The American Marketing Association Kicks Off 2016 Summer AMA Conference August 5 in Atlanta

    CHICAGO, IL, August 07, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The American Marketing Association (AMA) today announced the speaker line-up for the 2016 Summer AMA Conference, formerly known as Summer Marketing Educators Conference. It's the largest academic conference for marketing scholars, faculty, and doctoral students. The Summer AMA Conference will take place August 5-7, 2016, at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis in Atlanta, GA. Conference attendees will learn from senior executives and leading academic researchers as they share their real-world experiences in sessions that follow the theme "Regaining Relevance: Doing Research that Reshapes the Practice of Marketing."

"Get ready for a new type of conference experience at the 2016 Sumer AMA Conference. This year, we have expanded our programming, strengthened our content and evolved the conversation from research to practice," said Russ Klein, CEO of the American Marketing Association. "For each of our general sessions, a senior marketing executive and senior scholar will present one of six Big Problems facing marketing executives today by highlighting the problem, challenge, and potential ways to address the challenge through research."

Kicking off the conference is an Executive Jam Session on the "Role of Marketing in the Firm and the C-Suite," with Dick Lynch, chief global brand officer, Popeyes; Kim Whitler, associate professor of marketing, University of Virginia; Wolfgang Ulaga, professor of marketing, Arizona State University; Mike French, former senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Altria; and moderator Neil Morgan, professor of marketing, Indiana University. The session will explore how the role of marketing should be re-examined and how firms can best implement and manage its new role.

Other Executive Jam Sessions include:
• "The Digital Transformation of the Modern Corporation," will show how firms are finding the right balance between big data and how the transformation of marketing communications can transform a business from "dumb" to "smart" within the Internet of Things (IoT). Presented by Janette Shimanski, chief learning officer, 3M; Stefan Michel, professor, IMD; Lisa Bowman, executive vice president and CEO, United Way Worldwide; and moderator Roldan Deiser, founder and director, Center of the Future Organization Drucker School of Management.

• "Generating and Using Insight to Shape Marketing Practice," will explore how today's data orientation may obscure the differences between data, knowledge and insight. Mack Turner, managing director, global marketing research and insights, Bank of America; Liam Fahey, author and principal, Leadership Forum, Kenneth Wilbur, associate professor of marketing, Bob Lurie, senior vice president, strategy, Eastman Chemical and Kelly Hewitt, associate professor of marketing, University of Tennessee will address what it means to have customer insight that can be leveraged in the marketplace.

• "Dealing with an Omni-Channel World," will address what businesses need to know about the omnichannel world and how it is different from multi-channel. Presenters include, Mikael Thygesen, chief marketing officer, Simon; Joel Warady, chief marketing officer, Enjoy Life Food, Mike Ahearne, professor and director, Sales Excellence Institute, University of Houston; and Ray Burke, professor of marketing, director of Customer Interface Lab, Indiana University.

• "Competing in Dynamic, Global Markets," features Mohan Sawhney, professor and director of the Center for Research in Technology and Innovation, Northwestern University; Rob Malcom, former chief marketing officer, Diageo; Tom Polan, executive vice president, Becton Dickinson; Mary Garrett, vice president marketing and communications, global sales, IBM (retired); and moderator Goutam Challagagalla, professor of marketing, IBM will discuss what smart products, smart applications and interconnected devices means for the marketing function and how marketers can best navigate this new competitive landscape.

• "Balancing Incremental and Radical Innovation," will cover how firms can foster innovation beyond the product and accelerate competing for the future. Presented by Luke Mansfield, vice president of innovation, PepsiCo; Zain Raj, chairman and chief executive officer, Shapiro and Raj; Rajesh Chandy, professor of marketing, London Business School and Steve Liguori, chairman and chief executive officer, Liguori Innovation, Columbia Business School.

An extensive line-up of breakout sessions will also take place on both days of the conference. These sessions are organized into six tracks (Brand, CRM/Sales, B2B, Consumer Behavior (CB), Special Interest Groups (SIG) and Strategy) and delivered by a diverse mix of leading marketers and senior scholars from the top marketing research programs, including University of Georgia, Michigan State University, University of Nebraska and University of Wisconsin. Topics include IBM Watson Analytics, Healthcare Advertising, Sustainability Issues in Marketing, Brand Personality and Attachment Marketing Challenges, and Strategies in Emerging Markets, among others.

About American Marketing Association (AMA)
The AMA is trusted by nearly 1.3 million marketing and sales professionals a year worldwide. It has more than 70 professional chapters and over 350 collegiate chapters throughout North America and select international locations. The American Marketing Association (AMA) is the largest marketing association in the world. AMA serves organizations and individuals who practice, teach and study marketing across the globe. It serves as a forum for connecting like-minded individuals to foster knowledge sharing and relationship building; to be a trusted resource for marketing information, tools, education and training; and to advance marketing practice and thought leadership. For more information about the AMA, visit http://www.ama.org or follow the latest AMA news at @AMA_Marketing.

To register for 2016 Summer AMA Conference, visit here. View the agenda for the 2016 Summer AMA Conference at http://bit.ly/1f5N1bb. Like AMA on Facebook http://bit.ly/1Ypz7B3 and follow @ama-marketing.

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