May04Minutes

AMERICAN MARKETING ASSOCIATION

MARKETING RESEARCH COUNCIL

Meeting of May 15-16, 2004

Westin River North Hotel, Chicago, IL

PresentGuests

Jackie DawleyMichelle Elster

Greg AllenbyDennis Dunlap

Chris EverettKay Lemon

Karen AhlgrimGeraldine Fennell

Jamie Baker-PrewittDoug Bastianelli

Ross Goodwin

Beth Shriver

Pat Goodrich

Jackie Dawley called the meeting to order at 8:30 a.m.

Jackie mentioned guests that would be joining various parts of the meeting and welcomed Michelle Elster, Chairperson of the Board of AMA.

Minutes of the council’s January, 2004 meeting were reviewed. One correction was made – correction of name of Caroline Horstman on page 5. Minutes were unanimously approved as corrected.

Events Report

Pat reported on event financial performance year-to-date. Division events continue to generally “hold their own” but do need to get back to 00/01 levels, particularly the annual marketing research conference. The council commented that the program for that event in September is really good. In addition, we have implemented several of the council’s recommendations for the conference this fall, including better positioning of exhibitors, a new attendee breakfast to be hosted by the council (Beth will be the lead on this), and have continued the call for papers.

Pat pointed out that there may be an issue with placing ART Forum in Santa Fe in 2005 so we will be looking at additional locations.

The issue of using event brochure design to differentiate events/types of events which was discussed last January was discussed again. The council continues to get feedback from customers that they cannot tell one event from the other because of the similarity of design for all PD events. The MRC suggested varying design by type of event (conference, training, constituency, etc), using a wider variety of colors for the brochures, and using design to call attention to those events that have the best potential draw/revenue. Pat pointed out that she understands the brochure for the marketing research conference will be four color with a 25th anniversary logo.

Pat shared a request from the chair of the January, 2005 Executive Insights event for suggestions about who the committee should consider to be interviewed in the “actor’s studio” session.

Recommendations included:

Dana Anderson

Jack Trout

Daryl Brewster

J. Walker Smith

John Forsyth

The MRC also asked that the names of people who were invited to speak at the fall of 2004 event but were not able to do so because of scheduling be passed along to the Insights committee.

CEO Report

Dennis first told the council that he is delighted that they have added value to the association over the past several years, the MRC in particular has done a lot for the AMA.

He distributed the CEO report to the Board as of April, 2004.

Membership continues to be encouraging. It is trending up, fy to date up about 2-3% in both renewals and acquisitions, professional and collegiate are both up. He commented that now we need to see this sustained.

Financials are pretty good over all. We have a pretty aggressive budget for this fiscal. While revenue will probably be short by about 300K, it will be up 5-6% vs last year. All core offerings, our fundamental business, will be up. We have managed expenses well so revenue shortfall will be compensated by expense savings, and net will be positive vs budget.We are finally also seeing gains in our investment portfolio.

Following Bob Wallach’s departure, MarketingPower.com has been integrated into AMA operations while remaining a separate entity. Nancy Costopulos is managing MP with James Heckman of the MP team taking on a direct management role. Short term plans for the site include: content enhancement; optimization of site performance and user experience; increased marcom effectiveness; and identifying new MP revenue opportunities. All site statistics are up substantially vs last year at this time. Beginning with FY 04-05, MP has been rolled into AMA budget/financials.

There are several current key initiatives underway. A brand identity review has been conducted using the three best options for identities developed by evolution of the old brand and entirely new ideas. These were reviewed by OCOB and research on these options is currently underway.

We have selected a campaign concept/selling idea that is currently being developed into multiple ads focusing on three member benefits for a new brand sell ad campaign. The ads will be presented to staff this week. We have secured initial bartered media with Business Week, Brand Week and several other trade publications.

Staff has revisited segmentation of the practitioner target market. Analysis/recommendation was presented to OCOB in February. Recommendation for retention is to focus on low and medium renewers especially 1st/2nd year members; and on high renewers especially high value members. Acquisition recommendation is to focus on best prospects profiled from research/predictive modeling among market researchers and non-researchers by testing various lead generation strategies.

