Chicago CMO Collective
April 17, 2012 | The Four Seasons Hotel Chicago

The young adult market represents a significant opportunity for any business. But if your brand doesn’t speak to this dynamic demographic, they’ll quickly find another one that can. Learn how State Farm® is contemporizing their long-standing brand to help capture the attention and loyalty of the young adult market. Pam El will share how State Farm® is building relevance and a deeper connection with the young adult market to help the company become a top of mind brand. She will share how an ad campaign created a platform for engaging young adults across multiple media.

Hosted By: Translation

Global companies like Aon and Motorola are using sports sponsorships as a vehicle to define their brand, reach new markets, strengthen relationships with customers, and engage employees. Phil Clement and Jean-Pierre Le Cannellier will share their experiences on how their firms' sports sponsorships have helped them break new ground in targeted forms of measurement to achieve strong business results. They will also discuss how these business opportunities are being valued for their return on marketing investment, revenue capture from clients and prospects, and global employee engagement.

Joining on the panel is Wally Hayward, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of the Chicago Cubs.

Marketers in almost all industries today face a similar challenge: they know that Latinos are the fastest growing consumer group in the U.S. representing over $1 Trillion in buying power and yet, they struggle to develop and support Latino marketing programs. The barriers are many: lack of familiarity with these consumers, lack of funding to devote to an incremental initiative, and historically low return on investment. Chris McGrath will take you through Kraft's journey to unlock the power of this important consumer segment by connecting with Latino consumers and debunking stereotypes. She will share case studies from Kraft of what's worked well and the pitfalls to avoid.

Hosted By: Univision

The digital revolution has unleashed enormous change for CMOs. Among all these changes, three trends related to new media, distributing content, and advertising will have the most significant impact, creating tremendous opportunities—or havoc—for marketers. Adobe’s Jen Cooper will discuss these three trends, how they impact marketers, and what leading companies are doing to leverage them.

Hosted By: Adobe

Not since Ronald Reagan declared "government is the problem," has the public sector been more scrutinized and reviled. After decades of putting off tough choices, governments across the country are facing a fiscal reckoning of record-high deficits and unfunded pension liabilities.

Bloomberg News Chicago Bureau Chief, Flynn McRoberts, sits down with Ben LaBolt, former Assistant White House Press Secretary and Communications Director for Rahm Emanuel's successful campaign for Chicago Mayor, and William A. Strauss, Senior Economist and Economic Advisor at the Chicago Fed, to discuss the historic challenge that governments face in shaping their message in this environment.

Today, conversations around media and brands are dominated by talks of the disruptive power of “networks” and “digital content distribution." Most of this focus has been on the disruption within media agencies, content creators and publishers and how this impacts a brand's ability to communicate with its target audiences. Some have gone so far as to suggest that brand marketing and advertising are dead. But is this true? Or are we in fact at the dawn of a new age of marketing and advertising that will dwarf the influence of its predecessors? Brian Wallace and Lisa Donahue will present their views on why they believe we are on the edge of a Marketing Renaissance, share ways in which brands can harness the disruptive power of networks and digital content distribution, and illustrate how this can be done by sharing a case study with Research in Motion, designer and manufacturer of the BlackBerry.

Hosted By: Starcom

In their first-ever Super Bowl ad, Mercedes-Benz USA introduced a line of vehicles designed with an unexpected audience in mind - Generation Y. To engage with these consumers beyond the TV spot, Razorfish, the company's digital agency, spearheaded the automaker's first major foray into social media; the Mercedes-Benz Tweet Race. The world's first Twitter-fueled race consisted of four teams embarking on a three-day, 1,400-mile journey to the Super Bowl in specially-outfitted Mercedes-Benz vehicles which were powered only by tweets and the passion of their followers. The innovative campaign drove unprecedented awareness with the new target, boasted 30,000 active participants, over 150,000 tweets generated, over 545 million Twitter impressions, and was a national trending topic. In this session, Mercedes-Benz and Razorfish will share lessons learned from this effort and discuss how it evolved the automaker's outlook on social media.

Hosted By: Razorfish

B2B marketers have great challenges building a communication vehicle and brand awareness tool for the company, but developing a strategy that accomplishes both of these goals isn't always easy.

As marketers, it is imperative to build an effective strategy for growth that ultimately leads to sales. But, how do we structure our organization internally, define objectives for growth, and measure their effectiveness? In this roundtable, we'll discuss how to shift focus to drive organic growth from within, and how to decide what should be left behind. We'll explore participating companies' best practices in this area.

Harley-Davidson is a 108-year-old company that has become a globally celebrated brand. Still, many celebrate it for its successes of the past-well captured in many business case studies-yet are less aware of the customer and brand transformation happening as we speak. Mark-Hans Richer, SVP and CMO of Harley-Davidson, will outline the challenges of this transformation, their efforts to take on these challenges and the results to date. These lessons will inform others on how to develop, and better leverage, their own brand's strengths even in times of challenge.

Hosted By: Vibes