Emory hosted its 1st Marketing Analytics Center Conference on Friday, March 25. The Marketing Analytics Center is a very new initiative at Goizueta, so I was extremely impressed with the design and execution of its first event. In addition to our
Steve Sickel from InterContinental Hotels Group discussing Customer Loyalty Programs
amazing professors, we had marketing experts from InterContinental Hotels Group, Nike, Chik-fil-A, Turner Broadcasting, and Ariba. In particular, I enjoyed how industry and academia were paired for each topic; thus making it easy to relate the research to the field.
Not only was this a well designed and executed conference, it also had great content. This was not one of those conferences were you only want to see one or two sessions and suffer through the others; each session was equally engaging and interesting. The keynote speaker, Jeff Robertson from Delta, kicked off the conference speaking on SkyMiles Rewards program. The conference was then followed by a series of sessions ranging from the daunting task of quantifying the effects of social media on brand sales and market share to product evolution through customer insight. The conference really gave you a sense of what the Marketing Analytics Center is designed to be: a place “to share the latest marketing decision making tools…and integrate(s) academic theory with industry practice.”
Emory's Prof. Mike Lewis sharing his expertise
Overall, I was pretty darn impressed. It was a confirmation by industry that our professors have their hands in some extremely new and interesting new research. Especially in the task of ‘quantifying the effects of social media on sales’ – a subject that has had many scratching their heads for quite some time. Come on, that is pretty cool! And to add to the excitement, the industry speakers were beyond impressive. Their energy level was great – you really felt like they were not only excited to present, but also to hear the other speakers. I was also pleasantly surprised at their candor. To hear the successes is usually a given, but to hear about previous setbacks and current challenges was truly refreshing. Lastly, Wow! There is a lot that can be done with marketing analytics and it seems we have only just begun.
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