A staff task force has brought forward results of a comprehensive assessment of AMA’s professional development portfolio that includes short term recommendations to be implemented in FY 04-05. The group will also consider long term issues and bring forward recommendations on that phase in the fall of 2004.

Dennis also mentioned the new global marketing channel recently launched as part of the member resource center; a proposal for a comprehensive corporate training program to be launched in 04-05; AMA’s participation in the second annual Marketing Roundtable sponsored by The Economist; development of M50 and the CMO Summit which will include AMA as a sponsor by way of participation and a high quality publication; the recent very successful International Collegiate Conference; and the status of AMA’s thought leadership activities led by Bart Weitz.

Marketing Leadership

Michelle Elster, Chairperson of the Board of AMA distributed hard copy of a PowerPoint presentation on the association’s Marketing Leadership initiative. Michelle pointed out that AMA is discussing both Marketing Leadership – the larger, broader issue – and Thought Leadership – as a subset of marketing leadership. The Thought Leadership initiative has begun and is spearheaded by Bart Weitz. Bart has begun conversations with key academics and development of discussions that will result in studies, white papers, etc. on substantive marketing issues.

Marketing Leadership would involve higher visibility for the AMA through appearances by AMA leadership and partnerships with high profile organizations (Economist, Oracle, SpencerStuart). Marketing Leadership would be a change in direction for the association. There is no reason to make major changes at this time. Rather AMA will continue to take small steps while considering the ramifications of focusing on a strategy to achieve marketing leadership.

Portfolio Research Follow-up

Council members reported on actions taken for the events for which they are the liaison.

Beth – Marketing Research Conference

The committee has put together a very impressive line up of speakers. Dick Chay was in place as event chair before the liaison role was implemented so he already had a vision in place for this event. Suggestions for changes in positioning of exhibitor participation have been implemented by AMA staff. Beth will take the lead in developing plans for the first time attendee breakfast which will be hosted by the council.

Jamie – Executive Insights Conference

Program is in formative stage with an “in-person” meeting of the committee planned for early June. There has been some discussion about the event theme and committee members are researching possible names. The actor’s studio concept was well received by this group. Jamie asked that council members send her names of possible interviewees for this session as well as suggestions for potential speakers.

Jackie – Advanced Research Techniques (ART) Forum

Jackie is working with the event chair and program manager to reinstitute the Sunday evening orientation for new ART attendees. A written report on interviews that Jackie and Karen conducted with experienced ART attendees was distributed and discussed. Jackie will work with the committee to address issues identified from this research. Kay Lemon asked if this event is promoted to the academic community. Historically it is not. The only academics that generally see promotional information for ART are those that have attended in the past to present papers. The AMA will include academics in scheduled emails prior to the 2004 event, and in all promotion for 2005 to see what type of interest academics may have in attending.

Chris – Applied Research Methods (ARM)

Chris held the first meeting of the new ARM Advisory Group during the event in April. It was a good discussion. Chris distributed a written report on observations and suggestions from this group. Some key comments are:

  • Need better definition of event and a clearer explanation of levels of individual tutorials
  • Need better differentiation – AMA offerings are confusing in terms of target market (professional life cycle materials should help this), and brochure identity
  • Schedule needs to be reworked for better flow of tutorials

The Advisory Group has asked for more detailed information on attendees. AMA staff will develop reports on this and send to Chris.

The groups will also work with ARM instructors to get input from them on both content and the instructor experience.

Chris and Jeff are working on developing some additional banners/tabs from the research. Those should be available soon and Chris will do the initial review of information.

Atlanta Round Table

Chris has been invited to talk with a round table group in Atlanta. The group, which was organized by an Atlanta chapter member, consists of high level researchers from client side companies in the Atlanta area. Chris will be talking about the AMA’s research portfolio with this group. In addition, he has a breakfast meeting with suppliers from the Atlanta chapter.

