The capabilities of AI are mind-blowing and today companies are trying to understand more about artificial intelligence and how to enable this technology to help identify human behavior but as exciting as these advancements in technology where do we drive the line with privacy? Some companies might be playing with that line of what is allowed to be used and how much of that is known to consumers.

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Congratulations! It's a Start-up. Some friends have babies, and some are starting companies so the new trend is to hold a 'Business shower' in the early stages o a start-up, sometimes when the business is still just developing as an idea. What is definitely a new concept, it allows an entrepreneur to celebrate a major life milestone. Similar to other types of showers these also include food, games, and yes, even a registry.

In the summer of 2021, Bed Bath & Beyond and Caspter Sleep Inc. announced a new national partnership that will bring Casper's award-winning suite of sleep offerings to Bed Bath & Beyond customers through the website, mobile app, and select retail stores. Part of this partnership will also include a one-of-a-kind branded shop-in-shop at Bed Bath & Beyond's newly designed flagship store in New York City.

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Within the Incubator program, some new interesting products have launched during the pandemic. One unique product is the Juno Jones Safety Boot which is targeting a relatively untouched market with women who work in construction, engineering, architecture, and all kinds of hazardous industries. The boots a brainchild of Emily Soloby, a designer-in-residence at the Philadephia Fashion Incubator joined the incubator to take the boots "from an idea to a powerful reality".

While creating the boots Soloby created a private Facebook group penned 'The Hazard Girls' and simultaneously built a target group in which would benefit from the creation of her boots that also allowed them to provide feedback to the creation of the boot. She really took her product marketing to the next level.

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Victoria's Secret wants to get back on the runway - but in a more relevant way. Over 20 years the annual fashion show where the VS Angels flaunted bedazzled bras and lacy underwear ran but was ended after its December 2018 show when it suffered the worst ratings in its history. Victoria's Secret has now replaced its Angels with brand ambassadors who represent all body types and ages. While in-store the brand is also refreshing by using plus-size mannequins and updated fixtures. The seven founding ambassadors feature soccer star Megan Rapinoe; actress and businesswoman Priyanka Chopra Jonas; models Paloma Elsesser, Adut Akech, and Valentina Sampaio; professional skier Eileen Gu; and Advocate Amanda de Cadenet.

Will Victoria's Secret new direction be an authentic change or a disaster in the making?

Next, we discuss Reebok and the opportunity this brand now faces to reinvent itself. Adidas has owned Reebok since 2006 but after several years of revenue decline, Adidas announced that it would sell the business in December of 2020. Now, Reebok has been purchased by Authentic Brands Group (ABG) it now looks to re-invent itself to benefit from the ever-changing consumer environment.

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In an attempt to revive itself, The Gap Brand has teamed up with Kanye West and Yeezy, his fashion company for a new clothing line called Yeezy Gap which launched in the first half of 2021. The overall mission was to create 'modern, elevated basics for men, women and kids at accessible price points." The line which is featured both at Gap Stores and online launched first with a bomber jacket that sold out in mere minutes and retailed for $200.

The next collab might have you saying, 'what?!" In July Panera launched the Swim Soup Collection that featured four swimwear styles - two one-piece bathing suits and two pairs of swim trunks that pay homage to your favorite menu (soup) items. The collection was available for a limited time online only and retailed at $25 and sold out in less than a week.

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Casa Blanca combines personalized technology with bespoke services for simple, stylish, and stress-free real estate. This intuitive app curates property listings based on what matters most to you, giving you a far more enjoyable search.

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Market advertising is always a shifting landscape. If you look at the evolution of advertising originally it was just about conveying a brand's message in a very one-directional sort of way. That evolved to the inclusion of entertainment and connecting with the audience on a more emotional level. And more recently we've seen participatory advertising where a brand is inviting their users to co-create the marketing in collaboration with a brand campaign.

A recent campaign was launched last summer with e.l.f. cosmetics in the form of a TikTok native reality show. The reality show was created and aimed at TikTok users to help them become beauty influencers. Over 3,000 nomination videos were received and from there three lucky winners got to go through a month-long beauty camp where they were being mentored and trained by successful TikTok influencers on how to be successful. The daily series was broadcasted on e.l.f.'s TikTok brand channel and ended up increasing the following of their channel by over 50%.

Digital disruption should happen in an organic and native way to the user, as opposed to being jarring. In addition, brands should not just copy/paste their brand strategy across the many social media channels that are available. Movers + Shakers provides those proven shortcuts and strategies to implement for success that feels authentic to the environment.

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Political "brands" involve a myriad of techniques to sell ideas, ideals, and political candidates to the general public through commercial branding and advertising in presidential political campaigns. However, nowadays it has become the norm to bash and minimize the opposing incumbent, instead of speaking to the political transformations and advancements that a candidate brings to the table.

John refers to Frank Lloyd Wright in that his architectural designs come organically from the landscape and the same notion applies to political strategies. He has been involved in campaigns where they did not have to say one word about the opposing incumbent and achieved defeat because of the current circumstances.

Building a political campaign strategy that is able to absorb negativity is a huge factor, especially with the inclusion of social media which allows for a rapid spread of information and reaching a much larger audience pool.

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When the pandemic hit there was a big response to eating at home, therefore snacking throughout the day, and companion snacks to main meals were increased. Utz specifically saw an uptick in their core indulgent portion of their portfolio (potato and tortilla chips), and eventually started to see growth as well with the more permissible and healthy snack options such as popcorn, veggie straws, and snack mixes.

The loyalty, love, and following for the Utz brand comes from the fact that they are a smaller, crafted brand and the idea of unmistakably delicious flavors that are family crafted resonates with people. Utz has been family-owned and run for 100 years, and to celebrate their hundredth year anniversary the brand has organized A Year of A Hundred Wishes which extends to consumer activation, employee engagement initiatives, and local community involvement. In addition, a consumer promotion called Our Candles, Your Wish is launching soon where consumers can blow out the candles on the Utz milestone celebration cake and win prizes.

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In this episode, Christine shares that the usual trend of companies cutting their marketing budgets in an economic downfall, has not been the case throughout the Coronavirus pandemic and that companies have actually seen a 72% increase in the role of marketing. This is a phenomenal turn-around and we hope that the future importance of marketing continues to grow and be brought to the forefront.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have also been significant in the marketing sector this past year given the various political, racial, and socioeconomic events that occurred. Christine shares that an average increase of about 9% in DEI spending percent change has been seen.

Check out all of the latest reports to gain more insights about marketing and how it contributes to the bigger picture in so many ways.

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Americus shares some stats from the CDC which is reporting that 11.3% of the country is fully vaccinated, and 3.4% are within the waiting period to receive their second booster shot. Watching the vaccine story unfold has been very interesting as the pharmaceutical industry is historically held in one of the lowest regards by consumers, so Robert explores the idea of reputation repair through marketing and how we have seen that start to happen.

Marketing strategies for pharmaceutical companies look very different from other industry segments as Barbara shares that historically pharma companies typically aren't interested in spending money on marketing dollars. Being in the research and development/product business, if consumers don't like what they are doing it doesn't hold as much weight since they are so product-focused.

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Michelle shares that over the years the signature Crocs clog has been adopted by many age groups and industries. From kids, to the outdoor community, to healthcare workers, and food and beverage workers, who would spend long days working on their feet. Jibbitz, which are the customizable charms that can be placed in the holes of the Crocs clogs came from a couple in Boulder, CO who were creating these for kids to put in their shoes and were not a part of the founder's original vision. However, the addition of the Jibbitz Charms has turned into a unique selling proposition as Crocs are the only footwear brand that consumers can customize on the spot and express who they are, and what's important/valuable to them.

Crocs has also managed and continues to thrive throughout the pandemic. Being able to communicate the relevant values to consumers was a significant stance. The fact that the clogs can be wiped clean and that you can take them on and off without touching them was valuable for consumers. The healthcare industry also found a huge need for Crocs and the company kicked into gear and set up a "Free Pair for Healthcare" campaign. Nearly 900K pairs of Crocs have been donated globally to healthcare workers on the frontlines of COVID-19. 

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Allison shares that the M&M's/Mars Wrigley brand participates in a big event every year. Last year it was the Emmy's and this year the brand had a spot in the Super Bowl LV game on February 7, 2021. The message behind their Super Bowl commercial is that candy is joy, and joy can be the precursor to any apology needed. Featuring Dan Levy, who you may know from the CBC sitcom Schitt's Creek.

Mars Wrigley is a purpose-driven company and M&M's believes that fun and humor have the power to bring us closer together, so you see that tension in the ad and the offering of a bag of M&M's serves as the solution in a lighthearted and relevant way.

Allison also speaks to the direct-to-consumer shift that we have seen in consumer marketing. Online at www.mms.com is where that direct-to-consumer and customization/personalization piece comes in. Design Your Own M&M's is where a consumer can customize the candy from start to finish and incorporate branded clip art, text, images, and packaging.

Over the years the Mar's Wrigley brand has and continues to listen and engage with their consumer whether through voting, personalization, and more.

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Wilglory explains that growing up she was always into fashion but couldn't relate to the women she saw in advertisements and brand campaigns. And early on she was a creative who was always drawing and found herself gravitating towards shapes and geometry. Those shapes are evident in the handbag designs where they are used in a really unique yet simplistic way.

Even though the brand centers women of color as their brand narrative they have found that there are different aspects of this brand that women see themselves in and because of this, women from all walks of life are drawn to Anima Iris.

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Erica shares that paying great respect to the original story, characters, and the fictional world that die-hard fans know and love is hugely important and something that their staff of over 160 editors, producers, writers, animators, designers, directors, and strategists consistently strive for.

Finding a happy marriage between the competing factors of staying authentic and accurate to the original creation while also maximizing the creative piece and bringing to life, for example, a Marvel comic story, is a bit of an art form. Erica explains that empowering their creative team members to be as broad-stroke and as outside of the box as possible, but still within the framework has allowed them their many success stories.

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Former President, Donald Trump has been banned from some of the biggest names in tech due to his relentless and unfounded allegations of voter fraud and his refusal to accept his loss in the 2020 election. On January 6th, Twitter locked Donald Trump's account after the Capitol assault and two days later announced a permanent ban. Facebook and Instagram suspended Trump's account and later Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO announced a permanent ban. Snapchat also permanently disabled Trump's account on January 14th.

Social media has increased the ability of information travel ten-fold, and sometimes this echo chamber can become dangerous and volatile when destructive opinions and misinformation are shared and accelerated. And while accounts can be banned, it really comes down to each and every one of us when we interact with social media, to make informed and ethical decisions about the information we post and share.

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There is a common misconception that amazing and elite athletes like Serena Williams, Peyton Manning, and Anthony Davis, are always working on their sport by constantly working out, dieting, and being very disciplined. However, through a number of interviews, the Michelob Ultra team found that even these superior athletes perform their best when they are happy and balanced. Not only is it okay, but it's also necessary to take breaks and relax every now and then. Otherwise, you just set yourself up for major burn out. Check out the "HAPPY" commercial here.

Ricardo wraps by sharing that the brand has plans to continue to grow and that their Superbowl spot served as a great catalyst to continue spreading the message of joy, balance, and not to take life so seriously.

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Chipotle was founded on the radical belief that real food is better for you and for the world. Sourcing real and sustainable ingredients and providing food with high integrity standards is what the brand stands for, and they wanted to promote and advocate this message for their first-ever Superbowl Ad.

Going beyond product and service was what Chipotle wanted to drive home as the pandemic has brought to light many issues, yet we still have the power to mobilize and have a positive impact on the future.

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Mountain Dew Major Melon is the brand's new watermelon flavored soda and for this year's Superbowl Ad they are doing something really fun. John Cena, WWE Superstar, and actor brings the larger than life flavor to fans nationwide. The commercial which aired during the first half of the game features hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of Mtn Dew Major Melon bottles, and the fan to correctly count and tweet the exact number of bottles in the ad could win $1 million dollars.

Not only does Mountain Dew get to change one lucky fan's life forever, but they also have the opportunity to create engagement and conversations after the fact surrounding the positivity, joy, and fun of this commercial.

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There is a fair amount of ethical controversy surrounding the use of algorithms and in what context. For example, in a vaccination context, what would success look like and that really comes down to the eye of the beholder and their moral rules.

Typically when an algorithm fails or is imperfect, we as humans lose trust and no longer want to use/interact with it. However, algorithms are great when set up correctly and maximize the variable as it is instructed to do. It's when an algorithm isn't given the right objective that we begin to run into issues.

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80% of commerce still happens in a physical location, so in-store shopping is not going away anytime soon. In fact, Steve predicts that luxury, fashion, and beauty are all going to make a big comeback.

They then switch gears to discuss the future of real-estate and how we are seeing a fundamental shift. Rental resets, shorter lease terms, pop-up shops, and businesses partnering together to keep their physical locations up and running are all emerging trends.

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James shares that in March/April 2020 games and puzzles really took off when stay-at-home orders were put into place. The second wave they saw was June/July when the weather changed and got warmer. Families were spending more time outside and so outdoor toys/activities/games saw a big sales increase.

Barbara segways into the Netflix series The Queens Gambit, about a girl in a 1950's orphanage who reveals an astonishing talent for Chess. Companies all across the board have been selling out on traditional chess games and a company called Winning Moves came out with No Stress Chess that teaches you how to play using illustrated cards.

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Consumer behavior has shown a steady trend towards streaming services, however, the Coronavirus pandemic served as a major catalyst and accelerated that trend. Cable services lost live sports, new programming, and folks found they could save money by opting for a streaming service that offered better content.

In terms of advertising, businesses are becoming more strategic about where they're putting their ad spend dollars. With linear programming audiences headed in a downward trend, the budgets moved. The number one thing Roku sets out to do is to research and provide the data that supports this shift.

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Dickies started in 1922 as a workwear brand outfitting those on the frontlines and that's who they are at their core. Kathy speaks to something near and dear to her heart and that's the recent awareness that has been brought to light about the civil unrest in our country.

Using their platform to shine a light on the Black Lives Matter movement, Dickies launched the content series "We Have Hard Work to Do" which seeks to highlight some black-owned businesses within their community and around the country. In addition, the company has recently launched their first-ever global campaign, United by Inspiration, United by Dickies, where they bring to life real stories about real people that exemplify the toughness and pride of Dickies. Across the countries, nationalities, and genders, people have been able to come together and share stories among the different craftsmanships and skilltrades.

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On this episode, we are joined by CEO, Lauren Maillian, who is a change agent committed to diversity, innovation, and inclusion. She explains that Digital Undivided is a non-profit social startup leading the shift towards inclusive innovation in both entrepreneurship and innovation across the industries. Lauren shares that the amount of women of color in the "million-dollar club" has more than doubled since 2018. However, looking back to their 2018 report, women of color raise on average $43,000 whereas their non-minority male counterparts raise on average $1.1 million.

Taking these stats and information Digital Undivided seeks to create larger conversations in the media, with tech companies, and DC firms, etc. to actively shift and shape the perception of women of color and their abilities/expertise. And their success stories are truly inspirational, check out their case studies here.

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The team thinks and operates in a way that combines hardware and software holistically making a better overall experience for the consumer. Samsung Next is also really focused on how they can work with a larger ecosystem, say for example through acquisition or investment, to better position themselves at the paramount of the innovation intersection.

Some current projects that the Samsung Next team is working on include AI, IoT and Media Tech, as well as the Digital Health/Health Tech marketplace. The product team has recently launched an App called Whisk which allows a user to save recipes and then instantly turns them into shopping lists to buy in-store or online.

