Exhibition of Insights: Sydney

Exhibition of Insights is Ideally's flagship event bringing together marketing, brand, insights, and strategy leaders for a candid evening of conversation and debate.

The question on the table: can you afford to be curious?

When: Wednesday 16th September 2026, 6-9pm
Where: The Academy @ 25hours Hotel, Sydney

RSVP →

Can you afford to be curious?

A candid conversation on whether we've promoted efficiency to strategy, and lost the business case for curiosity.

Curiosity can feel like a luxury. Something reserved for teams with bottomless budgets, long timelines, the best agency partners, and exec rooms that speak in more than efficiency and ROI.

Most brands face the opposite. Tight timelines, tighter budgets, a tool promising to optimise every stage of the process, and more consumer data than any team can make sense of.

Somewhere in the middle, curiosity got rationed. Treated as a distraction from the numbers, not the way to better ones.

Join for an evening with brand, marketing, agency, and insights leaders to ask what it means to be curious, what it actually costs, and where it belongs in innovation, campaigns, and brand strategy.

The conversation will dig into whether brands have lost their appetite to stray from what's measurable and already known, what the point of moving fast is if no one's asking whether it's in the right direction, and whether the brands asking better questions are the ones making work people actually feel something about.

Expect candour, friction, and the kind of conversation that doesn't usually happen in a conference room.

Hosted by Ideally, the research platform that puts real human insight into every creative and commercial decision.

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 Meet the speakers
 Meet the speakers
 Meet the speakers
 Meet the speakers
CMO & Founder

Brent Smart is one of APAC's most accomplished marketing leaders, known for transforming complex brands through creative excellence. As CMO of Telstra, he led a creative renaissance that made it Australia's most awarded brand, winning a Cannes Grand Prix and 4 Effies while doubling marketing ROI. Previously as CMO of IAG, he took NRMA Insurance from Australia's 36th strongest brand to 5th, winning a Grand Effie - one of the few CMOs to hold both accolades. Brent grew up in the agency business, rising to CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi New York after running New Zealand's Agency of the Decade, Colenso BBDO.
Fractional CMO & Growth Advisor

Danielle Hamilton is a growth-focused marketing leader with a wealth of experience across banking, FMCG, retail and tech. At ING, she led a 50-strong marketing function, helping make it Australia's most recommended bank with double-digit D2C growth. She's also driven growth for challenger brands including Chobani, Samsung, IKEA and Budweiser. Most recently, as CMO of My Muscle Chef and Chefgood, she led a full commercial reset - resetting the growth strategy, building a new innovation pipeline and loyalty programme, and integrating an acquisition. She now works across advisory and fractional CMO roles.
Strategist & Founder

Al Crawford is one of the Australia’s most awarded and high-profile strategy consultants. He began his career nearly 30 years ago, when he sauntered into the doors of BMP DDB in London. Despite his first annual review saying he looked like ‘a lost member of a Swedish tour party’, he rose through the ranks there before heading to Australia in 2004. He then worked at DDB Group as Head of Planning before becoming CSO at Clemenger BBDO. For the last 10 years, he’s run his own business, Shapeshifter Consulting. Al has worked across telco, tourism & travel, finance, fitness, insurance, and IT. He’s written (and judged) countless effectiveness awards and has picked up metal across the globe from Australia, the UK, the US and Asia.
Exhibition of Insights, New York 2026