Why your boss should say yes to this hackathon
1) You’ll get better at your job
This is real-time CPD, sharpening your skills in practice not just theory. With a fixed window to get to grips with a brief, develop ideas, and build on what others come up with – all alongside marketers you don’t know – you’ll come back to your desk more confident thinking on your feet, more comfortable pitching rough ideas, and happier working with people outside your usual orbit.
2) You’ll widen your perspective
Spending months inside one brand, one tone of voice, and one set of KPIs can narrow your thinking. Stepping into someone else’s world for an afternoon will help you break out of familiar patterns – leaving you ready to look at problems from new angles, challenge assumptions, and explore less obvious opportunities.
3) You’ll leave with practical tools
You’re getting a masterclass in turning information into ideas. The sharp-eyed, inventive team at Bottle PR will be running an interactive session on how to unearth the useful stories and opportunities hiding in your company’s data. Sharing techniques they’ve used with clients like Nationwide, Huggies, Goodyear, and Gousto, they’ll take us behind the scenes of their approach – giving you practical tools to turn often-overlooked intel into content ideas, campaign angles, and audience insights.
4) You’ll meet useful people
Forget swapping LInkedIn QR codes over room temperature white wine – here you can start building real relationships with other marketers, freelancers, and specialists from across the region while actually working together. And these connections could become future partners, contractors, hiring leads, or sounding boards.
5) You’ll do some good in your community
This definitely ticks your CSR box. All the brands bringing us briefs are local charities or community projects, who wouldn’t normally be able to tap into this breadth of marketing expertise and experience. So as well as sharpening your skills you’ll be putting them to work on real challenges for organisations doing good across our region.
Don’t forget to quote these happy campers
I was actually in quite a negative headspace with work at the time I went to the Marketing Camp hack – but it turned out to be incredibly energising to focus on one discrete task and be creative without worrying about all the follow-through. It honestly made me fall in love with my job again. And a comment in our group’s discussion even sparked off an idea for something I’d been stuck on in my own work for weeks. I really can’t recommend the hackathon enough!
Louise Radshaw
Fractional CMO
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The hack sessions were a brilliant opportunity to stretch some creative muscles we don’t get to use every day. Some of the challenges played to our experience, while others were completely new to us – giving us the chance to share what we knew, learn from others, and think about how we’d approach something unfamiliar. An absolute win-win.
Marin Hirschfeld
Head of Comms & Engagement at Diamond Light Source
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I always get so much from these hacks – they’re high-energy sessions that reframe marketing challenges for me. The wealth of expertise and the broad range of perspectives in the room mean I come away buzzing with thoughts for my own work. They never fail to shake up my marketing thinking.
Alanna Clear
Head of Strategy at Made Clear Studios
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For a bonus win, turn it into a team bonding day
Suggest that others come with you, so you can gel as a team while you get stuck into new challenges together.
It sidesteps both the agony of away-day trust falls and the awkwardness of getting tipsy with colleagues in the pub. Plus spreading yourselves across the different briefs means you’ll bring back an even bigger mix of new ideas and perspectives.
Be ready for their questions
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A ticket is £95, and that includes the booking fee and all my food and drink - no hidden extras. So it’s a pretty low financial risk.
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We can either book through Eventbrite using a company debit or credit card, or they can send us an invoice and we can pay by bank transfer. (And the price stays the same either way.)
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The event is 1-6pm, so just one afternoon. There’s no prep needed, and travel time is minimal as it’s local.
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Super easily. I’ll get a link to a Miro board with all the notes from the hack session, and I could do a short recap (by email or in person) to share the most relevant ideas and perspectives. I’ll also get the slides from the keynote talk and can give the team an overview and top takeaways.
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Everyone from Marketing & Comms Directors and Execs to freelancers, agency folk, and even a few marketing students. And there’s a good mix of B2B and B2C brands in the room, ranging from large national organisations to small local businesses.
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The fun is exactly what makes it useful. There’s no stakeholders, no deadlines, no internal politics - just smart people fuelled by great snacks and an encouraging, energetic atmosphere. I can relax and let my brain off the leash.
Outside of the ordinary pressures and constraints of work is often where the best learning and the most interesting conversations happen.
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It’s a smart, fun, friendly community of 900-ish marketers in and around Oxfordshire. For the best part of a decade they’ve been bringing people together to swap ideas, share war stories, and just generally trek the tough terrain of marketing together.
They run free monthly meet-ups and they also have an annual day conference, plus they’ve got ad hoc events like this hackathon.
Everything they do involves practical thinking, honest chat, and interesting people. Basically it’s professional development and networking, but without the jargon and the cringe.
You can find out more here
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