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Dr. Lawrence shares with us the influence that celebrities have, especially on young voters. For example, Taylor Swift was able to get 62,000 of her followers registered to vote on a single day. Kylie Jenner did something similar, and we're not seeing celebrities push for a certain candidate, but more so the idea that people need to register, vote, and have their voices and opinions heard.

Dr. Lawrence then shifts the discussion to the 'third party effect', which is this perception that other people may listen to a celebrity and what they endorse versus you as an individual may not. That you base your opinions on your own education, belief system, and the influence of family and friends. To build on this Americus mentions the recent Netflix film, The Social Dilemma, and how social media and various internet algorithms can actually influence the information that is presented to us based on our geographical location and internet search history and tendencies. Cooper shares that her research does support that the frequent use of social media among Gen Z and Millennial generations leads to higher rates of anxiety and depression, as they are constantly bombarded with these highlight reels of celebrities lives.

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Together they've written a research paper "Should Your Brand Pick a Side? The Moderating Effect of Choice Share on the Consequences of Corporate Political Advocacy.” Consumers increasingly expect brands to “pick a side” on divisive sociopolitical issues, but managers are reluctant to risk alienating customers who oppose their position. In recent years we have seen a lot of brands taking polarizing positions, for example, in 2012 the fast food enterprise Chick-fil-A released a series of public comments opposing same-sex marriage by the CEO, and since doing so a number of related issues and backlash have arisen between the international fast food restaurant and the LGBT community.

The methodology for the data that was comprised for the paper was primarily done by running experiments, and whether or not a company should take and promote a polarizing sociopolitical stance depends on several factors. Such as market share, category competition, and if the risks outweigh the benefits or vice-versa.

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In terms of marketing their shows, The Broadway League covers all of the advertising pathways to reach their widespread audience in terms of demographics. From TV and radio ads, newspaper, direct mail, to social media and email outreach.

During their last season, Broadway filled 94% of their seats, and the future of Broadway seems bright. Every Broadway theatre is unionized with 17 different union contracts, this has been a long standing tradition, but over time this could change.

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We are then joined by Christopher Gindlesperger, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs & Communications at the National Confectioners Association. Christopher touches on that we've had so much taken away from us this year due to the Coronavirus pandemic and with the holiday season quickly approaching this is a major driver for sales in the chocolate and candy industry.

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Trouble was started by Bari and Meredith, two women who’d found their seats at the board room table and knew that was far from enough. They were tired of hearing how far we’ve come as a society when they could see clearly how far we still have to go. They wanted to accelerate the process of equity by creating a new kind of brand, one that inspires women, supports women, funds women’s causes, and recognizes the barriers caused by intersectionality.

Bari Harlam, Co-founder of TroubleMakers sits down with Barbara and Americus to discuss the vision behind TroubleMakers and how they are causing some courageous disruption for the greater good. Each purchase you make allows you to honor your favorite TroubleMaker and from there all profits go to organizations that promote gender equity.

The 19th Amendment was adopted one-hundred years ago on August 18th, 1920 which gave women the right to vote. TroubleMakers recognized the importance of this anniversary date and launched the brand on August 18th, 2020. Launching with a startup mindset Bari highlights that there are big things in store for brand as they hope that the next 100 years will bring rapid changes to gender equality.

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In their book Meta-Luxury: Brands and the Culture of Excellence the authors set out to define the ultimate meaning of true luxury, exploring it both as a culture and business model. Through concepts such as unique achievement, craftsmanship, focus, history, and rarity.

Rebecca discusses how throughout the past twenty years of their market analysis and research there have been two brands that have been and stayed relevant since the beginning: Gucci and Louis Vuitton. And that all luxury brands have their own philosophies, but the ones that consistently stay on top of the market know how to successfully marry tradition and innovation to carry forward.

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Meditation, learn this life-changing skill

Sleep, get more restful sleep and wake up refreshed

Music, exclusive music playlists to help you focus, relax, sleep

Body, visual video lessons on mindful movements and stretching

Masterclasses, audio programs taught by world-renowned experts

Scenes, nature scenes and sounds to enjoy whenever you need to get away

Katie Shill, who is the Senior Director of Marketing at Calm, talks about how meditation looks and feels different for every person and we all have our own needs when it comes to mental wellness. Being a subscription based service you aren't going to find any ads or marketing fluff on the app itself, because as Katie mentions, the app is created to be a sanctuary and respite from the things you need to tune out and turn off for the time being.

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One might assume that those folks of the older or senior populations would be very apprehensive and opposed to telemedicine, but Lyn shares that the date proves quite the opposite. Those who are 60 and above are readily adapting to this, and there doesn't seem to be a large generational gap. Folks all across the board appreciate the personable and more accessible experience. In addition, Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance companies are all getting on board and openly reimbursing for telemedicine/telehealth visits.

Lastly Lyn touches on the notion of finding the correct balance between tech and touch. Data exchange in healthcare is a very sacred thing that we need to continue to build the trust and equity around. But again, people are willing to share their data due to the value proposition they get in return with the advancements of telemedicine.

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Under COVID conditions as more folks are at home and spending time with their families, more candy is coming into the household and being consumed under traditional and non-traditional occasions such as baking, movie night, decorating for the holiday's, etc.

In addition, the consumer buzz around Halloween is bar none, and Hershey's did not disappoint for the 2020 Halloween Season. Innovation is a critical part of the way they go to market and data shows that 21% of Halloween celebrators want to try something new.

Hershey's Vampire Kisses

Reese's Franken-Cups

Kit Kat Witches Brew

Hershey's Cookies n' Creme Fangs

Hershey's has some of the best innovation in the marketplace and these products in particular are attracting a ton of media buzz and pickup in store from consumers.

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In this episode Mark talks about the 'common thread' and what the theme is that drives you and makes you come alive. Americus as a Brand Identity Theorist, who has had to cultivate his own brand, talks about the notion of understanding your why, and how the commitment your craft helps you uncover and cultivate your passions.

Mark then goes on to discuss his book, Marketing Rebellion and how by doing some research for his clients he was able to uncover some research that demonstrated how two thirds of our marketing is happening without us, where nowadays the customer is the marketer. A shared meaning and shared values goes a very long way in marketing over what's popular or on trend.

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In this episode Simon sits down with Barbara and Americus to discuss how in the year 2020 amongst the Coronavirus pandemic, issues with climate change, and the Black Lives Matter movement, that not only are brands having to make the decision of whether or not they want to lead with their purpose message outright, but also in what order. Younger generations such as Millenials and Gen Z's are acutely aware of the issues we face today and how these challenges could impact our future. As a result folks in these demographics want to buy from companies that align with their values and are building a better future.

One example Simon uses of a company staying true to their own unique and authentic purpose is Airbnb and how their main message is to create a world where anyone can belong. This has led to them giving free accommodations to Syrian refugees and bush fire victims in Australia. And once COVID came along the company was in a position where along with their hosts, they could offer accommodations all over the world to people who had been displaced, and healthcare practitioners who were temporarily re-located to help aid on the front lines.

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Catherine Cook is co-founder of The Meet Group (NASDAQ: MEET), a portfolio of mobile social entertainment apps designed to meet the universal need for human connection. Their primary apps include, MeetMe®, LOVOO®, Skout®, Tagged®, and Growlr® entertain millions of mobile daily active users, generating untold numbers of casual chats, friendships, dates, and marriages.

At their foundation, The Meet Group knows that every aspect of human life is enhanced by meeting great new people – whether as a casual, fun encounter, a lasting romance, or any of the infinite ways people choose to come together.

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Amanda talks about the opportunities to still create memorable experiences for couples looking to get married amongst the Coronavirus pandemic and how they've had to shift their value proposition both for their vendors and the couples they serve. Such as normalizing wearing masks and using hand sanitizer, to standing during the ceremony.

In addition, now more than ever amongst COVID, relationship support has been a key component for The Knot. Planning for a marriage, and not just a wedding is the underlying theme for all of their services to make sure couples have the tools they need for a lasting partnership. There is also no one size fits all wedding and The Knot wants to advocate for all couples and how they can incorporate their individual identities and style preferences.

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Stacy also talks about the big and recent "do it yourself' trend and how with the advancement of 3D printing, people are able to print dentures, casts, and even personalized/individualized prosthetics.

In closing, Stacy touches on how in this new world of medicine, and with the application of technology, that we are loosing the personalized doctor to patient relationship. Often times when you visit a provider he/she is looking at a screen and as a result may miss some visual cues that indicate certain health issues. The lack of eye contact can also make for a very impersonal experience where a patient doesn't feel valued, heard, and of importance. How can we combat this, by utilizing these technologies in the best way possible but still providing a personalized experience?

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Many of our grocery staples, such as rice, butter, and pancake mix have brands that have been around for nearly a century or more. Uncle Ben's rice was first marketed in 1943. Aunt Jemima breakfast foods were first advertised in 1889. Mrs. Butterworth's syrup was introduced in 1961. And while these brands have changed their product offering throughout the years, their brand imagery remains the same.

As more of us are at home and in our kitchens cooking more due to the Coronavirus, consumers are paying more attention to what they are buying and this includes brand packaging. In addition, with social media campaigns and change.org petitions, the public is able to talk more directly to these brands and the pressure to respond accordingly has greatly increased. Another change we've seen throughout the years is that the internal make-up of these organizations has shifted as there are more people of color in positions of power. Having a more diverse group at the table, especially in marketing, creates the opportunity to cater to a wider audience of consumers.

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In this episode, Tiffany sits down with Americus and Barbara, to discuss how in the past the vast majority of brands stayed neutral on political, racial, and other relevant issues as to not detour any existing and potential customers. However, with the recent Black Lives Matter movement we have seen a huge shift as brands position themselves to clearly support and advocate themselves to align with the movement.

Talking about what your customers are talking about has prompted brands to take a strong stance on these issues and consumers are paying attention. Americus talks about this pivotal time, and amplified watershed moment where we don't know how consumerism and buying behaviors may change once the Coronavirus pandemic is over. And brands now have this deeper sense of urgency to truly connect with their customers in terms of what they stand for and what is truly important to them.

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In this episode she discusses with Americus and Barbara the notion of depletion as we try to sustain major lifestyle changes throughout this pandemic. The idea that when you take consumers and give them any reason or justification to not exert self control and do the hard thing, boom! they latch onto it. The Coronavirus has disrupted our lives in just about every way possible and when so much is uprooted and no longer in our control, we seek to regain that control in any way possible. The panic buying that has resulted from the strong perception of scarcity, the impulse buying to compensate for that scarcity, and the compensatory behaviors we're all experiencing as we try to navigate this new normal.

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Strava is a passionate and committed team unified by their mission to build the most engaged community of athletes around the world. Their balanced approach of consistently searching for new ways to inspire athletes and make fitness fun, as well as the inclusivity of a team environment that elevates each and every member has allowed them to revolutionize the industry. And they're only getting started. As the Coronavirus continues to change the landscape of the fitness industry more and more people are working out from home or in the great outdoors.

What sets Strava apart from the other fitness apps in the industry, is that instead of downloading a piece of technology, you are joining a community and a network of like-minded folks that help hold you accountable and build long term goals. In addition, Strava is able to integrate just about every other app and device that a person might utilize as a part of their fitness journey. The impactful level of interaction is limitless and as more folks share their experience with friends and family the community continues to cultivate and grow.

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Planet Fitness provides a unique experience in which anyone can be comfortable. A diverse, judgement free zone where a lasting and active lifestyle can be achieved. With clean spacious facilities, 24-hour access, free fitness training, and all the equipment you need, starting at just $10 a month, it's an incredible deal.

Jeremy Tucker, Chief Marketing Officer, explains that because of their judgement free zone and welcoming community, Planet Fitness has become one of the largest and fastest growing franchisors and operators of fitness in the US. And they continue to stay ahead of the game. As the Coronavirus continues to impact the fitness industry, Planet Fitness has introduced United We Move where anyone can tune into Facebook or YouTube for free 20-minute or less workouts you can do in-club or at home. In addition, Teddy's Mask Guide gives you all the tricks and tips for a successful workout while staying safe and wearing your mask.

Planet Fitness believes in providing the best, high-quality fitness experience at an affordable cost.

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In this episode she discusses the stigma's attached to menopause and how it's too often ignored and not prioritized. Kindra, is a thoughtful line of products that aims to bring awareness to the multitude of physical and emotional symptoms that can occur. All of the products are available directly to the consumer without the need for a prescription. The brand has also built a tremendous collaborative and resource community as women nowadays spend nearly a third of their life in menopause.

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What Brandless' downfall says about brand building in the digital era

Inside the fall of SoftBank-backed startup Brandless

Why Amazon Wins Where Brandless Failed

The Impostor Syndrome from Luxury Consumption

Buying expensive stuff doesn’t make us happy. Harvard researchers explain why

Amazon is helping brands build custom text-to-speech voices for their Alexa skills

Build a unique Brand Voice with Amazon Polly

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The result is two breakthrough chocolate products, FlavaBars and FlavaMix, which deliver 5X to 9X the plant based cocoa flavanol anti-oxidants of a typical dark chocolate bar. 

Alan Frost Founder of the company flavanaturals and Beth Lorge VP of Marketing discuss the intricacies of marketing (Segmentation Targeting Positioning and Messaging) healthy chocolate in two product forms: Powder and Bars. There's lots of science behind the clinically testing of cocoa flavanols and the question becomes who is the target? [1] High performance athletes seeking performance benefits or [2] Chocolate Loving consumers who want to not feel guilty? What to focus on? How to do it? And how to do it as a start-up.

Listen to this fascinating conversation with Professor Americus Reed!

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Pauline graduated with an MBA from the Wharton School in 1995 and has worked for some of the world's most influential brands, including LVMH, Avon and Estee Lauder. She now uses her knowledge to help other types of businesses achieve the same type of success as those brands.

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Anthony Stephan has worked with Deloitte since 2005 and uses his passion for the human experience to assist companies with transformations, making them more valuable to employees and consumers. Anthony graduated from Albright College in 1996 with a B.S. in Marketing and Business Administration. Since then, he has continued to assist businesses with strategic initiatives that create value and stronger connections with people and markets, ultimately increasing their earnings.

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Daniel has 30 years of experience in the branding and communications industry and has worked in seven different countries across four continents during his career and traveled to over 50.

During his career, he has worked with Coca-Cola, Nissan, Unilever, Kimberly-Clark, Wrigley and Astra Zeneca to define and activate new strategic visions for their companies.

He formally spent 18 years with the advertising agency McCann Erickson where he held positions as EVP and Worldwide Account Director on the Coca-Cola and Unilever business, as well as CEO of their advertising agencies in Indonesia, Malaysia and was Regional President for Africa.

He now lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife and their two boys. Daniel has been to the Burning Man festival three times and loves to costume up for parties!

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Catherine Captain is the Vice President of Marketing at T-Mobile for Business since March 2018. She joined T-Mobile as Vice President of Communications in April 2015, responsible for the Office of the CEO, Executive Platforms and Internal Communications.

She started her career with a decade in marketing roles at USA TODAY in Washington, D.C. She then moved from print to digital and from east coast to west coast as Vice President of Marketing & Communications for NBC News Digital based on the Microsoft campus near Seattle. She later split her time between Seattle and New York City as the first General Manager for NBC News’ TODAYshow.com.

Prior to T-Mobile, Catherine leveraged her deep branding and storytelling expertise to trigger growth for tiny startups and Fortune 500 companies alike.

