WVU Marketing Communications Today

The tools needed to manage your customer data have changed dramatically since the days of “database marketing” in the 1980s. The latest iteration is a CDP, or customer data platform, the subject of our stimulating discussion with David Raab, a leading expert and founder of the CDP Institute. He explains how the tech landscape has become quite complex and continues to morph. The number of systems continues to grow, fed by a proliferation of channels, declining development costs, and easily available funding. Listen in to understand the customer data landscape, why it’s critical to marketing success, and where the technology is going in the future.

About our Guest:

David M. Raab is the founder and CEO of the Customer Data Platform Institute, a vendor-neutral organization with over 10,000 members, which educates marketers and technologists about customer data management. Mr. Raab was named the Customer Data Platform category in 2013.

Mr. Raab has a long history as an independent consultant helping marketers to understand, find and deploy marketing technologies and vendors. His clients include Global 2000 firms in retail, financial services, telecommunications, publishing, technology, and other industries. He began his career as a marketer in publishing and continuities.

Mr. Raab holds a bachelor's degree from Columbia University and MBA from the Harvard Business School. He has written hundreds of articles and blog posts on marketing technology and regularly speaks and teaches at events around the world.

WVU Marketing Communications Today: Horizons is presented by the West Virginia University Reed College of Media, which offers renowned online master’s degree programs in Marketing Communications.

The role of the PR professional is changing fast. No longer limited to media relations or crisis management, these days PR people have evolved into larger and more strategic roles as “communicators,” who handle multi-channel messaging to a variety of important audiences, or “publics.” Our guest, Bonnie Harris, explains what’s driving this change, and where it’s likely to go next.

About our Guest:

Bonnie Harris is the founder of Wax Marketing, Inc. an integrated marketing agency based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Harris and her team designed and implemented IMC strategies for clients across the United States, focused primarily on midsized companies in the healthcare, technology and manufacturing industries.

Prior to founding her IMC practice, Harris worked in the technology industry for 16 years, eventually rising to the role of vice president, where she oversaw sales, marketing and operations for nine profit centers in eight states. She received her master’s degree from the West Virginia University IMC program in December of 2007 and completed her Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Minnesota in 2001.

WVU Marketing Communications Today: Horizons is presented by the West Virginia University Reed College of Media, which offers renowned online master’s degree programs in Marketing Communications.

The marketing world has embraced loyalty programs ever since the launch of the American Airlines Advantage program in 1981. But these transactional rewards programs are headed for the trash heap, says our guest Ajay Row, a longtime authority on retention and loyalty, based in Mumbai. Join us to learn the strategy behind loyalty marketing programs and the strategy that is likely to replace them. The key lies in figuring out who’s valuable to you, what’s valuable to them, and how you can deliver and extract more value in the relationship.

About our Guest:

G. Ajay Row

Entrepreneurial executive with 35 years’ experience in data-driven, digital, loyalty, analytics and CRM across a variety of industries and several countries. Launched among the first CRM, loyalty and data-driven marketing programs globally in the 1980s, have since implemented programs across 65+ countries. Built several companies, two to exit, and numerous case studies. 11 years with the Taj and then the Tata Group responsible for CRM. 5 years at ITC. Full-time consultant for several years.

WVU Marketing Communications Today: Horizons is presented by the West Virginia University Reed College of Media, which offers renowned online master’s degree programs in Marketing Communications.

Why do walled gardens exist in the first place? The answer is quite simple, because they can. When it comes to advertising, giant firms like Facebook and LinkedIn hold all their own cards. And with the demise of 3rd party data and cookies, the amount of data they have on users who readily allow access to personal information is unprecedented. But we are learning that this may spell bad news in the future for us marketers. Listen in to this episode with Heather Blank on how Walled Gardens will impact the future of advertising.

About our Guest:

Heather Blank

Heather Blank has over 20 years of experience scaling and innovating the go-to-market strategies of digital enterprises. A background in both client-side and in-house technology roles gives her a unique perspective and solutions-oriented approach to product innovation. Heather started her data career running the first digital CRM program for PETCO Animal Supplies and has worked to build successful data businesses for Responsys, Oracle Data Cloud, Datalogix and MediaMath. In her current role as SVP Data Solutions at Revenue Vision Partners, she helps clients in retail, financial services and adtech develop data monetization strategies. Heather graduated with a B.A. in journalism from the University of Arizona and lives in San Diego with her husband and two children.

WVU Marketing Communications Today: Horizons is presented by the West Virginia University Reed College of Media, which offers renowned online master’s degree programs in Marketing Communications.

In this provocative episode, database management expert Theresa Kushner explains why she believes that the marketing profession as we know it today is obsolete. What does this mean for the future of the marketing discipline, and for organizations as a whole? Listen here to find out.

About our Guest:

Theresa Kushner

Theresa Kushner turned her master’s degree in journalism from UNT into a career in high technology. For over 25 years she has led companies – like IBM, Cisco Systems, VMware, Dell/EMC, and NTT DATA – in recognizing, managing, and using the information or data that has exploded exponentially. Using her expertise in journalism, she co-authored two books on data and its use in business: Managing Your Business Data: From Chaos to Confidence (with Maria Villar) and B2B Data-Driven Marketing: Sources, Uses, Results (with Ruth Stevens). Today, as the “Data as an Asset” lead for NTT DATA, Theresa continues to help companies gain value from data and information. For her efforts in leading analytics, Theresa was inaugurated into the Analytics Hall of Fame at Pace University in New York in March 2019. She currently serves as an AI/Analytics consultant in the Data & Intelligent Automation group with NTT DATA.