Academic Council/Marketing Research Council Task Force

Kay Lemon of AMA’s Academic Council discussed the academic portfolio research project. This project is modeled after the MRC research and is led by a task force that includes members of both the Academic Council and the MRC.

Initial phase was qualitative and several focus groups have been done – initial findings indicate a simmering dissatisfaction with AMA by academic members. AMA has been “niched” in some academic arenas by groups like ACR and INFORMS.

The quantitative survey is in the field now. The survey document includes respondent selection of an organization to benchmark vs AMA on value for money. The survey also includes issues of awareness and usage of AMA products and services.

A comprehensive report on the research project will be presented at the August meeting of the Academic Council

Academic/Practitioner Interface

Kay also discussed potential opportunities within AMA for interface between academics and practitioners. There was some comment on this from the recent focus groups. Overall the group participants felt that interaction would be a good thing but it must be a conscious effort for collaboration – a “win/win”. Some of the specific things that academics would like from the practitioner community are:

  • Include both academics and practitioners in same SIGs
  • Do a “center” concept (perhaps virtual) that puts people of like interest working on problems
  • Practitioners are sources for speakers, sources for data, and sources for student projects – AMA should be a clearinghouse for this type of information sharing
  • Include academics on practitioner programs and offer discounts for academics to attend practitioner focused programs

The MRC discussed the possible benefits to practitioners from interaction with the academic community. Ideas included:

  • Recruiting
  • Additional mining of existing data (student projects)
  • Additional analysis of data
  • Should publish contact lists of academics by research topic so that practitioners can find them.

Industry Initiatives

Pat reported to the group that Larry Constantineauhas been named President of MRII replacing Mike Naples. She also informed the group that a donation was made to the Betsy J. Peterson Scholarship Fund on behalf of the MRC. The scholarship was established in honor of Betsy who was the long time Executive Director of the MRA. The group indicated that it would like to review MRII program content. When a new MRII Board representative is selected, that person can request materials for review.

Jamie advised that CASRO has resigned from the federation initiative. CMOR has been disbursed with some activities taking place through MRA and some through the ARF.

Appointments were reviewed:

Jamie will continue as council representative to CMOR/Federation

Pete Fader will be asked to be the council representative to MRII

Jeff will continue on the Parlin Board of Governors and Jamie will be a one year member of that group for selection of the 2005 award recipient (this appointment is tied to the MRC Vice President-Elect position)

FY 03-04 Plan

Jackie referred the group to the Status Report on AMA Research Division Portfolio Evaluation. The report details actions that have been taken in response to research results and concludes with information about initiatives to address the gap in strategic analysis skills that was identified.

FY 04-05 Plan

Chris outlined the key activities in his plan for FY 04-05 including

  • Development of additional insights/actions from the portfolio analysis
  • Development of a dynamic measurement program
  • Relationship engagement/enhancement
  • Thought Leadership – the integration of marketing research and marketing

The detailed plan was distributed with MRC meeting materials.

Geraldine Fennell, a colleague of Greg’s joined the meeting. Geraldine discussed her concerns about the need for marketing to return to a specific customer focus – wants should be addressed before goods/services exist. Geraldine and Greg are going to produce a discussion paper on the intersection of marketing and marketing research that will be shared with the MRC in September for specific questions/reactions from the group.

Jackie mentioned the Sunday morning optional discussion on design of a course to enhance making research more relevant to business. This program is intended to fill the identified portfolio gap on strategic thinking. The specific topic is the intersection of marketing and marketing research.

The meeting adjourned for the day at 5:15 p.m.

The “optional” portion of the meeting convened at 8:30 am on Sunday morning.

Jackie reviewed the information distributed to the council on The Intersection: Marketing and Marketing Research. The information distributed is proprietary and confidendial – not for distribution.

This topic is essentially the “so what” of research. The discussion may result in both a training program and a thought leadership product for the AMA. As a first step, the MRC needs to identify someone who can put a full program together using the outline developed and distributed. In addition, we will need to conduct some interviews with marketers to get their input for the topic.

The group identified some potential program authors and Pat will make initial contact with two people for additional recommended authors.

The meeting adjourned at 10:00 am.

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