Catherine went to the University of Iowa and double majored in English and Journalism. She earned her master’s degree in Integrated Marketing Communications from Northwestern University, where she served as the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications. She earned an additional master’s degree in Strategy and Leadership in 2012 as a recipient of the Sloan Fellowship at London Business School.

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Catharine Hays is co-author and principle writer of Beyond Advertising: Creating Value Through All Customer Touchpoints (Wiley, 2016). She co-hosts the monthly CMO Spotlight show on Wharton Business Radio, SiriusXM 132. She serves on the advisory boards of Effie Worldwide, the IPA (UK), Ad:Tech and Turner AdLabs.

Catharine co-founded and served as Executive Director (2008-2018) of the Wharton Future of Advertising Program from 2008 to 2018. There she cultivated and convened an international collaboration network of over 500 executives, innovators and academics committed to making the future of advertising and marketing markedly better for brands, people and society.

Catharine has been published, featured or quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Forbes, Modern Advertising, The Drum, AdWeek, Business Week, The Business Times – Singapore and India, eMarketer, Journal of Advertising Research/WARC, Knowledge@Wharton and the AListDaily. Her webinar/webcast credits include Salesforce Leading Edge, Six Pixels of Separation, MSI, Pfizer Global Marketing and MarketingSherpa. She has keynoted, presented and moderated at the Cannes Lions, Advertising Week, Ad:Tech NYC, 4A’s CreateTech, Forbes CMO Excursion, Deloitte’s Next CMO Academy,and Brand ManageCamp and has led research projects with Google, Facebook, Deloitte, Hearts & Science, P&G and others.

You can follow her on twitter @catharinehays.

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Cooper Lawrence is an accomplished radio veteran grabbing headlines and boosting ratings in radio for almost twenty years. Cooper is a prolific author with a Ph.D in Psychology. Her sixth book is The Yoga Club, (Simon & Shuster's Gallery Books). Previous books include, the best-seller The Cult of Celebrity: What our Fascination with the Stars Reveals About Us, The Cult of Perfection: Making Peace with Your Inner Overachiever; The Fixer Upper Man: Turn Mr. Maybe Into Mr. Right; Been There, Done That, Kept the Jewelry; and CosmoGIRL's All About Guys. 

Cooper is also a multiple Gracie Award winning radio personality who can be heard nightly at 710 WOR in New York. As a psychologist she spent two years as the relationship expert on The Tyra Show and has written six books. Her best-seller The Cult of Celebrity landed her on the VH1 show Confessions of a Teen Idol as the "fame expert."

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Mike Kijewski (MMP'10/WG'12) is the CEO and co-founder of MedCrypt, a technology startup focused on helping medical device manufacturers secure their devices against malicious hacking. Mike was previously the founder of Gamma Basics, a software company focused on building web-based technologies for use in radiation oncology. Gamma Basics was acquired by Varian Medical Systems in 2013. Mike holds a bachelors in physics from the West Chester University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Medical Physics from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from the Wharton School.

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Frost Prioleau is the Co-Founder and CEO of Simpli.fi. An experienced online advertising executive specializing in targeting, optimization, and technology, Prioleau focuses on corporate strategy, driving Simpli.fi’s growth, and ensuring customer satisfaction.

Prior to Simpli.fi, Prioleau was the CEO and Founder of Personifi, a contextual and behavioral targeting company. The firm was acquired by Collective Media in 2008. While at Collective, Prioleau served as General Manager of the Technology Solutions Group.

Considered to be a thought leader in online advertising, Prioleau often speaks on the topic at industry trade shows. In addition, he shares his opinions and insights about retargeting in his monthly column published on Search Engine Land. Prioleau is a graduate of Princeton University, where he earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Engineering Management Systems.

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Mansur Khamitov is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore). He obtained his Ph.D. from the Ivey Business School, University of Western Ontario (Canada).

His research stream focuses on consumer information processing particularly in relation to branding (brand transgressions, brand relationships, brand loyalty) and financial decision-making (money, saving, gambling).

Mansur's research has been published in the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Cognition, and Handbook of Strong Brands, Strong Relationships, as well as invited for revision at the Journal of Marketing. His work has successfully obtained funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development of Ontario. Mansur has been recognized as a 2017-18 Rising Star by the American Marketing Association’s Consumer Behavior Special Interest Group as well as a 2017 Highly Commended Doctoral Research Award recipient by Emerald/EFMD.

Prior to starting his Ph.D., he spent several years working in fast-moving consumer goods and the pharmaceutical industry. His industry experience is mostly in branding and marketing management, including work as a senior product manager at Polpharma and a brand manager at Procter & Gamble, where he managed such brands as Oral-B, Blend-A-Med (Crest), Camay, and Safeguard. Mansur also has experience teaching and guest lecturing Integrated Marketing Communications, Principles of Marketing, and Advertising and Marketing in Emerging Economies at the Nanyang Technological University, University of Western Ontario, and KIMEP University. 

​​Mansur’s research and opinion pieces have been quoted or featured by CNA, The Business Times, The Straits Times, TODAY newspaper, The New Paper, Kyodo News, Japan Times, ABS-CBN, Sputnik News, The World News, The Government of Singapore, MONEY FM 89.3, Singapore Informer, Mumbrella, Marketing in Asia, National Affairs, Asia One, NewsRx, Science Daily, Phys.org, EurekAlert, and Atlas of Science among others. ​Aside from his career, he is an avid sports fan, traveler, poet, book lover, and a musical enthusiast. 

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Peter is a reporter at the online trade journal Marketing Dive covering digital transformation's impact on marketing and advertising. A graduate from the Medill School at Northwestern University, he studied magazine journalism and English literature, and previously has worked at publications like New York magazine and the investigative initiative The Medill Justice Project.

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Dave Sargent is Vice President, Global Automotive at J.D. Power. He oversees all of the company’s vehicle quality research globally, including the Initial Quality Study (IQS); Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout (APEAL) Study; and Vehicle Dependability Study (VDS), as well as vehicle quality tracking studies. Previously, Mr. Sargent was vice president, U.S. Automotive Research at J.D. Power, responsible for all syndicated research in the U.S. market. Prior to that, he was the practice leader of J.D. Power’s European operations, where he established the company’s London office in 1995. Earlier, he worked in the company’s headquarters in California, and was responsible for the Initial Quality Study and a number of proprietary quality studies.

Before joining J.D. Power in 1992, Mr. Sargent worked for a UK consulting firm specializing in competitor analysis, as well as for Ford of Europe and the Rover Group. Mr. Sargent holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of York and an MBA from Manchester Business School, both in the UK.

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William's areas of expertise include interactive digital marketing, social media marketing and personal selling. He has previously held digital marketing and eCommerce roles with American Express and Carnival Cruise Lines, and his agency clients with imc2 included Norwegian Cruise Line, Omni Hotels, and Samsung Mobile USA.

His research interests include consumer behavior as it relates to the emerging topics of mobile marketing, geolocation targeting, and social media.

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Over the past 8 years, Brad has built a unique think-do-tank focused on the leading-edge issues changing our culture—and therefore our global businesses. Brad heads client-teams that guide top executives in nearly every industry vertical—media/entertainment, consumer products,

finance, technology, advertising, healthcare, art/fashion—leading Fortune 100 global enterprises, non-profits, and emerging start-ups. Despite the various leadership roles and industries of their clients, they are all connected by their voracious curiosity about new ideas, a desire to embrace opportunities, and an eagerness to make positive contributions to culture. ZEITGUIDE evolved out of Brad’s tenure as Head of Special Projects at Imagine Entertainment serving as the organization’s “cultural attaché” as featured in The New Yorker. While at Imagine, Brad conceived an incubation program to explore concepts and extraordinary entities outside the entertainment business to inspire fresh ideas for new content. Prior to Imagine, Brad spent over 15 years in independent and studio film production, including Sony Pictures and Universal Pictures. In addition, Brad co-founded Out in Television & Film, a networking and educational organization for LGBT filmmakers and executives, and founded Insta-Tutor, an academic coaching company for high achieving high-school students.

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Over the past 8 years, Brad has built a unique think-do-tank focused on the leading-edge issues changing our culture—and therefore our global businesses. Brad heads client-teams that guide top executives in nearly every industry vertical—media/entertainment, consumer products, finance, technology, advertising, healthcare, art/fashion—leading Fortune 100 global enterprises, non-profits, and emerging start-ups.

Despite the various leadership roles and industries of their clients, they are all connected by their voracious curiosity about new ideas, a desire to embrace opportunities, and an eagerness to make positive contributions to culture. ZEITGUIDE evolved out of Brad’s tenure as Head of Special Projects at Imagine Entertainment serving as the organization’s “cultural attaché” as featured in The New Yorker. While at Imagine, Brad conceived an incubation program to explore concepts and extraordinary entities outside the entertainment business to inspire fresh ideas for new content. Prior to Imagine, Brad spent over 15 years in independent and studio film production, including Sony Pictures and Universal Pictures. In addition, Brad co-founded Out in Television & Film, a networking and educational organization for LGBT filmmakers and executives, and founded Insta-Tutor, an academic coaching company for high achieving high-school students.

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Andrew Chung currently serves as the CEO of Innovo Property Group (IPG), a premier industrial developer for urban locations involved in more than $1.7 billion of invested equity. Prior to founding IPG in 2015, Andrew was a principal at Carlyle Group’s New York real estate fund for 10 years. He served as head of the New York office for the Real Estate Fund for 10 years. Mr. Chung is currently a member of the Advisory Board for NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate. He was also honored by ranking in the New York Observer’s “Power 100: The Most Powerful People in NY Real Estate” in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. He earned his undergraduate degree at Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania.

One of IPG’s most exciting new projects is 2505 Bruckner, a state-of-the-art, 700,000 square foot “last mile” logistics property on 20 acres in the Bronx, set for completion in 2020. With today’s growing demand for same-day and two-hour deliveries, the property is uniquely located near major highways to serve NYC area customers. It will be the first trophy logistics property in New York and will set the bar for future development.

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With a 14-year career as a photojournalist, Lee Thompson’s job led him all over the world opening up a side to countries that tourists just don’t get to see. It was these off-radar experiences that convinced him he could change the face of group travel. When he met his co-founder Radha

Vyas--on their first date-- they found common ground as two 30-somethings obsessed with travel and frustrated with the lack of appealing group activity options for their age-bracket.

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In addition to writing branded content for Washington Post Brand Studio, Insider Inc., and Refinery29, she also does editorial work for corporate clients, including writing articles and op-eds for C-Suite executives. She specialize in articulating complex topics (recently including ad tech and quantum computing) into engaging, digestible narratives.

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Chris Rodgers is the Founder and CEO of Colorado SEO Pros. Colorado SEO Pros is a boutique SEO agency providing a suite of inbound marketing services for small and mid- sized organizations, from international enterprise corporations to technology start-ups and E-

Commerce businesses across the country and abroad. They utilize industry leading SEO strategies & methodologies, and leverage advanced technology platforms to help clients achieve aggressive results. They have a proven track record of success in competitive verticals and add value to clients’ digital marketing campaigns through creativity, dedication, and an unparalleled desire to be the best at what they do.

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Chris Rodgers is the Founder and CEO of Colorado SEO Pros. Colorado SEO Pros is a boutique SEO agency providing a suite of inbound marketing services for small and mid- sized organizations, from international enterprise corporations to technology start-ups and E-

Commerce businesses across the country and abroad. They utilize industry leading SEO strategies & methodologies, and leverage advanced technology platforms to help clients achieve aggressive results. They have a proven track record of success in competitive verticals and add value to clients’ digital marketing campaigns through creativity, dedication, and an unparalleled desire to be the best at what they do.

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Simon Tam is an author, musician, activist, and troublemaker. Tam is best known as the founder and bassist of The Slants, the world’s first and only all-Asian American dance rock band. He has been a keynote speaker, performer, and presenter at TEDx, SXSW, Comic-Con,The Department of Defense, Stanford University, and over 1,200 events across four continents. He has set a world record by appearing on the TEDx stage 13 times. His work has been highlighted in over 3,000 media features across 150 countries including The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, NPR, BBC, New York Times, and Rolling Stone.

Simon was named a champion of diverse issues by the White House and worked with President Barack Obama’s campaign to fight bullying. He recently helped expand freedom of speech through winning a unanimous victory at the Supreme Court of the United States for a landmark case, Matal v. Tam. Tam designed one of the first college-accredited social media and digital marketing certificates in the United States. His approach to cultural competency in marketing has been taught to hundreds of Fortune 500 companies. Bloomberg Businessweek called him a “Social Media Rockstar.” Forbes says his resume is a “paragon of completeness.”

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hun is an associate professor of Marketing at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business and a fellow of both the Center for Corporate Reputation Management and the Center for Corporate Governance at LeBow. His areas of expertise include brand and corporate reputation management, corporate social responsibility, internal marketing, marketing strategy, relationship marketing and country reputation. 

Korschun’s work appears in the Journal of Marketing, MIT-Sloan Management Review, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Business Research, and the Journal of Business Ethics. He is co-author of the book Leveraging

Corporate Responsibility: The Stakeholder Route to Business and Social Value (Cambridge University Press).

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Dan Granger currently serves as the CEO and Founder of Oxford Road. He grew up in a suburb of Detroit, on a street called Oxford Road. It was his incubator. Winters below zero with snow measured in feet. Golden Septembers that would make a Californian jealous. He did a show on public access TV when I was six and had a poem published in our local newspaper at 10. He’s always loved media, not for its ability to report about people’s actions, but for its ability to cause them.

His street, Oxford Road, was where he learned he could make decisions to ruin his own life or influence others to ruin theirs. It was also where he learned he could lead people and inspire them to be a force for good and they could inspire me in the same way. He tested everything. He learned. He worked. He optimized and he grew.

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Sam Yagan is CEO of ShopRunner, and the former Vice-Chairman of Match Group (Nasdaq: MTCH), a position he assumed after serving as the company’s Chief Executive Officer and leading it through a period of explosive growth that culminated in its IPO.

He has co-founded several companies, including SparkNotes, eDonkey, OkCupid, Techstars Chicago, and, Firestarter Fund, & Corazon Capital.

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Michael is a data product executive, scientist, and scholar with organizational leadership experience in the development of technology for data-driven management. He works collaboratively to build innovative - business focused - technologies that unlock business performance.

He also has strong academic ties, and provides executive education in data driven decision making, and maintains a research program that develops data science for managerial decision making. He has extensive vertical expertise in digital media and e-commerce, food marketing, corporate social responsibility, and competitive strategy, as well as technical expertise in: Data Management and Analytics, Econometrics and Bayesian Statistics, Management and Marketing Science, Software Application Engineering, Technical and Cloud Computing, Decision Activation Systems and Optimization, Agile Product Management.

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of Day Affect Variety-Seeking?¨

Kelley Gullo is a marketing Ph.D. candidate at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. In her research, she explores how three prevalent factors in consumers’ lives—close relationships, time, and emotions—intersect to influence consumers’ decisions and behavior. Recent projects have examined how time of day shapes people’s variety-seeking behavior and how making an initial choice for a close other (e.g., one´s child) can later impact one’s own choices. Her research has been published the Journal of Consumer Research, a leading marketing journal. Prior to joining the marketing program at Duke, Kelley received her BS in Marketing and BS in Economics from Arizona State University.

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Sucharita serves digital business strategy professionals. She is an expert on eCommerce, omnichannel retail, consumer behavior, and trends in the online shopping space. She is also an authority on technology developments that affect the online commerce industry and vendors that facilitate online marketing and merchandising. In her research, Sucharita covers such consumer-oriented topics as eCommerce forecasting

and trends, merchandising best practices, conversion optimization, and social computing in the retail world. She has also authored ¨The State Of Retailing Online,¨ a joint study conducted annually with NRF.