WVU Marketing Communications Today: Horizons is presented by the West Virginia University Reed College of Media, which offers renowned online master’s degree programs in Marketing Communications.

During the pandemic, we’ve all been watching with horror as stores close and shopping behavior has turned upside down. Amazon’s sales are up 40% in the last 12 months. What’s the future of retail, we have to ask? Join us for an engaging discussion with Paul Leinwand and Samrat Sharma from PriceWaterhouseCoopers’s as they discuss the future of consumer markets and where the consumer shopping experience is headed. Paul Leinwand is global director of the Strategy& unit of PwC based in Chicago and teaches strategy and management as an adjunct at Kellogg Graduate School of Business. Samrat Sharma also works at Strategy& and has an MBA from Carnegie Mellon.

About our Guests:

Paul Leinwand

Paul Leinwand is a thought leader on strategy, growth, and capability building for Strategy&, PwC's strategy consulting group. Based in Chicago, he is a principal with PwC U.S. Paul advises clients on the topic of strategy, growth, and capability building, with a focus on the consumer product and retail sectors.

He is the co-author of three books, Strategy That Works: How Winning Companies Close the Strategy-to-Execution Gap (Harvard Business Review Press, 2016), The Essential Advantage: How to Win with a Capabilities-Driven Strategy (Harvard Business Review Press, 2010) and Cut Costs and Grow Stronger (Harvard Business Review Press, 2009), as well as several articles in the Harvard Business Review and strategy+business.

Paul earned an MBA with Distinction from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Washington University. He currently teaches at Kellogg as an Adjunct Professor of Strategy.

Samrat Sharma

Samrat Sharma is the US Enterprise Strategy & Growth Leader with Strategy& and PwC and the global leader of CMO Advisory, where he specializes in developing new business models to drive growth and reduce costs for CPG clients. He has roughly 20 years of consulting and industry experience in North America and emerging markets.

His wealth of expertise includes growth strategy, innovation and business transformation, go-to-market capabilities development such as marketing, revenue management, customer/channel management, and digital transformation with a focus on commerce, data & analytics.

Samrat has been featured in publications like Harvard Business Review and Strategy+Business. He earned his Bachelors in Commerce from the University of Delhi, and his MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

WVU Marketing Communications Today: Horizons is presented by the West Virginia University Reed College of Media, which offers renowned online master’s degree programs in Marketing Communications.

Design thinking has been around a while, and it sounds alluring, but there’s still some confusion about what it means to marketers. Roger Mader sets us straight in this podcast, explaining the skills and tools of design thinking that apply to marketing practice, and how it can be used to improve marketing results. In short, he describes a process for predicting your customers’ future needs and interests and serving them better than the competition. Join Roger, Managing Partner at Ampersand and professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York, to hear where design thinking can take marketers, on the sub-series, Marketing Horizons.

About our Guest:

Roger Mader is on a mission to “make better”—to equip leaders and entrepreneurs, experts and students to change the world. Declare purpose. Make a promise. Act on principle. Measure performance. Learn. Grow. Roger serves as the Managing Partner of Ampersand, a global team of partners who help big companies act small, and small companies get big. Ampersand uses design practices honed in the field, in collaboration with teams to conceive, test, iterate and launch new offerings and experiences. He serves on the graduate program faculty of the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. His course on Strategic Innovation introduces teams of students to Ampersand’s 4D method to design breakthroughs for corporate sponsors, including Accenture, Cap Gemini, Capital One, Chase, Citi, Deloitte, EY, Lippincott, McKinsey, RGA and SYP. His writing includes Purposeful Enterprise, a thesis on the power of purpose to guide strategy, attract demand and compel people on a shared mission.

WVU Marketing Communications Today: Horizons is presented by the West Virginia University Reed College of Media, which offers renowned online master’s degree programs in Marketing Communications.

Mixed reality is everything between AR to VR and in-between, evolving the consumer experience with virtual try ons, but where is mixed reality marketing going? Instagram and Snapchat have embraced AR and VR more than other platforms, people are virtually viewing houses, trying on lipstick, glasses and more and the outlook for mixed reality is bright. Join David Smith, Teaching Assistant Professor with West Virginia University's Reed College of Media as he discusses "Where's the Beef with Mixed Reality Marketing" on the sub-series, Marketing Horizons.

About our Guest:

David Smith is a Teaching Assistant Professor at the West Virginia University Reed College of Media, where he teaches multimedia storytelling – including augmented and virtual reality (AR & VR) – to students across all majors. Before joining the faculty at WVU, he was a visual journalist for several news organizations in North and South Carolina, Alabama, Ohio and West Virginia. He’s always looking for innovative ways to use new tech for storytelling and education.

WVU Marketing Communications Today: Horizons is presented by the West Virginia University Reed College of Media, which offers renowned online master’s degree programs in Marketing Communications.