Thanks to MSI, ISMS, EMAC, and AMA

For this Thanksgiving newsletter, I decided to say thanks to the professional marketing organizations who supported me and our research for over 2 decades.

First, the Marketing Science Institute became part of my life as a PhD student, when I hesitated between the dozens of research questions that fascinated me. Their wonderful member organizations responded every other year to a survey on what THEY considered most important, as captured in their Research Priorities.

I was immediately struck by the overlap between these and my own interests, and benefitted throughout the years from a joint focus on long term marketing effectiveness (the title of my dissertation), innovation, digital marketing, big data, measurement and analytics. Their official site shows we interacted 53 times, from funding of my early research to peer-reviewed reports, webinars and Young Scholar conferences. I specifically enjoyed speaking and interacting at its wonderful conferences, bringing together business managers and marketing academics – aka thoughtful practitioners and practical academics.

?Second, the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science (ISMS) has been instrumental in nurturing and developing our community of marketing modelers. I started presenting at the Marketing Science conference in the 1990s, and always enjoy returning to the latest and greatest in the field of quantitative marketing. With about 17 sessions going on at the same time, the conference always feels like a candy box of hard-to-choose delight. I also very much enjoyed serving twice as the ISMS VP of Practice, helping authors develop their submissions to the Gary Lilien ISMS-MSI-EMAC Practice Prize.

Talking about EMAC, the European Marketing Academy has been with me from the start of my marketing interests in my native Belgium. I met my UCLA PhD advisor, Mike Hanssens, when I was presenting at the EMAC Doctoral Colloquium. EMAC’s flagship journal, IJRM, is the best international journal in marketing, and it has been an honor publishing and reviewing for them. Unlike in the US, where consumer behavior researchers and modelers attend different events, the EMAC conference has always been the annual meeting of the minds across methodologies - at the most beautiful locations in the finest company.

Moving to the US, my home became the American Marketing Association, the world’s largest community-based marketing association, where I served 7 years on the Academic Council and a year as its president. Both Summer and Winter AMA conferences represent a Centre Court Conference: a global distinctive conference, dealing with the core issues of marketing today and with the purpose of moving the frontiers of marketing. For instance, the AMA surveyed its members to come up with the 7 big problems facing marketing today, and commissioned authors to write books addressing them. After the first 2 in the series, on Organic Growth and Insights, I am happy to publish with Zeynep Aksehirli, Kwong Chan and Yakov Bart our answer to the third one: Break the Wall: How and Why to Democratize Digital Transformation in your Business.

I am especially excited about the vision of the new Academic Council president, Maura Scott (central in the opening picture), and the new CEO, Bennie Johnson (captured below). Both Maura and Bennie are empathetic masters of transformation, respectively at the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing and at the American Institute of Graphic Artists and the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

"Bennie comes to the AMA with a wealth of experience and knowledge to support our strategic direction and, after a long search, we are enthused to have him join us at this time, the right time," said AMA Board Chairperson Kevin Bradford. I could not have phrased it any better way.

Thank you so much for your continued support, leadership and friendship!