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Ron Berman is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School. He focuses his research on online marketing, marketing analytics and the marketing actions of startup firms. His recent research looks at how firms measure and assess marketing effectiveness through experiments and how curation algorithms may create filter-bubbles on social media. He also teaches a few classes, such as Digital, Social, and E-Commerce Marketing as well as Economic/OR Models in Marketing.

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cannabisMD is a consumer education platform exploring wellness, healing, and better living through CBD and medical cannabis. Our team of doctors, experts, and journalists provides authoritative advice; medical, legislative, and lifestyle news; and the latest research; along with compelling personal stories to empower our audience to make smart, educated choices about CBD and cannabis.

As the only non-advocacy, health and wellness cannabis destination on the internet; the goal of cannabisMD is to advance patient and consumer understanding of medical cannabis and CBD, share the most up-to-date research and news, and debunk false stories and claims. We aim to be a platform for thought leaders in the cannabis space and to elevate the work of responsible entrepreneurs and medical experts at the forefront of the cannabis movement.

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Peter Adams is a reporter at the online trade journal Marketing Dive covering digital transformation´s impact on marketing and advertising. A graduate from the Medill School at Northwestern University, he studied magazine journalism and English literature, and previously has worked at publications like New York magazine and the investigative initiative The Medill Justice Project.

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Eriko Clevenger Pope, Vice President of Global Marketing for Nestle Purina PetCare and the Global Strategic Business Unit, graduated from Wharton in 1999. She was with Kraft Pizza Company in Chicago for 4 years working in Brand Management on the Tombstone and DiGiorno pizza brands. In 2003 she moved to Nestle Purina and in 2009 became the Head of Dog Portfolio, leading portfolio strategy for $3.5B including brands such as Purina Pro Plan, Purina One and Purina Beyond. In 2015 she became the Head of Global Marketing responsible for the global portfolio strategy, stewardship of global strategic brands and the global product pipeline development.

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Stefanie is a CMO, General Manager, Advisor and Board Director with a broad functional background in marketing, strategy, digital, product and client experience. She has worked in financial services, fintech and tech-driven B2B, in leadership roles driving growth and transformation. Most recently, Stefanie was the CMO at Broadridge Financial Solutions, a $14 billion global technology and operations solutions company, for seven years. As part of the company’s growth strategy, Stefanie repositioned Broadridge as a market leader and more than tripled the stock price from $20 to $70+/share.  Prior to that, Stefanie was in financial services and held leadership roles as CMO of Capital One Bank, Head of Deposits at Citibank and CMO Channel Executive, Small Business Financial Services at JP Morgan Chase. Stefanie started her career in corporate finance at Bankers Trust Company and learned her leadership and general management skills at GE and GE Capital.

Stefanie has extensive experience developing and implementing strategies to deliver top line growth and value creation. She currently works with private equity, early to mid-stage companies and startup accelerators. She is an advisor to Lovell Minnick Partners, a private equity firm investing in financial services and tech-driven B2B companies, on driving growth in their portfolio companies. Stefanie is also an advisor to Betterment, a leading independent online “robo” advisor. Stefanie is a mentor to fintech startups at the Techstars Barclays Accelerator and is the Lead Mentor to Waffle Labs, an insuretech venture. Stefanie also works with startups in other industries, including StartEd, an EdTech accelerator and the MIT delta v accelerator program which covers a broad range of industries. Along with advising, Stefanie does consulting work for a major multinational company, a global leader in professional information and software solutions.

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Linyun Yang currently serves as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Marketing at Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. Here, she is a daytime MBA and PMBA professor who teaches about Consumer Behavior.

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Rabia Qari currently serves as the SVP of Marketing at Tough Mudder. Tough Mudder is an endurance event series in which participants attempt 10–12-mile-long (16–19 km) obstacle courses that test mental and physical strength. It was co-founded by Will Dean, a former British

counter-terrorism officer, and Guy Livingstone, a former corporate lawyer. The obstacles often play on common human fears, such as fire, water, electricity and heights. The Tough Mudder organization values camaraderie throughout the course, designing obstacles that encourage group participation.

Tough Mudder is a lifestyle, events and media company built on teamwork, camaraderie, personal accomplishment and fun. Over 3 million people worldwide have taken part in its world- class obstacle course challenges which range from fun 5Ks all the way to the pinnacle of the OCR industry, 24-hour World’s Toughest Mudder.

Every Tough Mudder course features the most innovative obstacles in the industry, they are designed to push participants out of their comfort zone and to challenge them mentally as well as physically. With no timing chips, podiums or punishments and obstacles that simply cannot be conquered without teamwork Tough Mudder isn't about how fast you can get around the course, rather how many people you can help along the way.

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Brendan Eich serves as the co-founder of Mozilla and the inventor of JavaScript, and he now serves as the CEO of Brave Software, an Internet security company. Eich co-founded the Mozilla project with Jamie Zawinski and others, creating the mozilla.org website, which was

meant to manage open-source contributions to the Netscape source code. He served as Mozilla's chief architect.

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Geoff Cottrill has had a personal passion for music since the age of 13 when he used to sell fountain Cokes at Tampa Stadium so he could get into see rock concerts. He is Chair of the Grammy Foundation, an organization dedicated to improving music education and music preservation.

Geoff joined The Coca-Cola Company on March 1, 2018 as Senior Vice President Strategic Marketing. Geoff leads integrated marketing strategy across creative content, media planning and investment, marketing capability, digital, marketing assets and entertainment, music and gaming in the United States. He is also responsible for building and maintaining partnerships while leading communications programs that drive integrating messaging across portfolio of brands.

This is Geoff’s second term with Coca-Cola. He worked for the company from 1996 to 2005 and was Group Director, Worldwide, Entertainment Marketing.

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Zeke shares his wisdom about his powerful process with cine-experience and the 4 phases of creation: ignite, sharing short form content, main event and reward. Produced by Zeke's production company iDreamMachine, his movie Billboard includes a web series about the lives of 4 people living on a Billboard while participating in a billboard sitting contest and a new movie about the radio station that is hosting this whacky contest.

Zeke talks about the entrepreneurial aspect of the movie that includes a matter of how you try to succeed in running a business along with the struggles of trying to tread water while doing so. One way that iDreamMachine has involved their audience is by allowing audience members to submit videos stating why they would be a great contestant for a billboard sitting contest. Then votes were submitted through social media, and the people who had the most votes were cut into the film. This is just one of the many non traditional strategies that were used when creating this film.

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Chris Rodgers is the Founder and CEO of Colorado SEO Pros. Colorado SEO Pros is a boutique SEO agency providing a suite of inbound marketing services for small and mid- sized organizations, from international enterprise corporations to technology start-ups and E-Commerce businesses across the country and abroad.

They utilize industry leading SEO strategies, methodologies, and leverage advanced technology platforms to help clients achieve aggressive results. They have a proven track record of success in competitive verticals and add value to clients’ digital marketing campaigns through creativity, dedication, and an unparalleled desire to be the best at what they do.

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Tiffani Bova is the global customer growth and innovation evangelist at Salesforce, where as an industry thought leader, she watches overall market trends to uncover best practices on how to improve sales performance and enhance the overall customer experience.

Tiffani has been published in Forbes, Harvard Business Review and The Huffington Post. She was named one of the 50 Most Powerful and Influential Women in California in 2014 by the National Diversity Council, Top 50 Marketing Thought Leaders by Brand Quarterly Magazine,

as well as Inc. Magazine’s 37 Sales Experts You Need to Follow on Twitter.

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Tim Reed oversees the creative development and day-to-day operation of the X Games franchise. This includes the programming, production and distribution of X Games content – both for X Games events and year-round World of X Games programming, oversight of digital and social content and direction of X Games events.

In his current role, Reed has led the development and integration of youth lifestyle elements into X Games events including music, film, photography and art experiences created to serve the youth action sports audience. Reed also led the launch of the World of X Games show which is now entering into its third full year of programming on ABC.

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Todd Ballard has served as GoPro’s Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer since March 2018, Head of Global Marketing from May 2017 to March 2018, Vice President of Sports Entertainment Marketing from May 2015 to May 2017, Senior Director of Lifestyle Marketing from December 2014 to May 2015, and Director of Global Sports Marketing from May 2011 to December 2014.

Prior to joining GoPro, Mr. Ballard served as President and Founder of NXTAgency from March 2003 until May 2011. Before that, Mr. Ballard was Brand Director at X Concepts from 2001 until 2003, VP Sales/Marketing at YRide.com from 2000 until 2001, and Director of Marketing at Osiris Shoes from 1998 until 2000.

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PBR is issuing a call for everyone to unleash their inner cowboy. She talks about the substantial boost in activity with this new campaign compared to previous campaigns. Also, she talks about the many events that they hold throughout the year and the ways in which people become professional bull riders.

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Michael Lawless is a lifetime motorcycle rider & racer. He started writing for an urban sportbike magazine in 2010, where he brought flat track motorcycle racing stories to the urban market which exposed a different aspect of motorcycle life to the masses. Lawless wrote and delivered unique stories thru friendship with fellow racers, which helped to build their brands on his blog called Electric Horseman.

As the CEO of American Flat Track, Michael Lock has transformed a once stagnant motorcycle racing series into a now thriving sports entertainment enterprise. His recent rebranding of the series, which kicked off its 65th season in March 2018, helped to attract more fans, teams and sponsorship dollars, making 2017 the most successful year in Flat Track history.

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Join Tami Kim to hear about the fascinating research she has been doing with online marketing ads. Have you ever wondered how all these random online ads pertain so closely to your everyday life? Well, Tami dives into what she has learned about how these online platforms know exactly what ads to choose in order to draw the consumer in.

She even goes a step further to talk about how your information may be shared with more than that one platform. Getting deeper into the issue they discuss conversational norms and how it is difficult to teach computers this behavior. That being said, Tami notes that there are acceptable and not acceptable ways to share information among various online platforms and how these ways have a direct connection to the ad effectiveness.

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Rebecca talks about the iconic brands Barbie and Mattel and how they have grown and changed over the years. More specifically, how they have strategically reinvented Barbie to meet the needs of our diverse world. Rebecca explains how new changes have been made to win over parents who may have originally said no to barbie, due to its lack of diversity.

The original Barbie was known to be a white, skinny, blonde with blue eyes. Even in the 80's and 90's they just dipped the barbies in dye to change skin or hair color, not paying any attention to skin gradations or tone, different hair textures, or even bone structures. Rebecca informs us that Mattel now has more diverse barbies. They have more hair colors, hair textures, and even hair styles. They now have barbies with various eye colors and skin tones.

The Fashionista Barbie now comes in 4 types: Skinny, tall, petite and curvy. Rebecca noted that although these are all steps in the right direction it is still problematic. This is because the curvy barbie looks normal on her own, it is only in contrast to the very thin original barbie that she actually looks curvy. In all reality, the curvy barbie only scales up to 5'6" and a size 4. Rebecca mentioned that some children don't even want the curvy barbie because they say she is too fat.

Americus also brought to the conversation how there is a big fear to strategists of changing too fast. It is understood that we need to reflect whats around us but at the same time there is this iconic brand and imagery, so do we completely give up on that or just phase it out slowly? Barbara noted that there was research that shows people look for inspiration in ads and so if the ad looks how they look, then they think, "why should I even buy it?"

Rebecca also addresses the topic of sexual orientations. She said Mattel has a strategy underway on their Instagram account where they are trying to reach out to the inclusive values that are common among millennials. Marketers are aware that millennials can be very values orientated in there shopping, they look for brands that reflect there ethics.

On Mattel's Instagram they have been posting inclusive imaging of barbie, for example, images of two female barbies, holding hands with the hashtag love wins. So what happens is they are showing parents, who are making the purchasing decisions, that they as a brand are open to these other play options.

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Some of the key takeaways Anna notes from her research is debunking previous myths that shows that consumers want to talk about their purchases if they feel their budget is tight to feel better about spending money, to get the social support. Anna’s research proves the opposite, that people don’t want to talk about their purchases when their wallets feel empty, regardless of characteristics of the product (cheap or expensive) or even if they got a good deal, which was really surprising. Americus notes the ever important two-tailed hypothesis.

So why do people shut down? Anna found that it’s not about how other people will see you and there are no fears about being judged, it’s about making ourselves feel bad about our financial state, and talking about it is just a reminder, so we avoid the conversations. “I don’t want to tell you about this watch I just bought because it will make me feel bad about my financial state”. 

How can marketers combat this? They need to convince consumers to focus on the positive experiences their purchase will provide. “My new watch will help me stay on time and I won’t miss that important meeting”. By forgetting the negative, they can get consumers to start talking again. 

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John tells Americus that it all started in 1983 when founder Jimmy John Liautaud opened his first storefront in a not so good location that lacked any foot traffic. So, Jimmy John decided to deliver sandwiches to hungry college students at a nearby campus and gained the reputation of the freaky fast delivery guy. It is a model they have perfected over the years first out of necessity, and now it’s part two of their brand ethos-cold sandwiches fast. John notes that Jimmy John’s also focuses on quality, with only the freshest ingredients such as bread baked every four hours, hand-sliced meats, and fresh, locally sourced vegetables. 

John talks about one of the biggest changes in the industry recently is the surge of the 3rd party food delivery service, growing at a rate of 20% per year. John noted that they had to take a look at how the trend could fit within their current business model. They conducted research and dug into how delivery affects customer experiences. When considering food delivery, consumers look at the speed of delivery, the cost of delivery, and the quality of the food. For speed of delivery, 92% of customers want their food delivered in 15 to 30 minutes. The big 4 (Grubhub, Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Postmates) delivery services average about 50 minutes for delivery, while Jimmy John’s averages 18 minutes. You also see a big mark-up in delivery fees, with the big 4 averaging $8 in fees, while Jimmy John’s only charges around $2. Finally, when mentioning 3rd party delivery, the average rating of restaurants is only 1 ½ out of 5 stars with 35% of customers reporting issues. When also considering the impact of the 3rd party delivery services on franchise economics (fees to 3rd party delivery services can range from 20%-30%, making those orders pretty much not profitable) it was a clear decision for Jimmy John’s to continue to deliver freaky fast sandwiches on their own terms. 

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John’s forecast of the 3rd party delivery trend is that it will improve. He sees the numerous companies consolidating and trying to refine processes for improvement. They will have to get cheaper as the economics aren’t sustainable for restaurants, especially franchisees. He doesn’t see the delivery times ever improving to the Jimmy John’s standards of 18 minutes average, something that Jimmy John’s strategically works on. He ends with noting that many of the restaurants that have never offered delivery service before will and have seen a bump in sales but he wonders for how long. Many restaurants are starting to look into the sustainability of the service as it hasn’t been the “silver bullet” they initially once thought. Nonetheless, John is confident that Jimmy John’s is making the right decision, passing on the trend and staying true to the company’s roots.

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Nir begins by giving us a little background behind his research that led to his 4 Hook Model that serves as the foundation of his book. He dug into decades old proven research and applied it to factors we see today. What we get is a four step process companies can use to encourage customer behaviors that lead to habit building. Nir notes that he views habit building as a positive action and separates it from the negative connotations that the word addiction brings. He focuses on positive habits that bring joy and delight into consumer’s lives.

