your existing data sources: Google Analytics, Search Console, reviews, and surveys; gold is often hidden in plain sight.
Brand, Consistency, and the Courage to Be Different
Next, James Douglas took us on a journey from Ibiza nights to property, to building Reds True Barbecue, and most recently relaunching Leeds’ much-loved Fuji Hero.
His lesson was simple: authentic brands are built on lived experience and consistency. Reds leaned into irreverence, sometimes with a risky lack of filter on social media. It worked for the time. But with Fuji Hero, the energy is different as instead of chasing viral moments, the focus is on comfort, heritage, and authenticity; a taste of home for international students and locals alike.
Plot Twist: consistency is not about rigid templates or strict guidelines but about knowing who you are, who you serve, and never faking it.
Scaling Globally Without Losing Sight of the Local
From barbecues we turned to global travel. Vicky Gale from Macs Adventure shared three crucial lessons and truths which have led to, more than tripling a brand’s turnover.
By tailoring creative and offers to local expectations, they expanded rapidly while avoiding the trap of “global homogeneity.”
Plot Twist: For those eyeing up international growth, localisation isn’t just translation, it’s empathy; test, fail, and iterate until you find what resonates.
AI Agents and the New Rules of Search
Our SEO Tag Team, Rhys and Monty took the audience into the near-future world of AI agents.
Search as we’ve known it for 25 years is changing. Instead of typing “car finance deals” and scanning ten blue links, users will soon be able to say: “Find me the best deals under £300 a month in Leeds and book me in.” AI agents will do the work, from search to booking, without the user ever leaving the results page.
The implications will be enormous:
- Zero-click search becomes the norm and websites may see less traffic, but brands that feed structured, trustworthy data into AI will win visibility.
- SEO is evolving into GEO; Generative Engine Optimisation. It’s not about ranking first but it’s about being the source AI chooses to cite.
Plot Twist: While AI is causing shifts the rules still say broadly the same. Optimise content for credibility, invest in structured data, and think about how your brand shows up when an AI, not a human, is making the choice.
Emotional Intelligence in Marketing
If there was a theme running quietly through many talks, it was this: empathy beats transaction.
Social Media Manager, Kimberley Robinson from Cox Automotive Europe drew from both social media campaigns and her psychotherapy practice to argue that emotional intelligence is as critical in marketing as it is in therapy.
Using three key examples she showed how, even though the industries were vastly different the principles were the same across campaigns: stop presuming, start listening.
Plot Twist: Shift from “content that sells” to “content that connects.” Products may sit at the end of the funnel, but the journey starts with trust and shared humanity.
Brand Safety and Trust in the Video Era
While empathy dominated some talks, others were more hard-edged. Henry Welford from Channel Factory took us into the murky world of YouTube brand safety. The scale is staggering: 60 million creators, 550 hours of video uploaded every minute, but with that scale comes risk.
Even today, Channel Factory’s audits suggest 30% of ad spend on YouTube is wasted, often on misaligned or unsuitable content. For industries like gambling or alcohol, this isn’t just wasted spend, it’s regulatory risk.
Plot Twist: In the race for impressions and reach, brand safety is not a hygiene factor but an ROI driver.
Reframing Heritage for Today’s Audiences
To close, the Royal Armouries Museum, Director of Brand & Audiences, Florence Syminton offered perhaps the most unexpected success story: a centuries-old collection of arms and armour becoming a TikTok sensation.
By empowering staff like curators to step in front of the camera and embracing TikTok’s irreverent tone, the Armouries grew to 100k followers, 42m reach, and significantly increased footfall.
The magic wasn’t just the platform but the creative freedom given to the team, the willingness to take risks, and the courage of leadership to act as a “pain sponge” shielding staff from excessive bureaucracy.
Plot Twist: Even the most traditional institutions can thrive on modern channels, if they put people, not objects, at the centre of the story.
The Golden Thread
The platforms may change and tools may get smarter, but, if you’re not listening to your audience, if you’re not building for them rather than for your internal language or vanity metrics, the rest is wasted effort.
Events like these remind us why we built the Digital Leaders’ Collective, not for polished decks or neat slogans, but for the messy, honest, inspiring stories that remind us we’re all in this together.
A huge thank you to our speakers; Matt Jones (Go Ape), James Douglas (Fuji Hero), Vicky Gale (Macs Adventure), our colleagues from Cox Automotive Europe, Henry Welford (Channel Factory), Chloe Sarrington (Royal Armouries Museum), and our own Rhys and Monty from Black Lab as well as to everyone who joined us.
For those who couldn’t make it, or for those who want to continue the conversation, we’ll be sharing follow-ups, deeper dives, and new provocations over the coming weeks. Because, if there’s one thing we know, it’s this: the scroll is never the full story, and marketing’s greatest plot twists are still to come.
The next Digital Leaders’ Collective Event will be announced very soon. Stay in the loop.
