#FrostSorrell - It's Frost-Sorrell the TV show!

Every quarter at MEC the whole UK office gathers for a company meeting usually in a venue near the Southbank or London Bridge area. These quarterly meetings or MEC In Motion as they are better known are a way for the management board to keep MEC employees up to date with the company's development and progression. Each MEC In Motion tries to offer something different usually with the help of a guest speaker. However the latest company meeting saw the bar being raised to Olympic standards as we found out what our latest MEC In Motion would entail:

Jonathon Ross' ITV Studio set

On Friday 16th September the whole of MEC London made their way to the new set of the Jonathan Ross show at ITV studios. MEC Access made media history when they arranged and co-ordinated a live stream event featuring Sir David Frost, the ultimate TV presenting legend and the media industry's most successful business mogul Sir Martin Sorrell. To give the event an even bigger profile, ITV went on to film the whole interview whilst simultaneously live streaming it to MEC's global offices in 84 different countries. MEC employees all over the world were able to submit questions for Sir Martin through MEC's global twitter profile @MECideas while MEC London sat in the studio. This was an impressive example of active engagement - successfully demonstrating how a global audience can participate in live events through the possibilities of live-stream technology and social media.


I knew this event would probably be a once in a lifetime opportunity so I thought it would be great to obtain some exclusive content for my blog. After speaking to MEC Head of Branded Content Chantal Rickards I managed to get myself backstage and into the green room where I met Sir David and Sir Martin. After a congratulatory toast to celebrate the success of the afternoon I put on my journalist hat and asked the WPP Chief a quick-fire question:

Me interviewing Sir Martin Sorrell in the ITV green room

Me: "Google and Facebook are constantly in the news as they try to compete against each other. If you had to put a bet on who would win the race for media domination who would it be?
Sir Martin: "Interestingly in relation to your question, it was stated in the news earlier that Facebook missed its first half nationals...and Google + maybe starting to get some traction or relative traction... I wouldn't bet on either or against one another but it's just interesting that we're seeing maybe, Facebook coming under much more intense competition with Google +....but Facebook is obviously very powerful, it's the second or third biggest nation on the planet... so it's not to be underestimated but there's more competition for Facebook and vice versa there's more competition for Google..."


Although my time speaking to Sir Martin fell short of what I had anticipated, it was interesting to hear his thoughts about the two rivalling media giants. During his interview with Frost, he went on to say that the medium has become more important than the message - although I beg to differ especially in light of the economic downturn where we have seen more and more brands focus on customer value in their messaging - (e.g. M&S £10 dine in for two).

Other key notes from his overall interview with Sir David Frost revealed how his best piece of advice was not to have one piece of advice and to have someone they can talk to who doesn't have an agenda. Sir Martin went on to state that to excel in this industry you need persistence, quoting Saatchi & Saatchi's mantra "nothing's is impossible" which he said should be applied to every aspect of life.

To conclude, the day was a great success and a huge thank you goes out to everyone who contributed to the afternoon including Sir David Frost, Sir Martin Sorrell, the MEC Access and MEC Social Media team, and a special thank you to Chantal Rickards who was the brains and coordinator behind the whole event!

See below for a few of my favourite tweets from the day with the help of James Caig's Storify post http://storify.com/jamescaig/frostsorrell-with-mec

"MEC company meeting at ITV studios! David Frost is interviewing our very own WPP's Sir Martin Sorrell, live & aired to 82 offices across the world. No pressure.. @MECideas #FrostSorrell"

"We’re live, Sir David Frost is warming up the audience with some anecdotes before his guest arrives! #FrostSorrell"

"Sir David Frost, Jonathan Ross' telly show set and a company meeting? Yes please"
"Sorrell: 'I do have an iPod, but my iPad and my Kindle are my favorite tools that keep me in touch with the world#FrostSorrell"

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