Nir and Americus discuss an example from his book, the Bing vs. Google search engine example. When you strip away the brand names, research has proven that Bing is just as good as Google. So, how does Bing get customers to break the Google habit? Nir says it is tough, but there is a way. First, companies must provide a way through the hook with faster velocity. For example, Netflix helped us break our Blockbuster habit many years ago by providing easier and quicker access to movies. It was easier to order movies or stream them than to run to the video store. Secondly, you must provide greater frequency to the hook. You need to provide opportunities to interact more than the original habit. Third, your reward must be significantly more rewarding that the original habit. Nir notes a fact from Harvard Business Review that states the replacement must be 9 times more rewarding than the original habit. Finally, you need to provide easier entry into the hook. Nir references how Google Docs has taken market share from MS Office because it is easier to start using. It is accessed online for free and there is no software and licenses to purchase.

Nir concludes the opportunity to break a consumer habit is rare and tough, but nothing is impossible (ending with a note of positivity). 

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Steve knew as early as age 4 that he was meant to play music. As a child he was inspired by the musical West Side Story. For Steve this was the complete package. There was drama, a story, and incredible melody and orchestration that prompted Steve to want to compose music. He was attracted to the guitar at age 5 or 6, but it wasn’t until the release of Led Zeppelin 2 when Steve was 10 or 11 that motivated him to pick it up and start playing. It’s all history from there.

Steve is credited with his own style of music, striving to differentiate himself from other great musicians as he never felt he was good enough to copy them. Much like how a brand strives to differentiate itself from its competitors in the marketplace.

Steve defines a brand as an “expression of the uniqueness of your own self”. He says his brand is quirky, has intensity, and passion. Steve also talks about success, that it is a “consequence of your ability to express your own passion”. He urges people not to chase success and try to make it fit into the context of their lives. It kinda just happens. 

Steve talks about his approach to branding, noting that it all comes naturally. It’s his passion and the authenticity that resonates with his fans, his target market. Steve urges to not stray far from efforts that are not authentic to your brand. He notes that if you do find success with a far fetched effort, it will be short lived because it lacks the energy and power of your true brand.

When asked about inspiring young artists Steve says he continues to be true to himself which resonates with his fans. He does try to stay connected to his fans on social media, with over 2.5 million followers on Facebook and 450,000 on Instagram. Steve says social media has never been a big focus for him in the past, but has found it a fun and creative way to market his brand. 

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Good Night Good Luck is a collaboration of band members of different backgrounds and skill sets. They carry that theme of collaboration in most everything they do, from the music they write to branding and social media. When in comes to songwriting, all band members play a part. They want their songs to sound like they all had a hand in writing it, with everybody “having a hand in the pot”. Their sound is up beat and up tempo, with political tones, but not too “sledgehammerly” as to hit you in the face with political rhetoric.

Americus plays a portion of the single “Ice Cream and Red Wine”, and asks the group their strategy on preparing their music for a live show. They note that they work to ensure their music can be replicated seamlessly for a live show, adding a cinematic feel that makes their live events “big, important, and fun”. 

Ed has been designated by the team to take the lead on their social media presence, digging in deeper to determine the best times to post on Instagram, but they add they still don’t take themselves too seriously. The collaboration on their creative process continues further as they discuss branding. Sara Puelo, the band’s lead singer, has contributed her own photographer to serve as the cover of their album Missing. 

The band also sites using Spotify analytics to see where people are playing their music and to identify their key listening demographic. They note they are mindful of these facts as they head into the studio this spring to work on their follow-up album, but ultimately they write songs the songs they want to write regardless of who listens. 

You can follow the band on Twitter and Facebook.

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Paul starts by stating that business is tough, but his company and his team have fought back and fought through hard times, “turning nothing into something”. The recession was tough for PRS guitars, as demand for products in this category went down, but they powered through. Paul credits the advice of other business owners as part of the solution.

Paul taught himself to make guitars, and looks at the creation of a guitar as “making a tool to do a job”.  The job just happens to be creating music. He considers how it looks, how it plays, and how it sounds as key to the construction of his guitars.

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To keep those numbers rising, Kevin says that Avocados From Mexico is working to establish value beyond function from a marketing perspective. Through usage techniques (how do you choose an avocado?, how do you cut an avocado?), the promotion of “healthy fats”, and creative and catchy advertisements, Avocados From Mexico is working to penetrate the market beyond their 50% current rate (only one of two households buy avocados). They are also pushing to grow the buyer rate in their heaviest consumers (can we get them to buy just one more avocado per week?)

Kevin ends the segment by talking about this year’s Super Bowl campaign and giving Americus some tips on how to quickly ripen avocados. The Super Bowl spot delivers the message that avocados are always worth it-they are always delicious, they are always in season, and they are always healthy. The script is flipped in this human show, not dog show, touting that humans will do anything for avocados. Kristin Chenoweth stars as a celebrity host in this hilarious spot. 

Play that catchy jingle….AVOCADOS FROM MEXICO

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The survey breaks up the responders into two groups- avid fans and casual fans. Avid fans are measured by frequency and depth. They consume a lot of sports media, are interested in fantasy sports, and are data hungry. The casual fan is more communal and looks to the game as an experience to share with family and friends. 

When asked about the social media impact on the game, the survey reveals that both the avid and casual fan will wait to experience the infamous Super Bowl commercials until the game. But when interacting on social media, the avid and casual fans do take different approaches. The avid fan uses social media to check out game stats, check on bets, and trash talk other avid fans. The casual fans take to social media to share their Super Bowl party experiences, talking about food, the commercials, and the half time show.

Jason notes that when brands try to make a connection with these fans, the approach is different at well. Brands should try to reach the avid fans through the game itself, with sponsorships. For the casual fan, it’s about tying the game to other interests in their lives.  If brands try to target both these audiences in one activation, it can get tricky. Though both groups live and breathe together in the same space and attend the same Super Bowl parties, the common ground may be in the narrative of the spot.

Some key insights Jason notes coming out of this year’s survey is the emergence of the NFL with a younger audience. In addition, fans are open to moving the Super Bowl to an international market, with 50% of respondents and 71% of millennials support the big game being played on foreign turf. Millennial fans also are looking to Esports to enhance their Super Bowl experience, with 50% noting they would watch an Esport event associated with the Super Bowl.

Check out the survey infographic here.

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The duo talks about how sometimes the results can get muddled in the lab setting, with some participants exaggerating a bit, but Daniel has found that brand purpose has its biggest impact when you stack brands side by side, say Coke vs. Pepsi, with similar attributes in taste, quality, freshness, etc. In this case, brand purpose can tip the scale toward one or the other. When there is a big disparity between the attributes (quality), brand purpose doesn’t seem to overcome this disparity. 

Americus notes that some brands have gone to the extremes in taking a stand, such as Nike, and then there is a more vanilla approach to brand purpose.  He plays an audio clip where Mark Ritson calls out those lackluster marketers, noting that they are ashamed and embarrassed to be marketers. Daniel adds that that companies that tout a brand purpose that isn’t genuine or serves more as a stepping stone to get somewhere else need to be weary, because it can get them into trouble. 

Companies need to choose their brand purpose that reflects the views that are important to their customers and important to their employees. Employees can be huge advocates for your brand, rallying around something much more than a “sugary beverage”. It’s also important for brands to take a stand on those issues that do reflect their brand purpose. Missing out on this opportunity can grow a seed of mistrust in consumers who make eventually make a switch altogether, say to Dr. Pepper.

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Per Careen this corpsumer trend is definitely on the rise. 78% of the survey respondents noted that corporate reputation does matter, and between 2017 and 2018, the number of corpsumers did increase 2%.  While this rise seems insignificant, it’s important to note the corpsumer demographic exceeds both the moms and millienial demographics. It covers all generations and does lean slightly towards people with higher education and higher incomes, those with more purchasing power. 

When it comes to issues most important to corpsumers, 81% say the perception of how a company treats its employees is number one. Careen sites Starbucks, as all employees get healthcare no matter how many hours they work, and all employees have access to college courses for free. When purchasing from Starbucks, corpsumers may feel like they are contributing to the greater good, opting for that $6 latte over alternatives down the road that are way cheaper. The second most important issue to corpsumers is trust and admiration for the CEO. Careen references Starbucks again, noting their former CEO Howard Schultz was very visible to the public eye. Today social media can play a huge role in making a large group of people feel like they know you. CEOs such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos were very active in social media and gained celebrity-like status. The cautionary tale Careen tells is that CEOs need to demonstrate, not discuss. Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do in a company town hall, be consistent with your culture and values, and don’t perform-just be genuine. 

“Doing the right thing is always the right thing” seems to be the motto of corpsumers. When asked about holiday shopping, 93% of corpsumers would purchase gifts for others from brands that have clear values, and 97% are more interesting in shopping with retailers that close on Thanksgiving. Corpsumers definitely let their behaviors speak for their values, putting their money where their mouth is. 

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While some of us may view AI as a little off-putting when it comes to privacy, Tyler discusses some of the real-world examples of AI at work today in our daily lives, such as your Alexa speaker, face recognition on your phone, or even program or movie recommendations from Netflix. All these use data that we’ve shared, willingly or not, to improve our lives and experiences. Tyler notes the concern about privacy is very rational, but consider the benefits and improvements that AI can make in our lives. He references scenarios where data could be shared in real-time regarding windshield wiper use in certain areas, which can alert you to treacherous road conditions, or sharing your medical information which can allow first responders to react quicker to your injuries, knowing your blood type, any allergies, or other medical conditions, in the case you were in an accident. 

When asked his take on the cool advancements in AI at CES this year, Tyler responded that he’s excited about the advancements in self-driving vehicles. Not only would self-driving vehicles allow for more efficiencies to our daily lives, like allowing us to catch up on emails or taking a conference call, it would drastically remove the human error element that causes nearly 95% of car accidents. At this year’s show, the top 11 automobile manufacturers were present, proving that technology is a vital piece of the future of the automobile industry.  

While self-driving vehicles are only a few years out, we are already seeing significant improvements in the AI already in place in many of our cars, such as rear-view cameras, lane departure warning systems, and automatic breaking. Tyler believes we will start seeing self-driving commercial vehicles in the next two years, but it won’t be long until we are all letting AI take the wheel. 

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On Marketing Matters, Americus is joined by Junaid Aziz, Communications Director, and Pierre Hamlimi, Brand President, of F.P. Journe, a high-end Swiss watch manufacturer. Americus, Junaid, and Pierre discuss a little bit about the history of F.P Journe and what marketing to high-end customers looks like for them.

At F.P. Journe, all watches are handmade, and only 862 watches were produced last year. They focus on true artistry and the balance of tradition versus innovation. Mr. Journe is considered to be the best watchmaker alive.

Marketing in this high-end space is much different than other consumer goods spaces in that reaching out to the consumer doesn’t happen. Brands in this space strive to create a product that drive such a great emotional connection that consumers actually seek them out, a reverse to marketing rules we usually follow. 

Pierre and Junaid provide their take on marketing a luxury brand. Pierre first notes that true luxury has to be genuine, and only consumers can decide what luxury is. Junaid adds that it’s so much more than customer data. For a luxury brand, it needs to be elevated so much higher, talking to the customer’s highest aspirations and imagining for them a world that does not exist. Then you create a product that has all these expectations built in. 

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Some may argue that luxury is all about champagne and caviar, but today it’s much more about building a brand and delivering on experiences. Ben talks about a common issue in the watch industry. In many cases a watch brand negotiates with watch retailers to sell a complete line of watches, not just a select few models they know they can sell. Many times those not so hot models don’t sell and they are moved to discount retailers at a fraction of the price. The argument that this, in a way, cheapens the brand.

In addition, there seems to be a misconception that people don’t want to buy luxury items online. Ben notes that Ebay is the number one watch retailer, selling a watch every 6 seconds. You can even buy a Ferrari on Ebay. Some consumers do have a fear that they won’t be getting the most authentic product, but Ben notes that most of the time chances are you will get an authentic product. This purchase method, along with the gray market (discount market), has engraved in us that we do expect discounts, even on luxury items.

Junaid concludes by adding that if luxury brands start creating more value, customers will stop asking for discounts. Luxury brands need to make their customers feel good about paying the premium price they are charging.

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Their YouTube video titled The Big Adjustment has over 2.7 million views. 

With the help of celebrity endorsements and partnerships such as Howard Stern, they have furthered the position of the brand. In addition, they continue to innovate with new fabrics and new categories.   They have expanded into destination retail spaces with stores that create a curated experience including a bar serving beer, a 65” television, and personal concierge service.

When it comes to the competition, both Erin and Tom say they are looking ahead, not behind. Of course, they are aware of the positioning of their competitors, but believe that delivering a high quality product to their customers is what they value most.  

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Tanya notes that people want to treat themselves and a lot want to treat themselves with a friend. Proof of this is the success Mars had with a pop-up salon in New York City, serving 1000 fans over just two days. Fans were invited to book appointments with a friend for chocolate themed pampering such as a Snickers pedi, an M&M makeover, and Dove smoky chocolate eye makeup. Tanya adds that experiences like these continue to create connections with their brand beyond the product experience. 

Another key findings and trends from the 2018 treat report is the connection millennials have with sweet treats. Over a quarter of the respondents to the survey say they want to share their treat socially but millennials over index on this question, with over 50% reporting responding. In addition, we’ve seen increases in the responses of people preferring candy over a baked treat or salty snack, and millennials are more likely to indulge in candy as a reward for an accomplishment than other age groups. 

When asked by a caller about advertising on a budget, Tanya notes that with the buzz that social media creates, there is a lot of cool and creative stuff you can do with a limited budget, creating that connection with your brand.

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Love, as defined by Lisa, is a positive feeling that brings a sense of closeness and collection. It can be romantic, or for family, friends, or community, and can even extend out to other people who may not be in our immediate circle of concern. Lisa notes that brands have been successful in getting consumers to care for people or communities outside this circle. Brands are focusing on building these positive emotions, trying to influence consumers to move from “I like this brand” to “I love this brand”.

Digging into the logistics of Lisa’s studies, she asks participants to describe memories, detailing when they felt love and describe it in detail. She has also had success using greeting cards. She references actual greeting cards, greeting card print ads, and plays actual greeting card television ads. Americus asks about the power of the romantic relationship versus a relationship with a friend or family used in advertising. 

Lisa notes “all you need is love”, noting love is powerful in either context, but notes that brands should be weary not to trigger relationship reminders of the relationships they don’t have, making them feel they don’t belong. In a society of high divorce rates and roughly 50% of adults being single, it’s a slippery slope. We are seeing more celebrations of friendship, as in “Galentine’s Day”. These relationships are very powerful in creating a sense of love and can affect consumers in a positive way.

Lisa notes her trip to Tokyo and discusses the role of love in different cultures. Though she hasn’t quantified her current studies across different cultures she does like to look at the different meanings of love around the world, as all cultures do have a sense of social relationship but the emphasis on romantic or family relationships varies across different cultures.

Currently Lisa and her colleagues are working on a study that measures how love influences actual consumption and social behavior, in addition to consumption enjoyment. They have found that love can change our sensory experiences, changing what people taste and hear. 

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To simplify, its technology built into a wristband or even your existing smartwatch that can tell what you are doing just by the movements of your hand. If you are eating, drinking, smoking a cigarette, or taking medication, among other actions, this information is relayed to your healthcare provider which action can be taken immediately or as a course of treatment. Not only is this technology revolutionary, but it’s simple for the end users. It works everywhere, there is no installation, and no maintenance. This technology will save lives and millions of dollars in health care costs allowing caregivers to intervene sooner and quicker. 

