Happy Customers Everywhere: An Evening with Prof. Schmitt and Friends (5/2/12)

Columbia Business School’s Center on Global Brand Leadership presents One Happy Book Launch: An Evening with Author Prof. Bernd Schmitt Co-sponsored by the Columbia Business School Alumni Club of New York Wednesday, May 2, 2012 6:30pm – 8:30pm Cost: $20 ($15 for Columbia Business School alumni) Hosted by: Edelman 250 Hudson Street, 16th Floor, New York, NY

Join us for a wine reception with author, Professor Bernd Schmitt, and a special discussion with leading marketers on their efforts to create happy customers and organizations.

	Bernd Schmitt Robert D. Calkins Professor of International Business, Columbia Business School
	Julie Cottineau Founder, BrandTwist; Former VP of Brand, Virgin USA
	Peter DeNunzio President, Customer Loyalty, Aimia US
	Owen Rankin Executive Vice President, Brand Stewardship, Edelman

Includes: Food, wine, special snacks and a free raffle for copies of Happy Customers Everywhere

REGISTER AT: http://happycustomerseverywhere.eventbrite.com

About the Book:

Every business knows that the best customer is a happy customer. They return time and again, bring their friends and family, and deliver tons of free advertising via word of mouth and social media. But in order to grow that loyal base, you must be keenly aware of your customers’ needs and preferences. Drawing on the latest research in the exploding field of positive psychology, SCHMITT offers three unique approaches any business can use to turn a casual customer into a committed fan:

• The Feel-Good Method: Use the experience of pleasure and positive emotion to hook new customers, and watch those feel-good moments transform a casual customer into a committed loyalist
• The Values-and-Meaning Method: Attract passionate customers by appealing to their core values, like being socially responsible, protecting the environment, or living a simple life
• The Engagement Method: Get customers to notice a unique or limited offer, immerse them in the experience, and have them share it with friends and family.

Schmitt shows marketers, brand managers, and entrepreneurs how to design an authentic and successful campaign that will reach, grow, and sustain a devoted base of customers.

CFOs…They’re Just Not That into You

It is often said that those in the finance department and those in the marketing department come from two different planets! Because of long standing accounting principles and practices, marketing is often relegated to being just a cost line item rather than a value-generating activity.

Natalie Mizik, former Associate Professor of Marketing at Columbia Business School, now at Kenan-Flagler Business School, and Doron Nissim, Professor of Accounting and Finance at Columbia Business School, took a closer look at the implications of current accounting models and their representation of marketing activities. In their article, Accounting for Marketing Activities: Implications for Marketing Research and Practice, Mizik and Nissim found that common accounting principles and practices have led to distortions of marketing contributions in financial reporting. In addition, some experts feel that marketers don’t adequately communicate how their expenditures benefit the bottom line. Together these factors affect perceptions of marketing’s value, which can impact everything from marketing budgets to influence and practice.

To mitigate the negative light financial reporting can cast on the perception of marketing, Mizik and Nissim recommend marketers play a more active role in the financial reporting debate. According to them, providing “consistent, observable, quantifiable and verifiable information” on marketing spend and its results, and sharing financially-based performance metrics can improve the process of evaluating marketing efforts and lessen the conflict between the finance and marketing worlds.

A recent study released by the Center on Global Brand Leadership and the New York American Marketing Association (NYAMA) confirmed the need for a robust set of ROI measures to improve  marketing’s standing within a company. The BRITE-NYAMA Marketing Measurement in Transition Study, Marketing ROI in the Era of Big Data, found that 70% percent of marketers say that their marketing efforts are under greater scrutiny than in the past. ROI metrics are critical to addressing the concerns about the contributions of marketing initiatives. However, more work is needed to develop a common understanding of ROI metrics even within marketing departments. The study revealed that although marketers see the value of ROI measures, there is confusion about the meaning and significance of ROI among marketers.

Marketers will need to continue to refine their understanding of ROI and develop consistent metrics, often specific to their own organization, in order to get CFO’s turned on to the results of marketing efforts.

BY KIM SHIFRIN