Influencers

Does branding still matter? Is retail dead? When does a company need a CMO? Who is bringing back the magic of creativity? If you want to better understand people, brands and the future of marketing, listen to our conversation with Ivan Pollard, Chief Marketing Officer of General Mills. Ivan believes that the future is rather bright for large, traditional scale players, such as his very own company. He also believes that creativity, equity, and relationship building are essential ingredients for long-term brand success, critical qualities often overlooked by many agencies and the start-ups they chase. These are just a few of the topics Ivan and JP Kuehlwein, leader of the Marketing Institute at The Conference Board, cover in this fascinating discussion. Tune in to hear Ivan’s position on whether the role of the CMO is evolving, should the “FANGS” (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google) be disbanded, and (breaking news here!), what does Ivan eat for breakfast?

The World Health Organization has declared the novel coronavirus outbreak an international public health emergency, acknowledging that the virus now represents a risk beyond China. How can organizations prepare for and manage the potential impact of this fast-moving, deadly outbreak? What are the short and long-term economic implications? How can companies respond to a major health outbreak from various functional perspectives? In this timely podcast, Ataman Ozyildirim, Senior Director, Economics & Global Research Chair, The Conference Board, sits down with leading experts to discuss these and other critical issues. Participants include: Rebecca Ray, Executive Vice President, Human Capital, The Conference Board; Erik Lundh, Senior Economist, The Conference Board, and an expert on the China economy; Denise Dahlhoff, Senior Researcher, Consumer Research, The Conference Board; and Craig Carroll, Executive Director, OCR Network, and a global expert on corporate reputation.

This interview talks about both, how Virginie Helias as a Marketing Leader discovered Sustainability to be a positive business driver and how she helped the P&G corporation to embrace it as such, formulate a mission and operationalize it.  An undertaking she illustrates with many examples and which is still ‘work-in-progress’ across the company and the industry, as JP Kuehlwein and  Virginie discuss. JP is (co-)leader of the Marketing- and Communications Institutes at The Conference Board, author, Adjunct Professor of Marketing at NYU and Columbia University and founder of strand strategy advisor Ueber-Brands.

The ever-more environmentally conscious consumer is on the lookout for companies and brands that produce sustainable products through low-impact operations. Since 2001, TerraCycle has led the way by recycling hard-to-recycle materials and turning them into new products. But can a company inject a sustainability mindset beyond its own operations? In this month’s Center Chat, Marketing Institute Leader JP Kuehlwein talks to TerraCycle Founder and CEO Tom Szaky about how to build a sustainable brand.

In this “Influencers” podcast JP Kuehlwein talks with Sangeet Paul Choudary about the unique and exponential business- and brand building opportunities the platform business model offers – but also its limitations.    Web-based platform businesses seem to have grown into becoming dominant players in the most diverse industries like transportation (think Uber), hospitality (Airbnb), social media (Facebook), entertainment and communication (Apple and iTunes) or knowledge management (Google), retail (Amazon) and so forth.  They have become some of the most highly valuable assets in the world – it seems like overnight.  -- No wonder that there is an army of start-ups trying to convert yet more sectors to be organized by the platforms they design.  And no wonder that traditional manufacturers and service providers try to figure out how to counter this development or – increasingly – get ahead of it and become platforms themselves.  Jp and Sangeet will talk about the essential components of platform business and ho

What are the sustainability and social impact priorities driving global C-suite executives today? Hear how Kimberly-Clark, one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies, is addressing the fast-evolving customer demand for more sustainable products and services. Based on recent findings from The Conference Board research as well as insights on Kimberly-Clark’s sustainability initiatives, join Chuck Mitchell, Executive Director, Knowledge Content & Quality, The Conference Board and Lisa Morden, Vice President, Safety and Sustainability, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, for a look at the challenges ahead in sustainability and social impact.

How does an active wear brand become an activist icon? Deliberately or despite itself? Can product, purpose, profit, and politics mesh—or do they risk unraveling? And what’s the story behind the unconventional Patagonia beer? These questions and more will be answered in The Conference Board Marketing and Communications Center's April Monthly Chat. 

The Edelman Trust Barometer reports annually on the state of trust in the world’s key institutions: business, government, NGOs, and media. In recent years, the research has revealed that businesses face some of the most challenging times in history in terms of the trust that the public has in them. Jennifer Cohan, President, New York, Edelman, Joins The Conference Board’s own President and CEO, Steve Odland, to discuss the 2019 results.

Join Joe Cohen and Judith Harrison as they discuss Diverse Voices: Profiles in Leadership, which features interviews with more than 40 top multicultural corporate and PR agency leaders who share candid anecdotes about their successes, the obstacles they’ve had to overcome, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way.

In August 2018, CNN ran a two-part story entitled “Escape from the Mayo Clinic: Teen accuses world-famous hospital of ‘medical kidnapping’.” The article reported that an 18-year-old patient and her family accused Mayo of “medically kidnapping” her. In the first installment of the Marketing and Communications Center Chats, Mayo Clinic’s Amy Davis dispels the myths that underpinned CNN’s reporting and explains how she and her team set the record straight.