Eran and Charles detail the background of Somatix. Somatix was launched in February 2015, went quickly through two health care accelerators (a short-term incubator for medical startups to gain mentorship, networking opportunities, and capital), completed a valid use-case, and has now developed a go to market strategy.  

Eran and Charles note their initial target market will be to serve those in need of elderly care. Launching in Q1 of 2019 is SafeBeing, a wristband (or software installed on an existing smart watch) that can passively remote monitor an elderly person’s ADL (Activities of Daily Living) – routines with which they typically require no assistance, such as eating, drinking, dressing, walking and medication intake. SafeBeing captures these ADL’s, amounting to around 500,000 data records per day per person. The data is analyzed, insights are generated, then sent to the person’s caregiver. In addition, SafeBeing can detect variations in the ADLs, such as a fall, wondering (via GPS), or inactivity, and report these incidents in real time to caregivers for immediate action. 

In addition to serving the elderly community, Somatix has developed a smoking cessation platform called SmokeBeat, and has expectations to serve discharged patients with higher risk of readmission and home care patients in the future. 

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A.T. Kearney polled thousands of North American consumers for this year’s report. Some big takeaways that Ryan notes is a larger shift to online spending, and lower tolerance for retailers that miss the mark. The report shows that 60% of consumers say they will change stores and will not shop a retailer if they have a bad experience. Some of the biggest offenders leading to a bad customer experience, per the report, are lines, huge crowds, and out of stocks. In addition, we are becoming less tolerant for longer shipping times and items not arriving when promised. 

Ryan and Americus discuss the implications the report can have on retailers, urging retailers that they need to be sure they are executing. With inventory levels and some slower turn marketing strategies already baked months in advance, the focus needs to be on executing those plans. The report shows that most consumers are not willing to give second chances if they have a bad experience.

In addition, Ryan and Americus discuss some trends that consumers want to see this holiday season. Showcasing new and innovative products is key. One retailer that has executed on this well is Best Buy, who has become more focused on brand experiences and have become less transactional. Another big trend that stores need to be sure to execute on is the buy online, pick up in store experience.

As for advice for retailers, Ryan would tell retailers to focus on the customer. Get ahead of them, be actionary, not reactionary and pay attention to the trends and data centered around what they want to experience. Remember, in most cases they only get one chance.

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Liz and Americus discuss a scenario in which a consumer wants to purchase a toaster. The research that Liz has completed digs into the consumer thought process as they ponder their toaster purchase, considering which attributes of the toaster are more or less important than other attributes. Also considered is the awareness that there are other ways to spend their money. For example, a consumer may ponder to buy the toaster or buy a shirt, or pay a bill, or go to the movies. Liz then notes that people buy things in order to achieve goals. The toaster may satisfy a goal of having warm, toasty food, but the consumer may also have other goals in mind, such as looking good or watching the latest superhero movie.

Liz directs us to her hypothesis centered around this goal achieving premise. If you present a dissimilar alternative, such as movie tickets, there is a possibility that attention toward the first item, the toaster, could decrease. But if you show a similar item, such as a different model of toaster or a panini press, they are more than likely to maintain their toaster goals. 

This information can be of great insight to marketers, who can work to understand consumer purchase preferences and goals much better, and to also understand at what time in the purchase funnel to offer similar or even alternative suggestions. 

In addition, Liz and Americus discuss some additional insights into the goal achieving premise. If a consumer is offered items from two different product categories that serve the same goal, Liz predicts that the second product will not dilute the original goal. They also discuss situations where a primary goal may be strong enough to not be swayed by alternative goals. If a goal is strong enough, say if you really like toast and your toaster is broken, you are more than likely to protect your toaster goal. 

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Sarah details some of the key findings in her research, including factors behind determining uniqueness of preferences when consumers make purchases. Sarah notes that there are many factors that can influence our preferences but one of the biggest is consensus biased. The notion that if you're buying it, I should buy it too is a big influence on our purchase behavior.  

Sarah discusses the thoughts behind the "last item purchased". If we walk into a store and see empty shelf space or know that someone just bought an item, we assume that that item is good and we should buy it too. But what we really fail to do is think about who the person is that bought the last item. Their preferences may be very different from your own. Sarah notes we continually to follow these assumptions. On Amazon we consistently see items marked as an Amazon’s choice item or shop items with at least four-star ratings but Sarah notes we rarely think about the people who leave those reviews.  While some of us dig into reviews deeper, in addition to noting the number and range of the reviews, many of us still find that last item bought more convincing. Sarah references her research and how she pitted that last item purchased notion against considering what the retailer has chosen to sell (aggregate demand data) and found that we continue to lean towards “buying what the last guy bought”.

Concluding, Sarah hopes to continue to educate both marketers and consumers so we can all make better purchasing decisions.   

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If you arrive to the theater a little early to see the latest blockbuster film, more than likely you’ve seen a NCM preshow. That preshow, showing us up and coming film trailers, product advertisements, and other content, reaches over 7 million people a year.  Cliff tells us that in the early 2000’s when a lot of movie theaters were entering into chapter 11 bankruptcy, they took a note from the cable industry and began to investigate other revenue streams. Cliff, utilizing his extensive career at ESPN, helped define the model used today that provides theaters with a very lucrative source of revenue.  

Cliff also notes that most of the money paid for a movie ticket goes back to the studios. That’s why the preshow model is so important, along with concessions. Cliff also comments that is why we are seeing more of a shift to theaters that serve alcohol or restaurant quality food, and even investing in premium seating. Theaters serve as a destination and entertainment experience that is unlike any experience in the world, squashing again the ageless rumor about the death of theaters.

When asked about his thoughts on where he sees the television industry in the future, he responds that the television business will be all about live event TV such as sports and news, which could become a very competitive business for the rights to these live events. He also sees entertainment TV moving towards a subscription-based service, allowing consumers to enjoy their favorite shows when they want, wherever they want. He concludes by stating that he feels entertainment TV is better than it’s ever been, and reminisces on the old days when we searched the TV Guide and looked forward to “Must See TV”, something the younger audiences will never experience.   

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Norty first talks about co-creation, which allows your consumers to be a part of the brand and a part of what happens with the brand. One example that Norty references is Starbucks. They have a place on their website called My Starbucks Idea that allows their consumers to share their ideas. Some 277 ideas have come to life from the nearly 150,000 submissions. Cake Pops and the ever-popular Pumpkin Spice Latte originated from their fans.  Norty, Americus and Barbara discuss how co-creation not only allows consumers to have fun, but also allows them to imprint themselves into the brand. Essentially brands are “marketers marketing to marketers”.  

In addition, brands are reaping the benefits of the booming gaming industry by creating games as a way to connect with their consumers. Chipotle has had success with games called Guac Hunter and Cado Crusher. Consumers play the games, have fun, then receive a coupon. Norty’s research shows that consumers play these type of games an average of 8 minutes, which is much longer than other methods of brand engagement.    

Norty then suggests that brand “pass the torch” by creating brand ambassadors that help spread the brand’s message. Some examples he references is J Crew’s campaign on Instagram called Cast Me J Crew which encourages consumers to cast themselves in a J Crew photo shoot. Norty also discusses what he calls “family ties”. Some examples that he sites are marriage photos at Target and even a Taco Bell wedding in Las Vegas.  When asked if brands should be weary if brand ambassadors don’t necessarily represent the image they want for their brand. Norty says that brands need to “go with the flow” and don’t get too worked up about those willing to share your brands’ message.  

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Since 1893 the Reading Terminal Market has served as the hub for those hawking their goods. Today the market celebrates this heritage and continues to build experiences closely tied to emotions, along with introducing new programs to make the market easier to patronize. Just recently the market introduced an app for online ordering and delivery within 16 miles of the market. Anuj notes that with competitors such as Amazon they have to be in the online space, because in some instances convenience does need to trump experience.

Anuj notes that what sets them apart from Amazon and other retailers is the customer experience they offer-Anuj monitors every order placed, along with providing a far superior product, -hand crafted goods with care and attention to detail.  

When asked about any concerns Anuj might have for the future, he notes that even though prepared foods outsold fresh foods for the first time in 2016, Anuj and his team is set on preserving the core of the market, continuing its commitment to the city, region, and the history of the market. They continue to partner with communities to build relationships and celebrate the history and diversities, above all else, they will continue to build the cultural experience that is only the Reading Terminal Market.   

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Butterball Turkey is synonomus with Thanksgiving, thanks to its efforts to stay close to the consumer. With their turkey hotline, a website full of resources, texting support, and now an Alexa skill just launched this year, Butterball has got the market covered. But as Kyle details, it’s not just about Thanksgiving. Butterball has a full line of other turkey products such as ground turkey, turkey bacon, turkey sausage, turkey burgers, and sliced deli turkey. 

When it comes to marketing, Butterball focuses in on the psychographic elements, completing a customer segmentation exercise every 5 to 7 years to redefine their target market, coined “Turketarians”.  These Turketarians live a healthy lifestyle and want a quality product that delivers on taste. Butterball wants to introduce the turketarians to their full line of products and build their trust for the Butterball brand.

When asked what’s on the horizon, Kyle notes that it is important that they keep moving to the spaces where their customers want to interact, as shown this year with the introduction of the Alexa skill. Also, being in the right place at the right time is key. With many consumers choosing a lifestyle focused around healthy protein choices, Butterball hopes to win these customers. When asked about competitive pressures, Kyle talks about the lab grown, meat substitutes, but feels this is just a fad.  

So whether it be the bird for the big feast, or some turkey bacon for breakfast on Tuesday, Butterball strives to be the brand for everyone, everyday, offering an affordable, high quality product.

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George begins by breaking down the current state of theater movies, referencing Americus' mention about the chatter that Netflix was supposed to be the death of theater movies. George says that we are actually seeing a record-setting fall this year, with the success of such movies as A Star is Born, Venom, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Wreck it Ralph is expected to do very well this holiday season. George notes this shows there is a diverse audience that still wants to go to the movies.  

Americus asks George to give us some details on the A to Z when working on a new movie. George is excited to give us a sneak peak into next summer’s anticipated blockbuster Godzilla King of the Monsters. The trailer just launched at San Diego Comic-Con, giving us our first peak at the movie. George also worked with the comic book department to promote the comic book spin-off of the movie. He also works closely with the marketing department, who have released an interactive website for Monarch Sciences, the government organization in the film. This site allows you to “hack” into different characters from the movie and essentially track Godzilla real-time as he moves around the globe leading up to the movie release in May. The site is packed full of Easter Eggs, builds anticipation for the movie, and engages and connects movie fans. The superfans who really engage with the site and the movie are used for inspiration for further ideas for the site, and for other marketing efforts.

George concludes by giving us his take on key trends we are currently seeing in the theater movie industry now. George notes that there is a big opportunity for movies in China, as we have seen with the Marvel movies. George stresses it’s key to ensure movies are marketable on a global scale. Nostalgia is also a current trend. Movie goers are enjoying a new take on old movies such as Halloween, or enjoy going back to a simpler time like in the Netflix series Stranger Things.

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Laura dives into a topic she is really interested in learning more about obvious versus subtle marketing when it comes to gay representation. Laura believes that ambiguity in these messages is bad. “Either do it or don’t do it”. She feels marketers should stand behind what they say, which could polarize some consumers.  

Laura discusses her other marketing principles, consumers want to be active participants in the conversation so be sure to include them. She also stresses that marketers need to be sure they pick the right influencers. Influencers can go a long way to help or hurt your brand. 

Finally, she notes that consumers are forgiving. If a mistake is made, admit the wrong and be authentic.

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Brad also discusses the trend in subscription media. People are now willing to pay for content again. Subscription based services like Dollar Shave Club and Stich Fix are really hot right now, and we are definitely seeing that spill over into the media realm, from Netflix and Hulu to The New York Post. A lot of media outlets are now using a dynamic pay wall to deliver content, and people are paying up.

Another marketing trend Brad notes that is becoming popular is visual search. Companies like Amazon are allowing people to shop just by taking a photo of an item. That item then is added to your cart. Brad sees this trend growing in the future, along with visual recognition, providing product info and the ability to buy an item that is featured in the media we are consuming.

To conclude, Brad remarks that he hopes this use of visual recognition in our media to sell products is just a fad. We are already too distracted when we consume our media. Brad notes people are starting to really see the negatives of these emerging technologies, with privacy concerns, hacking and depression and teen suicides at an all-time high. He believes people will start again to use media (TV and movies) as an escape from being connected.   

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Peter introduces us to the Brand Risk Relevance Curve, noting that as brands move along the curve the more likely you they are to have people say they like and agree with the marketing message, the more likely you are to also have people disagree with your message and threaten to boycott you. Peter states that brands realize they can’t please everyone, but there are some universal themes they can stick to. He reviews a few steps that marketers need to take to ensure their message resonates properly in this era of mistrust-

1)     What are my values? Define your moral compass

2)     What is my Brand Purpose? Peter recommends broad and positive themes, such as Dove’s Real Beauty campaign, but it must be executed properly.

3)     Take a stand on issues but ensure the issue isn’t polarizing. Frito Lay’s message on young people not voting is good example of standing for issue that's not filled with tension.

Peter follows up noting that brands also need to be aware that silence is also a position. People view inaction and silence as a stance on an issue, and employees of these brands may not put up with it, as we saw with Google employees with treatment of sexual harassment.

When asked why Peter uses the Fake News reference, he referenced that this crazy environment seemed to originate around the 2016 election and Trump’s call out to Nordstrom for dropping the Ivanka Trump line.

Peter concludes that brands need to start walking before they talk, ensuring their message is genuine and authentic, playing into the “Fake” narrative. People are smart and cynical and will call out the bandwagon joiners of purpose driven marketing.  

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Marketing is a strategic process to understand your customers at a deep level. It’s essentially applied disciplinary topics from other areas— psychology, economics, statistics, sociology, ethnography.

A big part of the class is marrying creativity with analytics.

I get rid of textbooks and combine my own research with curated readings, podcasts, insights from industry experts, and experiential learning. (I also offer a modified version to undergrads, titled Consumer Behavior.)

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The survey reveals that consumers plan to spend $3.2 billion on costumes, $2.7 billion on decorations, $2.6 billion on candy, and $400 million on greeting cards. One of the biggest growth categories Ana notes is spending on pet costumes. In 2010, consumers spent $220 million on pet costumes. In 2018, that number is projected to reach $480 million. Ana believes the growth can be attributed to millennials, who love to participate in Halloween, and social media. There’s nothing funnier than seeing a wiener dog dressed up like a hot dog on Instagram!

Ana also talks about the growth seen in the adult costume category, projecting growth from $990 million in 2010 to $1.6 billion for 2018. Among the top costumes this year for adults are the ever-popular witch and vampire, which Ana remarks are big make it yourself costumes, attributing to their popularity among DIY millennials. Rounding out the middle of the top ten ranking are character costumes such as The Avengers, Bat Man, and Star Wars characters. Americus remarks about the power of branding living in a different space. The costume characters are even more popular among children’s costumes, with Spiderman and Frozen characters also littered amount the top 10.  Ana and Americus discuss how the political climate also has an influence on costume popularity, though this year's mid-term elections really didn’t have a pulse compared to the 2016 election with Trump and Clinton costumes. Ana notes if Saturday Night Live makes fun of you, you more than likely will become a Halloween costume. 

The future of Halloween spending isn’t all frightening, with millennials aging and growing their families and getting them involved in their Halloween traditions. Ana wraps up noting that the pet category will continue to see growth along with candy. Though candy will always be a key player in Halloween spending, a key strategy for brands in this space is to find innovative ways to stay relevant.  

