Keynote

Time: 11:30am
Topic: Keeping Up

Stephen Baker, author of The Numerati, has written for Business Week for over 20 years, covering Mexico and Latin America, the Rust Belt, European technology, and a host of other topics. He has written cover stories on blogs, social networks, datamining, nanotechnology, and software outsourcing. He started his career as an English teacher and (unsuccessful) fiction writer in Quito, Ecuador. Over the following years, he made a slow climb as a journalist in Vermont, Washington, Madrid, Caracas, Buenos Aires, and El Paso, Texas. His unpublished novel, which takes place on the U.S.-Mexico border, is called Donkey Show.

Saturday

Executive Roundtable
The Kellogg Marketing Conference is thrilled and honored to kick-off this year’s Saturday session with a groundbreaking Executive Roundtable of top business leaders from diverse industries and functions. For information, please click here

Panels
For more information on the conference’s six highly relevant panels on Saturday, please click here

Keynote

Time: 3:00pm
Topic: The Magic of Breaking Through While Staying True

MBA Update II

Time: 2:45pm
Topic: Relevance through Resonance: Matching Marketing to Motivations”

Dr. Derek Rucker joined the Kellogg Marketing Department in Fall of 2005. His primary research focuses on the study attitudes, persuasion, and consumer behavior. This work seeks to ask questions regarding what makes for effective advertising communications and seeks to understand the motives underlying consumer consumption. His work has appeared in numerous leading journals in psychology and marketing. Dr. Rucker currently teaches the advertising course at Kellogg.

Practicum Session

Time: 1:45pm

Topic: Nielsen Economic Advisor

Todd Hale is Senior Vice President of Consumer & Shopper Insights of The Nielsen Company. He has more than 31 years of experience in consumer panel analysis, including 25 plus years with The Nielsen Company, where he has held various marketing and sales management positions.  Over the course of his career, Hale has been heavily involved in the development of innovative consumer panel applications for consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers and retailers.  A frequently sought-after industry and client speaker, Hale shares his insights on consumer shopping and buying behavior and attitudes to provide CPG manufacturers and retailers with strategic visions to facilitate brand, category and retail sales growth.

As we work through one of the most challenging U.S. economic downturns on record, winners will be those companies who recognize how marketing to the average consumer brings little success.  U.S. consumers have modified where and how they shop and buy. Success will come to those who understand the impact of consumer behaviors and attitudes along with promotion response and media consumption on category and retail sales at increasingly granular levels.  Join Todd Hale, SVP – Consumer & Shopper Insights, as he explores key trends and provides examples of how U.S. retailers and manufacturers have responded to win shoppers and buyers.

Dr. Rucker's talk will focus on understanding how marketing efforts can stay relevant through resonance with consumer mindsets. Specifically, he discusses the importance of a 2-step process whereby consumers needs are first recognized and marketing messages are then tailored to meet these needs. To provide support for this claim, Dr. Rucker reviews recent findings at the intersection of psychology and marketing that both showcase a variety of psychological needs experienced by consumers and demonstrates how marketing messages can be tailored to those needs.

Time: 10:15am
Topic: Customer Marketing Data - Your Greatest Corporate Asset

Russell Walker, Ph.D. (EMBA ’06) is the Assistant Director of the Zell Center for Risk Research at Kellogg. His expertise is in the application of analytics in business, with specific emphasis to marketing and risk management decisions. His research interests include how organizations deploy analytics, the use of information in enterprise risk management, managing strategic risk, and emergence of “data creators” in the post information age. Russell worked for seven years as a corporate strategist at Capital One Financial and has advised or worked with numerous organizations in financial services, insurance, consumer packaged goods, retail, and software and data firms.

Friday

MBA Update I

An MBA Update is a lecture given by a leading faculty member from Kellogg School of Management’s Marketing Department. These top professors share insights from their latest research with the alumni and marketing professionals. Two MBA Update lectures are scheduled for Friday during which the attendees will have an opportunity to fully discuss the key marketing challenges they face at work with the world’s top marketing professors.   

Jim Alessandro is Senior Vice President of Global Marketing Strategy and Planning of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. Jim and his team lead Consumer Insights, Media Strategy and Planning, Long Range Theme Parks Marketing Planning and Strategy (24+ months) globally, as well as Disney Cruise Line, Adventures by Disney, and New Products Marketing Strategy and Planning. Jim also serves as a member of Al Weiss’ Worldwide Operations committee, which drives the operation of Disney’s parks and resorts around the globe. Prior to joining Disney Jim held advertising media and account management positions at Foote Cone and Belding in Chicago and Saatchi and Saatchi in Los Angeles, and graduated with a B.S. in Marketing from Miami University.