Panels

Branding Strategies: The Challenge of Going Global and Staying Local

This panel will explore what marketers can do when expanding product lines globally to protect their company's brands and improve their chances of successfully launching products. In addition, this panel will explore the latest trends and best practices in global marketing.

Potential Questions

  • As your company expands globally, what effort does your company make to maintain uniform brands in each country?
  • What are the pros/cons of working with local brands (ie. via acquisition) vs. expansion of single global brands?
  • What differences do you see when expanding your brand/products into developed vs. developing markets?
  • As your company/brands grow internationally, how to do you tailor your marketing? Is it controlled globally or locally?
  • What is the best strategy to target the right regions for your product/service, use right mix of communication and decide on right products/services attributes?
  • What are the latest trends in global marketing?

Panelists

Health and Wellness: Trends in a Global Marketplace

There's no escaping the growing emphasis on health and wellness in today's marketplace. As such, health and wellness is becoming an ever present factor in decision making and marketing for companies worldwide. This panel will discuss the current trends in health and wellness and will also look at how marketers can react to and capitalize on these trends when developing a competitive marketing strategy.

Potential Questions

  • What are the current trends in health and wellness? How are they different from what you have observed in the past? How do they differ by market segment? Do you see them as an opportunity or a threat?
  • What are the drivers of these trends? Are they primarily external forces such as consumer demand, or the companies themselves?
  • How are companies responding to or exploiting these trends? Are you changing consumers’ perceptions of your current products so they are aligned with current trends, or launching new product lines?
  • Are your competitors different than before, or are you competing with the same players but in a different way?
  • What do you see ahead in terms of upcoming health and wellness trends? Will they most likely reflect fads or more fundamental change?

Panelists

Getting Personal: Building Consumer Loyalty in a Crowded Market

The effects of the internet and globalization continue to provide consumers with increasing access to more product information, more purchase outlets and more options. This evolving landscape presents both challenges and opportunities in consumer loyalty and retention for the retailer, manufacturer and marketer.

Potential Questions

  • What is the greatest challenge today for a retailer/manufacturer/marketer in building consumer loyalty/retention in your industry?
  • How can the manufacturer/marketer best build consumer loyalty/retention?
  • How successful are traditional loyalty programs (e.g. private credit cards, rewards points etc)?
  • Is retaining the luxury consumer more/less difficult than retaining non-luxury consumer? How do retention tactics differ among consumer segments?
  • How has globalization impacted loyalty and retention tactics?
  • How has multi-channel selling impacted consumer loyalty and retention tactics?
  • Maybe ask about how specific industry trends (such as trading up/down, private label, etc) have impacted consumer loyalty and retention tactics?

Panelists

Media Panel: Ready to Sweep Out Traditional Media?

New media such as Internet advertising, user-generated media, and mobile marketing,are radically changing consumers' exposure and purchasing behaviors. Companies are implementing innovative marketing strategies to leverage these new media in capturing and maintain customers. This panel will explore the impact and potential of new media in the marketing world. Is the impact so powerful that new media is actually sweeping out traditional off-line media?

Potential Questions

  • What kinds of the impact on the marketing world are brought by digital media?
  • How can digital media change consumer behaviors?
  • How are digital media instrumental in reaching consumers?
  • How can marketing companies leverage new media in marketing?
  • How could marketing companies allocate their budget into various media?
  • Can traditional off-line media survive in the future?
  • What will be the roles of advertising (or marketing communication) in the future?

Panelists

Evolution of Market Research: Finding Consumer Insights in the 21st Century

Companies in the electronic age are rethinking not only how they reach their consumers and make business decisions, but also how they perform the task of capturing consumer insights. As new techniques, such as online and adaptive surveys, online focus groups and data collection, consumer auctions, data mining, and RFID tracking arise, how do companies balance their resources to find the most valuable insights? We will investigate these new research techniques and technologies and their value opposed to tried-and-true methodologies in an exploration of the changing face of market research.

Potential Questions

  • How has the electronic age redefined how you perform market research? What new avenues are you able to follow with the aid of technologies?
  • Where are traditional focus groups and interviews still dominant in research?
  • Have new research techniques affected the marketing of your/your client's product?
  • What do you see as possible movements within market research? Where will focus groups/interviews/technology/e-communication/online research go next?
  • What are some of the difficulties/disadvantages of using new technology versus traditional research techniques?

Panelists