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During the day the Eastern State Penitentiary serves as a national prison museum catering mostly to tourists, but at night it transforms into Terror Behind the Walls, a massive haunted house that draws in local thrill seekers. Brett notes one of the struggles is to ensure both brands are marketed separately in that they have distinct messaging and look and feel, but also draws visitors in to both events, as Brett deems a “day/night double header”. 

Brett prides both brands on providing a great visitor experience. Americus and Brett conclude by discussing how the museum and the haunted house ensures the experience is delivered consistently from what is messaged. 

Brett replies that is all about staffing. It’s about hiring great people who have amazing attitudes and want to work with people. Extensive training is also a big key. He notes that all his staff, regardless of their role, must attend the museum events, and must work at least 1.5 days at the museum. He also empowers them to elevate the guest experience if deemed necessary without manger involvement. His goal is to make sure their guests feel welcome, even though it’s a scary environment. 

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Lea kicks off the segment by discussing a successful marketing campaign from Doritos that focused around their release of a horror video game Hotel 626. It was an immersive horror experience that she remarks wasn’t extensively branded. This was definitely on purpose, as Lea notes that brands need to be sure that they aren’t an integral part of the horror experience, the cause of you being afraid.

Lea goes further to discuss her research, digging into incidental (I’m feeling fear during this current situation) vs. integral (experience itself is causing fear) emotional exposure and how brands can play a part in this. Her study involves exposing subjects to movie or TV clips that evoke emotions of happiness, excitement, sadness or fear. 

At the same time they were introduced to a unfamiliar food brand and then later asked a series of questions measuring attitude and emotional attachment about the brand. 

The results showed that those subjected to the fear movie clips had a higher attachment to the brand, with most identifying with statement similar to “ I feel like the brand was with me during the experience”.  She noted an interesting conclusion that fear didn’t necessarily enhance the attitude toward the brand which she believes can be explained by this being the subject’s first experience with the brand.

Lea concludes that when utilizing this research, marketers need to be sure that the brand stands to be there to help consumers cope with their fear and not be the cause of the fear.  

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Steven discusses how the Halloween market used to cater to mainly young children, but it was Spencer’s Gifts, a retailer that provides a unique product offering to their core 18-24 year old guests and also a part of Spencer Spirit Holdings, that became one of the first retailers to capture the adult Halloween story. In the early 2000’s he recognized an opportunity to grown Spirit to be among the largest, if not the largest, Halloween retailer. Spirit is currently operating 1327 temporary retail locations. 

His model of creating an entire retail business in a vacant store space in 60 days is indeed a challenging business model but his team of 200+ eats, sleeps, and breathes Halloween 365 days a year to pull it off. Steven notes that it is a synchronized process with every day planned out, but they strive to deliver quality, value, and a memorable customer experience each year. They also keep a pulse on current events, ensuring they provide the hottest costumes of the season. This year Spirit is the sole retailer selling Fortnite costumes. 

The future looks not at all scary for Spirit Halloween Stores. Steven notes that they will continue to grow and cement their presence as the brand for Halloween.  

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Brands are digging into their data a little deeper in attempts to bring in new customers. Home Depot, a brand most notably geared toward men has shifted towards focusing on women consumers and it has paid off for them.

Peter also notes that the sustainability is a big trend, especially appealing to younger consumers. He references adidas’ push to make shoes out of plastic.

Probably the biggest trend in marketing we are seeing today is the push towards purpose driven marketing. The message doesn’t have to be political or social but needs to be genuine. 

Peter brings up that brands need to be careful if they go down this path. He warns that brands need to live out their values. For example, McDonald’s message on International Women’s Day was met with criticism when they flipped their arches upset down from a M to a W, while there has been reports of them not addressing women’s issues in the workplace. 

Today consumers are holding brands more accountable and expect them to represent all facets of the message they are delivering.

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Sintu-Online is an online marketplace showcasing clothing and accessories from up and coming young African designers, giving them a global distribution channel and a platform to tell their story. Mpho notes that with an improved infrastructure in Africa, along with the success of the Black Panther movie, people want to learn and experience authentic African culture. Mpho talks about what sets Sintu-Online apart from other retailers in her space. 

She notes that Sintu-Online offers a children’s clothing line,which many of her competitors lack, in addition to premium and personalized packaging. Each item is nicely packaged and comes with a handwritten note detailing the story and meaning behind their item.

Sintu-Online has only been live for three months, but so far, the response has been very positive.

Mpho concludes by discussing the other communities she participates in to bring African entrepreneurs to the forefront, to include the Mandela Washington Fellowship and the Tony Elumelu Foundation.You can follow Sintu-Online on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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The broader implications of the study also reveal that this self-affirmation also prevents a natural bias against other opinions and makes us more open to hear the arguments and become more understanding of those with different opinions. 

On the reverse, those who are already self-affirmed don’t seem to have a strong desire for good looking products. She feels this confirms that we tend to buy pretty things to make us feel better.

Claudia also discusses her current research project focusing on aesthetics and luxury, digging into the opposite of aesthetics, ugly luxury. She points out the current Gucci line, which she claims as purposely ugly. 

The study points out that these ugly designs help identify these items as luxury brands, which some people are gravitating to.  

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But one thing the lifestyle hotel company has not strayed away from is their commitment to service and guest experiences. Dream Hotel Group thrives on offering travelers an authentic connection to their chosen destination through a truly original approach. The one size fits all, cookie-cutter approach isn’t for Dream Hotel Group. They want to ensure each of their hotels fit within the community, creating an unbelievable social atmosphere through indulgent restaurants, upscale bars and playfully exquisite lounges built right in that might make you not want to leave the hotel. 

Of course, Jay notes that in this day of Airbnb’s it is even more important that hotels also focus on providing their guests “experiences” and he definitely believes his hotels accomplish this with the benefits of “super clean sheets” and the service and experiences they provide.

You can stay at a Dream Hotel Group Hotel in New York City (Downtown and Midtown), Los Angeles, Miami, and coming soon to Nashville, Dallas and Palm Springs as well as several locations around the world.

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Kristin Hildebrand, former global creative director at Nike and now founder of WONE, joins Americus to discuss her new venture into athleticwear, but her approach is a little different and has even been criticized.

Kristin launched WONE, a high-end and minimalist activewear line sold direct to consumer in limited run, after she became frustrated with the offerings from other activewear lines. Her line consists of basic, timeless pieces made of high-quality fabric not seen in other activewear lines.  

Her pieces are all black, express simple silhouettes, and are made to last forever. But to own a piece of her collection isn’t easy or cheap. Kristin has developed a one-on-one relationship with her customers.

If you want to own WONE sports bra, first you must send a request via email that actually goes to Kristin herself. Some have criticized her for this “screening process” but Kristin notes that it allows her to build a deeper relationship with her customers, to engage them personally for their feedback. She feels that this approach allows her to keep the authenticity of her brand and deliver the best elite performance clothing to her customers. 

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P.K. Kannan, Dean’s Chair in Marketing Science at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, sits with Americus to discuss these facts along with additional attribution analysis he has completed regarding consumer’s path to purchase. Some of the findings from P.K.’s analysis include the underestimation of the power of email marketing. He has found that with email, the conversion power lies later down the road. In addition, his research has identified the device switchers, those researching on their mobile devices then purchasing on their desktop, have a 70% higher conversion rate than those who just use mobile or just their desktop for research and for purchase.  

P.K. and Americus also discuss how companies can leverage this data, using identity management (tracking their customers across different devices) then retargeting these consumers at the right time seamlessly. Privacy and product category also impact the conversion rate. P.K. notes that the higher the perceived risk a consumer has with retailer and with a product category (usually a higher cost category), the higher the likelihood that they follow this device switching pattern, concluding that today consumers find security within the comforts of their own desktops.

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Kate notes that it’s important for everyone who is involved in the brand to participate in the meetings or discussions that focus on the identity or messaging of the company. Selecting the right PR partner is also important, Kate notes. She goes further to note that at Diffusion, they take the reins on providing what they feel is the strongest message on press and presents that to their clients. They use data to better understand the wants and needs of customers and help with the storytelling to achieve those wants and needs. 

One question asked is what tools does Diffusion use to track and report of the success of the program. Kate responds that setting objectives before the start of the campaign so you have something to measure is key, noting share of voice as a key metric. In addition, other KPI’s to consider are article scores, complete survey data, and of course, sales metrics. 

On the horizon, Kate feels that D2C brands will be focusing more on founder stories and messages with more emotion in the future, which may be more difficult for the legacy brands to achieve.  

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Companies that participate in the consortium commit to three priorities:

○       Measurement. Consortium members agree to participate in an annual benchmarking study

○       Roundtable dialogue specifically organized to isolate and tear down the barriers that prevent meaningful progress

○       Practices and policies. Consortium companies are industry leaders when it comes to policies and practices designed to recruit, retain and advance diverse talent

And what’s amazing is that membership in the IDAC is free. Companies such as L’Oreal are participating and are included in the first annual benchmark results. Companies see only their results, along with the benchmark, then are provided tools and mentoring on their “areas of improvement”.  

Lynn finishes by commenting on the sustainability factor. Along with thought leadership, IDAC is partnering with other organizations in the same space to amply their work as well and continue to strengthen this movement toward diversity and inclusion.

You can check out IDAC's first benchmark report here.

You can also follow She Runs it on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Mike, Americus and Barbara then explore the big question-should brands be involved in politics? Mike discusses that the brand role in politics can be viewed in two ways- from a brand perspective (does the stance on the topic drive sales? strengthen the brand? What is the ROI from taking this position?) and a company perspective (does the stance provide the energy and drive employee satisfaction the company needs to remain competitive in a robust economy?). Of course, companies always take the risk of alienating customers and employees with their stance on these controversial topics, though noting the contention of the Nike ad wasn't in the message itself but in the spokesperson delivering the message.

Mike notes it will be interesting to see how Nike plays out this campaign. Will they take this to the next level and adopt this as a cultural element to their brand to avoid alienating employees and customers or is it just their latest and greatest marketing campaign?

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Amish notes that the biggest difference between mined diamonds and an ALTR diamond is cost. Per Amish, you can get a 1 carat man-made diamond for the cost of a .7 carat mined diamond. ALTR really focuses on talented sales staff and marketing to educate consumers on the benefits of man-made diamonds.

With the help of media outlets such as Forbes spreading the word, and a marketing campaign that focuses on the impact it has on HER as well as offering larger carats at a better value, ALTR stars as the disruptor to the current diamond industry.

ALTR diamonds can be purchased at Helzberg diamonds among other retailers.

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Matthew is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, formerly, a Ph.D. student at Yale University’s Cognition and Development Lab. Matthew just completed a study with his fellow colleagues to understand on how people assess the objectivity or subjectivity of the truth of the matter.

The study focused on two mindsets, the Argue to Win mindset and the Argue to Learn mindset. The Argue to Win mindset, compared to a lawyer in a courtroom, has the goal to win and is unwilling to budge on the subject. The Argue to Learn mindset, the judge in the courtroom, has the truth as the goal and wants to understand both sides and figure out what's really going on. Matthew and his colleagues slated the two mindsets against each other in a discussion about heated political topics with the pair of participants disagreeing about the topic.

The conclusion was that the participant with the Argue to Win mindset viewed the truth as more objective while the Argue to Learn mindset saw the truth more subjective. Matthew notes that we tend to assume that our truth is unmovable but if we approach these controversial topics with a different mindset we can foster a better understanding of other people's ideas and view these ideas more subjectively.

Matthew is currently working on study that looks into understanding how technology may be hindering our view of our own abilities, giving us a false security that we are more capable that we really are on our own.

You can keep up with Matthew's work at matthewcfisher.com.

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What started off as a blog promoting black woman business owners has grown into a non- profit organization creating awareness and offering grants, tools and resources. Nikki began spreading the word with Buy From a Black Woman branded bags, shirts, and buttons and things took off from there. The website hosts an online directory of business owned and operated by black woman.

One of the things Nikki is most proud of is the Black Women Business Grants. Initially set at $250, BFABW now awards a $1000 grant to black woman entrepreneurs twice a year.

Check out www.buyfromablackwoman.org to see how you can support BFABW.

You can also follow BFABW on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

• Instagram: BuyFromABlackWoman
• Facebook: BuyFromABlackWoman
• Twitter: BFABWInfo

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Return Path provides marketers with insights and analytics to allow them to optimize their email programs. Return Path's data platform allows them to provide some really detailed metrics on email campaigns, such as where their messages are going (inbox vs. junk folders), how much time you spend in the email message, and even riveting competitive intelligence.

Casey discusses some of the benefits of email marketing, such as the $38 average ROI from email marketing, the importance of keywords to drive brand awareness versus driving a sale, and the future of increased segmentation and personalization in emails, providing metrics on how many emails a specific customer wants to receive and what keywords they will respond to.

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Ryan Millman, Co-Founder and CEO of the package insert advertising platform Undigital joins Marketing Matters and my co-host Barbara Kahn and special guest co-host Keith Niedermeier to discuss how his company is making this process much easier for brands to provide a relevant and exciting offer to potential customers.

Through their technology platform, Undigital offers their customers, such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Barnes and Noble, transparent pricing, a quick and easy collateral transfer process, the ability to dig into customer demographics, select test insert programs, and partner with retailers that share their target audience.

Ryan also provides insights into future improvements to include content based targeting , allowing brands to get more granular when strategizing to reach their potential customer.

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Playbuzz is an interactive storytelling platform that aligns more with the way people consume content today. Playbuzz provides the tools for publishers and journalists to add Interactivity to traditional content.

For advertisers, Playbuzz serves to enrich native advertising campaigns to be more engaging, helping them tell a story and speak the message of their brand.

Shachar joins my co-host Barbara Kahn and special guest co-host Professor Keith Niedermeier to dive into this age of bad news, most people are not consuming content fully, spending only 8 seconds on digital content. This can lead to the spread of misinformation or "fake news".

She describes that today sponsored content seems to be more trusted as consumers know exactly where it comes from. If the content is engaging, it urges the consumer to spend more time and trust the source.

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These consumers' spending habits trend towards their goals to be healthier, wealthier, and wiser. Tara-Nicholle notes that her agenda is to get companies to start thinking about their brands through the eyes of this consumer, focusing on their customer's problem and what they can do to guide them through this journey.

Some companies that have connected with the transformational consumer are CVS with the removal of tobacco products from their stores, Target's shift towards reorganizing their assortment with a bigger focus on wellness, and Airbnb, who sees both their hosts and their guests as transformational consumers.

To learn more about Tara-Nicholle and the transformational consumer, click here or to read about more of her analyses on the importance of focusing on your customer, click here.

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Levitabl focuses on sustainable standing tables for modern spaces. Prash, a recent finance graduate from The Wharton School EMBA program, aims to put his engineering and consulting background to build a sustainable business, focusing on the mantra that ‘low tech is the new smart tech’.

Levitabl's latest offering, Francisco, is a standing table with no electronics, and a sleek and simple design.

Prash discusses the challenges of marketing a product in a fast moving competitive entrepreneurial space, and the tips that he gives to others on how to effectively build the plane while you are flying it.

Check out the Francisco's Kickstarter page here.

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When Kentucky Fried Chicken started calling itself (KFC)--that was a deliberate move not only to deal with a trademark issue, but a benefit is to de-amplify the word "fried" because of the current health trends.

Now, Weight Watchers is "WW" or "wellness that works". Probably because the word "diet" (a comedian said diet stands for "Did I Eat That???") conveys a temporary fix and wellness is about lifestyle.

