The fourth day of the SBC Digital Summit turned to digital marketing and affiliates. It took a broad look at how their businesses have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and what changes they expect in the future as the world adapts to the new normal.

Stuart Simms, Group CEO of XLMedia, delivered the keynote of the day. He emphasized the need for businesses to focus more on working healthy, than working smart. That means, rather than focusing on the traditional key points of strategy, marketing, finance, technology and sales, companies can do more by minimizing politics and removing confusion with better communication. As a result, he said organizations will see higher morale, higher productivity, and lower staff turnover. “We need to think more about people, and more about culture,” he said. “Healthy beats smart every day of the week.”

Next, Simms joined a panel discussing Affiliation in the time of COVID-19, moderated by Lasha Machavariani, Founder & CEO of Setanta Sports Media, with panelists Jonathan Edelshaim, General Manager of Natural Intelligence, Simon Pilkington, CEO of KaFe Rocks, and Ricardo Pinto, CMO of Clever Advertising Group.

When asked about how their respective companies are doing, Pinto said there’s been a lot of cutting at Clever Advertising, to make the machine as efficient as possible. Pilkington, on the other hand, noted that usually 60% of portfolio is sports, but there’s been a heavy to pivot to casino now. Fortunately, most of company was working from home already, so there wasn’t a need to move the business.