The Marketing Meetup IRL: Leeds

The Marketing Meetup is a global community for marketers, and the marketing-curious. This is your space to keep up to date and meet like minds, in an environment that prioritises kindness and learning you can actually put into action.

We’re heading back to the lovely Genio for this event, where the vibes are chill and friendly, and you’ll be welcomed in with big smiles and cheerful chat 🙂

Come say hello, grab a snack, listen to a speaker or two to get the ideas flowing, and savour the time to have real conversations with real humans. No selling or networking bingo, just good people being good people.

This is the kind of night where you walk home at the end thinking, “I’m not the only one, after all.”

Let’s have a fab night with some fab people. You’re invited, of course.

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Speaker: Eve Macdonald, Creative Growth Strategist at KISS Branding

Plus a panel of other brilliant minds, including Jessica Rhodes, Global Marketing Director at Paysecure

Topic: Say something real: Marketing with an opinion when AI can write anything (apparently)

Your LinkedIn feed is full of it. Recycled takes, “excited to share” posts, and a steady stream of AI-written content that all blurs into one. This year even LinkedIn decided it had had enough, pushing low-effort, AI-generated posts out of reach.

We all know we need to show up, and that consistency counts. But when everyone is posting and it all sounds the same, showing up stops being enough on its own. The marketers cutting through are the ones taking the time to work out their own point of view and voice, before sharing it.

Eve Macdonald from KISS Branding will open this brilliant September meetup with a short, practical talk on brand positioning and thought leadership that lands. From being specific and showcasing your work, through to having a real opinion rather than a horoscope-vague one.

Then we’ll open it up to a panel of agency and in-house voices getting honest about the volume versus quality question. Is being visible enough, or does it only pay off when you’ve got something worth saying? What’s working, what’s just noise, and how do you keep marketing human when AI can write anything?

Expect strong opinions, a few uncomfortable truths, and plenty to take back to your own content.

Join us for an insightful evening of search marketing discussion, pizza, free-flowing drinks and a bunch of positively lovely, local marketers.

Your keynote speaker!

Eve Macdonald is a creative growth strategist at KISS Branding, a brand consultancy and studio, where she works across business development, strategy, content, PR and speaker pitching. She writes Just a Little KISS, a newsletter on brand strategy and culture, with bylines in Design Week, and is a regular speaker at northern creative industry events and on podcasts. Outside KISS, Eve is the founder of Pencil It In, a creative events calendar and community across Leeds and Manchester.

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Here’s how the evening unfolds:

6:00 pm Doors open: snacks, smiles, warm welcomes, and that lovely buzz of people arriving

6:30 pm A hello from us, then over to our speakers

7:15 pm Talks done, and plenty of time for open conversation, new connections, and zero pressure chatting

8:00 pm Home time, with new connections, ideas in your head, and a smile on your face 🙂

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A heartfelt thank you to our brilliant supporters. We literally couldn’t do this without them.

Supported by Genio (formerly Glean). Genio unlocks human potential through technology that empowers individuals to learn confidently and effectively from the world’s information. Their award- winning web and mobile app is used worldwide by students to improve learning in the classroom. Genio are made up of a growing team of people who see potential and then make it happen so together they can have the biggest impact on learners’ potential. They’re an ambitious scale up, with sights set to catapult growth and support one million students with their learning. Curious? We like that here. Check them out at https://genio.co/

Supported by The Keynote Club, a public speaking club for marketers. TKC is a safe and friendly space for marketing folk to come together, connect and exercise our public speaking muscles. Get involved at thekeynoteclub.com/

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Tickets are pay-what-you-like, from £5 to £50 (the average price folks choose is £11.38 😊)

We genuinely mean it when we say everyone is welcome here. So, if the minimum donation is a stretch right now, please just reach out to [email protected]. We’ll always do our best to include you.

If you know a marketer who’d love this, please do pass it on. This community grows one person at a time, thanks to the wonderful members – like you – spreading the word.

Just one little ask: if you sign up and can’t make it, please let us know so we can offer your spot to someone else. We know that certain things crop up (we’re only human!), but after three unnotified no-shows we’ll need to prioritise other community members, out of fairness to everyone who puts time and heart into making these evenings happen. 🙂

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See you there!