The most recent is now Dunkin' Donuts, changing to Dunkin' only

Listen in on this conversation that dives into the issues of the decision to change the brand and what key issues should go into that decision calculus from issues of emotion, nostalgia, legacy, brand crises and other very fascinating topics.

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Things to do NOT do for log tagline design

THESIS: Brand must be strong and “gotten right” – Everything flows from your WHY. If a customer does not know what your brand stands for, you have lost an opportunity.

[1] Embody the brand (see thesis)

[2] Instantly recognizable and memorable

[3] Must be versatile across media formats

[4] Needs to be timeless

Let Data drive all of your decisions!

Constantly do real time experiments in different marketing channels

Leverage neuroscience for key marketing insights for logo design, fonts, colors, lines and shapes

To learn more about Ross, follow him here on twitter, or here is an additional article on his work in this area.

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Listen in as Americus Talks with Tiffani in greater detail about the customer always being the main course and how there is no experience without the customer.

They also discuss the importance of valuing your customer, both old and new customers and how to maintain them throughout the livelihood of your product. Tune in as Americus and Tiffani talk about the importance of product timing and maintaining your customer relationships and more about her recent book “Growth IQ”. To find out more about Tiffani Bova click here. You can follow Tiffani on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.

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Her school offered to pay for her Masters, so Merrilee jumped on the opportunity right away. Her thought process was if your paying then I’m going. It was while she was obtaining her Master’s degree that her product BuzzBallz was born. With a little determination and not having the option to fail along with a mother’s desire to make a way out of no way; helped her to maintain the push and press that would eventually bring her vision to life.

Join Americus and Merrilee as they discuss BuzzBallz in greater detail, the ups and downs she experienced during her journey, and how her dedication/determination paid off. As she continued to stay devoted towards her dreams and not give up, this is what took her small family woman owned business from just a few creative products to a diverse line of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks along with added retail success. To find out more about Merrilee click here. To check out what’s new with BuzzBallz click here. You follow her on Twitter, Facebook , or check out this cool video on YouTube.

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So, Drew decided to make it his business to find a solution that would be a more proactive way to Clean, Protect & Disinfect laundry. After months of research and market studies he found the true problem behind stained stench clothes. He continued to dig deep and soon discovered the true culprits were (bacteria) and laundry detergents that haven’t changed in years. Now, with his new patent pending product HEX performance, Drew is changing the way people think about doing laundry.

Join Americus and Drew as they talk about the journey that led him to creating HEX, his full product line and retail success. To find out more about HEX click here. You can also follow him on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.

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Join Americus and Stephen as they discuss in detail how a company can prepare to protect their brand along with the 7 core Dimensions that the Reputation Institute track and study consistently.

To learn more about Stephen Hahn-Griffiths click here or follow him on Twitter.

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Tune in as Americus and Joseph talk in greater detail about what causes people to choose between material goods and experiential goods and how this decision-making can spill over into their gift giving. To find out more about Joseph click here or follow him on twitter.

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Mia Tango is dedicated to focus on pregnant women taking care of themselves so that they can continue to look and feel beautiful without the guilt. The average price of a sweater on their site is around $100 which makes it very affordable for most women with a variety of brands to choose from.

Join Barbara and Americus as they talk in detail with Stephanie about why she left Kayak and growing her brand. To find out more about Mia Tango click here.

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Most of Daniel’s recent research deals with consumer judgement and decision making around real time spending.

Join Barbara and Americus as they talk in detail with Daniel about why he chose marketing and his research findings on consumer shopping behavior. Check out this entertaining PodCast as we discuss how he made it all happen. To learn more about Daniel Sheehan click here. 

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Listen in as Barbara, Americus and Joann talk more about the Psychological effects of owning something before you own it, customer infringement and how that relates to the customer experience.

You can follow Joann Peck on LinkedIn. To learn more about her research of “The Science of Ownership” click here and to find out more about Joann Peck click here.

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Ryan who has always been intrigued by the customer experience, noticed there was a lot of talk about improving it but no real discussion on how to apply the necessary tools for this change. Tune in as Barbara, Americus and Ryan talk more about how to take the customer experience to the next level.

Also, don’t forget to check out Professor Ryan’s book the “Intuitive Customer” that he co-authored which puts everything about the customer experience in perspective. It provides practical ways on how to apply the proper tools to achieve an exceptional customer experience.

To find out more about Professor Ryan Hamilton click here or check out his blog here. 

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Here is the commercial I referred to regarding naming your product as a declarative value proposition statement.

Check out this article and a write up on a previous Pod Cast we did regarding logos and names featuring Laura Ries.

Mike from NYC, thanks for the call!

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Christian’s research has been published in top marketing, organizational behavior and psychology journals. Listen in as Americus Barbara and Christian talk in greater detail about his intriguing study, the fascinating results and how it may impact consumer choices of today.

To find out more about Christian Wheeler click here or check out this interesting video on YouTube where he talks about Customer Persuasion.

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Prior research has primarily focused on the effect of curiosity on information seeking in the present domain. The current research goes further to propose that the curiosity effect can spill over to prompt consumers to prefer indulgent options in other, unrelated domains (e.g., food, money).

This can be interesting to marketers who are trying to get consumers to indulge and reward themselves. To learn more, listen to our discussion.

Here is a link to the original research. And here is a graph of the typical result:

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In this fascinating PodCast he and I discuss why consumers devalue the same version of a product if it is a digital good versus a physical good. This has implications for getting consumer to buy digital versions of products (e.g., ebooks).

Interested in reading the original work? Here is his paper.

He and I discuss this work, its implications for marketing and the curious notion of "psychological ownership" which plays an important role in why his results happen.

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Mark released his first book in 2007 “ Microtrends”, which was a best-seller on the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal lists. Now, 10 years later he releases his second book “Microtrends Squared” which emphasizes the new small forces that are impacting the next decade of purchasing power. He also talks about how every trend has a counter trend.

Listen in as Americus, Barbara and Mark discuss his new book and how trends/counter trends impact society today as well as the future.

To find out more about Mark Penn click here or you can follow him on twitter @Mark_Penn. Also, you can check out this neat video where he talks in greater detail about Microtrends.

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Nailya began her journey of interest in consumer behavior as a young girl. Originally from Kazakhstan which was a former part of the Soviet Republic; She watched the fall of the Soviet Union and noticed how consumers reacted differently within the evolving new available market. This intriguing behavioral change is what sparked her interest in consumer behavior.

Over time Nailya began doing research and studies that showed these two sides of the spectrum where one side believes that success is due to hard work and the other side believes success is due to favor or luck.

You don’t want to miss this unique broadcast as Nailya shares some of her findings from previous work and talks about her latest research. To find out more about Nailya click here or watch this interesting video "Which is Bigger?" on YouTube.

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Steve always had a passion for Public Relations, Marketing and he definitely has an eye for News and now he's able to take the complex, make it easy to share and understand. He also believes that your Brand is your story and it must always be presented well. Steve is an Industry leader in creating the evolving playbook that helps many different companies manage their crisis while preserving their company image.

Tune in while Steve and Americus talk about the different Brands and how their liabilities, actions and responses to their crisis varies according to the foundation of how the company Brand was built.

To find out more about Steve you can click here on LinkedIn or follow him on twitter @gobraithwaite.

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Erik believes in the circular approach of Engagement and that’s what drives transactions. Tune in now to find out more as he talks about the importance of the Brands message and what being Retail specific means in Business.

Click here to read this neat article where Erik discuss how “Companies who provide both easy and efficient ways to receive purchases and make transactions are positioned to win”. You can also find Erik on LinkedIn.

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We discussed this article on Brands (like Target) trying to "brand" their stores in a customized way that matches the aesthetic of the inner city neighborhood.

Creating an "authentic" neighborhood identity and "brand" with Big Box Retailers require the following:

[1] Know that neighborhood

[2] Talk to the people who have lived there

[3] Invite them to create your customized brand with them

[4] Do small scale focus groups to brainstorm and discuss how to "gentri-brand" your retail store

[5] Constantly monitor progress and reactions

[6] Avoid being "tone deaf"

From Sirius XM 132

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Professor Theodore Noseworthy joins the program to discuss his research which focuses on how consumers make sense of innovative products and how marketers can better facilitate the adoption of innovation.

In particular, he discusses how "odd" perceptions of new product (e.g., Pepsi Clear) can be made more congruent using an understanding of how consumers make inferential and often biased judgments when evaluating new products. Listen for the cool idea of "conjunctive enablers."

We discuss this and other approaches that translates hard core cognitive science into how marketers can make incremental adjustments to a product’s form, packaging, or functionality to more nuanced changes in how consumers deal with the introduction of radical innovations and the emergence of entirely new product concepts.

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IT all began with CEO Cotter Cunningham’s vision in 2009 to “Save the World some Money”. After a series of investments, throughout years of providing brand awareness and customer retention, RetailMeNot invested in an app that provides consumers with real-time personal savings specific to their location.

These savings ranged from everything in Retail, Food, Travel and most recently consumers can now save on their prescriptions. Now that’s a BIG Deal!

Check out this informative Podcast as we discuss how this technology has added value to the consumer experience by providing recommendations on customer preference. Learn more about RetailMeNot and their savings or watch this entertaining video to learn how. You can also follow them on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

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Although most professionals have worked in areas where they were expected to bring in new business, no one ever taught them how finding their own voice, maximizes results.

In Doug’s book he shares both practical and essential ways on how staying true to who you are creates a brand, builds trust and allows you to operate as a known expert within your industry.

Don’t miss out on the 7 – 8 commonalities Doug found in every successful person he interviewed. Tune in now! To learn more about “How Clients Buy” check out this cool video he did. If you’re interested in finding out more about Doug Fletcher click here.

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Conversocial helps hundreds of major brands transform their customer service by investing into social messaging channels (including Facebook Messenger, Twitter, WeChat etc.), enabling them to deliver a better customer experience with decreased service costs.

Joshua and his colleagues created the concept of Social Customer Care and Social Customer Service. He and I talk about the future of customer service as it relates to social media and artificial intelligence.

Author of Message Me, a book about the future of customer service in the era of social messaging and artificial intelligence, this guide is the bible on how to synchronize digital technology and customer engagement.

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Want to know the 8 things the “new” Global CMO must do for success? Here they are:

1] Stay intellectually curious and never Stop Learning – Stay on the newest platforms and channels, to the latest technology solutions

2] Fight For Talent – Investing in finding digitally savvy talent – while also educating existing talent

3] Become Customer Advocates – obsessively becoming the voice of the consumer within the organization

4] Adopt a Business Mindset – Marketing as a critical part of investor relations meetings, annual shareholder events

5] Form a New Approach to Global Collaborators – Managing a team that includes both traditional agencies and new technology vendors

6] Measure It To Move It – Data is money and tying the marketing activities to the organization’s business objectives proving ROI

7] Run Fast and Break (Some) Things – Do not be afraid to experiment and test and learn with new technologies and processes

8] Obsessively remain a Storyteller – Marketing is all about the “narrative” and brand message shouldn’t be sacrificed on the altar of technology

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We discuss his book, Iconic Advantage, and how he has created a unique approach to innovate.

In this conversation Soon discusses how he challenges businesses to build greater iconicity, and offers deeper insights on establishing timeless distinction and relevance. 

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From those humble beginnings, he moved on to positions with various digital start-ups, including Zeborg, where he was head of Interactive Design from 1998 to 2000.

Founder of Blue Fountain Media, Shaoolian's self-employed freelancer business blossomed. He focused on the effectiveness of brand marketing, studying user behavior, website bounce rate, individual pages performance.

Based on these observations, he created marketing strategies identifying the specific audience and the value offered to this audience through a clear message, both on the business website and on social platforms.

In this podcast he talks super specific on how to get digital, design your website and other key takeaways.

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Choosing the right Influencer and becoming engaged with that Influencer all play major roles in how effective this approach can be in marketing a company’s brand.

That’s the purpose of #paid, helping company’s choose the right Influencer, allowing the creator to create while doing what they love to do and get paid.

Tune in as Richard discuss the 3 key elements Brands should follow as they market to grow their business. Also, watch this cool video where Richard talks in detail about working with Social media Influencers. Click here to follow Richard on twitter. To Learn more about #paid check out this informative blog.

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From the beginning, Molly knew Just Nips™ Fake Nipples would be involved with breast cancer awareness and care in some way, but she never thought it would be as big as it is today and still growing. 

She reached out to the medical community but received no love. As the product gained notoriety, women from all over the world began contacting her and sharing their stories about post-mastectomy and life without nipples. So Instead of Molly selling them on her product, she showed up in a different way by asking for their mailing address and shipping samples out immediately free of charge.

Check out this ultimately entertaining PodCast as we talk more with Molly on how she made it all happen. To learn more about Just Nips click here or watch this racy yet entertaining video from the New York Post.

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My co-host Professor Barbara Kahn and I delve into Sanjiv's approach, a well streamed and cogent process that he has discussed elsewhere and that has taken the Mike's Hard Lemonade brand to a leader in its space.

You might think that Mike's Hard Lemonade is a "guy drink", but you'd be surprised, as Ranjiv dives into this particular issue during the PodCast.

Often lauded for its digital efforts and it's ability to innovate, this is a PodCast that is worth checking out. Of course, Barbara and I had to to toast MHL (at around 17:05) in the studio. Call it "marketing research." Enjoy

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Her “throwbee” product has had great success and here’s why.

On my radio program “Marketing Matters”, Sirius XM 132 Business radio powered by Wharton, I discuss her “no BS” approach to getting things done from a marketing and branding perspective.

Enjoy this interesting deep dive into the entrepreneurial mindset of a visionary marketer. Sometimes, you can do cool stuff and it need not be “sexy tech” just a great product that solves a problem and has a social impact aspect to it.

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From there she did not know that a hobby would become a high-paying career as a fashion influencer and social media star.

Forbes covered her journey and now she is setting her eyes on growing her business. Now, with close to 2 million followers on Instagram and other platforms, she is growing lifestyle collection that includes overalls, shoes and workout wear.

In this podcast we discuss her strategies for getting to where she is and the next level of future success.

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Book available here: https://www.amazon.com/Shopping-Revolution-Successful-Retailers-Disruption-ebook/dp/B07BHTJN7G

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In this Podcast, learn the power of "Story Telling" outlined in David's new book, “Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen.” Learn it all, here. Check out: https://storybrand.com/ for details.

Book available now at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XFJ2JGR/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

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Call us LIVE on Wednesdays from 5-7PM Eastern at 1-844-WHARTON (1-844-942-7866). Marketing Matters airs on SiriusXM 132, Business Radio Powered by the Wharton School.

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In this Podcast, learn the power of "Story Telling" in B2C and B2B and what makes a good story. Why story is critical to building your brand and your service? What are the features of a "great" story that helps grow your company, brand, service or organization? Learn it all, here. Check out: https://storynomics.com/ for details.

Book available now at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074Z5NWR4/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

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Guests: Americus Reed and Robert Spitzer

Hertz, Enterprise, United Airlines, and MetLife are among the large companies that, in recent weeks, have ended partnerships with the National Rifle Association. Others like Fed Ex and Amazon are facing increasing consumer pressure to do the same. We'll start off the hour talking with University of Pennsylvania's Wharton professor AMERICUS REED about the power and effectiveness of the Boycott NRA movement. Then, when the NRA was founded 150 years ago, its focus was marksmanship and gun-safety. Today it is considered the most influential and powerful voices in politics. We'll talk with political scientist ROBERT SPITZER about the evolution and history of the NRA.

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