This year’s Emory Marketing Analytics Center (EmoryMAC) conference, held on March 23, 2012, delved into best practices in analytics, discussing possible models and metrics for such wide-ranging topics as traditional vs. online consumer-generated feedback, corporate social responsibility, and media consumption across multimedia channels.
Ken Rona, vice president of audience insights and ad sales partnerships at Turner Broadcasting, gave the keynote speech, which highlighted four ways technology would impact marketing analytics over the next five years including the emergence of vast amounts of data on individuals, the enablement of rapid data processing technologies, the linking of emotions to marketing communications, and more precise key performance indicators.
The first plenary session dealt with metrics of two difficult-to-measure factors that are increasingly important in business today, social media and social responsibility, and linking these to business performance outcomes. Presenters were Katie Cleary, manager of consumer and customer insights at the Campbell’s Soup Company, Manish Tripathi, assistant professor of marketing, and CB Bhattacharya, a professor in corporate responsibility at the European School for Management and Technology in Berlin.
The second plenary session focused on multimedia channel management—the fact that people nowadays consume several kinds of media at one time. Presenters were Greg Pharo, director of market research & analysis, AT&T Mobility; Chen Lin, PhD candidate, Emory; and Faiz Ahmad, director of e-commerce channels, Delta Air Lines. Emory researchers contributed to the discussion by outlining models that help estimate interdependencies and migration patterns across multimedia channels.
In the afternoon, attendees had the chance to attend two out of three breakout sessions:
- Customer relationship management, led by Chris Brogan, VP of strategy and analytics at Hyatt, and Roger Ares, SVP of analytics at BBDO
- Marketing mix modeling, led by Eric Schmidt PhD, senior manager of marketing strategy and insights at The Coca-Cola Company
- Making Your Business Social, led by Rachel Spasser, VP of marketing at Ariba
The day’s activities concluded with a two-hour networking reception.
EmoryMAC is a research and education center housed at Goizueta Business School that combines teaching, outreach (through conferences and programs), and research in the area of marketing analytics.
– Kathryn Whitbourne
