Each talk relates to at least one of MSI’s new Research Priorities (RP) based on your key challenges

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

7:30                    Registration Opens

7:30 – 8:40         Networking Breakfast

8:40 – 9:00         Opening Remarks

9:00 – 9:30         Estimating the Value of Offsite Data to Advertisers on Meta (RP 1& 6)

Anna Tuchman, Northwestern University

A new wave of privacy research studies unintended consequences of product changes and privacy regulation that threaten advertisers’ use of offline data. With large scale advertising experiments, we find that ads delivered with access to offsite data generate substantially more long-term customers per dollar than those without such access. New changes in privacy policies especially harm small scale advertisers and those in CPG, Retail, and E-commerce.

9:30 – 9:40           Recognition of Carl Mela

9:40 – 11:10         New Research Planning Session (RP 1)

A Marketing Science Institute (MSI) Marketing Mix Model (MMM) Industry Challenge: Validating MMMs

MMM Initiative Description

Carl Mela, Duke University; Dominique Hanssens, University of California, Los Angeles; & Alice Li, Ohio State University

Firms are looking for alternatives to individual level attribution models in the face of new privacy laws that restrict collecting individual level data used in these models. Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) models rely primarily on aggregate data that comply with the tighter privacy regimes. MMM vendors offer a range of solutions, but advertisers cannot independently benchmark their performance. MSI announces an initiative to bring together leading academic experts on MMM models; member company advertisers; and major data suppliers. Details and scope of the study are to be worked out in this session. The initial purpose of this collaboration will be to forge an approach to bring scientific standards to the MMM community.

11:10 – 11:25         Networking break

11:25 – 12:10         How Good Is Your Firm at Measuring Advertising ROI (RP 2)

Neha Bhargava and Brittany Swanson, Meta

Advertising measurement ranges from simple methods like last click attribution to privacy-compliant Marketing Mix Models that use correlational analyses of aggregate data to quasi-experiments to true randomized experiments. Bhargava and Swanson will guide members on how to assess their own practices and capabilities for advertising lift measurement.

12:10 – 12:30         MSI Roundtable Update

12:30 – 1:30          Lunch & Networking

1:30 – 2:00            Where the Puck is Going (RP 3)

J Walker Smith, Kantar

As the marketplace finally settles into the new century, the future landscape is coming into view. Disruption and dynamism. Volatility and resiliency. Reset and reinvention. All the attention, though, has been on the changing context. Little has been said about what this means for consumers—values, lifestyles, attitudes, engagement, openness. Not to mention the generational handoff underway. In this presentation, Kantar Knowledge Lead J. Walker Smith will offer a view of the future through the lens of the consumer. Given what will be different, what should we expect from consumers? And how might this affect the assumptions built into the models and algorithms that drive the commercial interactions of marketers and consumers?

2:00 – 3:00        Brand Purpose, Stakeholder Value, and Corporate Activism (RP 5)

Warren will discuss the financial ramifications of engaging in activism and Whitler will focus on the strategic considerations.

The Price of Taking a Stance (RP 5)

Nooshin Warren, University of Arizona

As the political climate in the United States becomes increasingly charged, some businesses—often at the behest of internal stakeholders—are increasingly looking to have their voices heard on controversial issues such as gun control, specific voting rights bills, and abortion. Warren will share her research on the effects of corporate activism on stock prices and explain what the evidence shows about which firms benefit and which are harmed by activism. Additionally, she will discuss the price of staying silent in the wake of sociopolitically charged events such as school shootings, the Roe v. Wade overturning, and Georgia’s voting bill.

Key Ways Companies Are Mismanaging Brand Activism and Brand Purpose (RP 5)

Kim Whitler, University of Virginia

Whitler will identify key ways in which firms are increasing brand and business risk by taking a stand. Drawing on insight from a Nike case study conducted with the BAV Group, Whitler will provide ways in which marketers can help firms reduce their exposure. In combination, Warren and Whitler will provoke thinking to encourage marketers to help lead firms in more considered deliberations when designing brand purpose and engaging in polarizing activism.

3:00 – 3:30       How Constraint Changes Customer Behavior (RP 4)

Stephanie Tully, University of Southern California

With inflation and looming recession, consumers find themselves increasingly constrained in ability to afford what was previously affordable. Tully will share key insights from her work on how consumers think and behave differently under constraint.

3:30 – 3:45         Networking Break

3:45 – 4:15         Connecting “Discontinuous” Deliverables & Datasets (RP 1 & 2)

Brian Cooper and Chad Mulder, Juniper Networks

For brand and performance marketing, to really perform they need to be coordinated for a seamless buyer journey.  Marketers need to expand the aperture at the top of the funnel, retarget at mid-funnel, and close deals at the bottom of the funnel. This requires multiple digital touch points that support account-based marketing activities.  In this presentation, Cooper and Mulder will talk about Juniper Network’s proof points across the funnel and their fully integrated plan across the customer journey.

4:15 – 4:45         Wrap Up

5:30 – 7:30         Evening Reception

This welcome reception will be a chance to meet the other corporate and academic attendees.

Thursday, February 16, 2023

7:30 – 8:30         Breakfast

8:30 – 9:00         Welcome Back

9:00 – 9:30         Intuit Tax Knowledge Engine: Practical AI for a Smarter & More Personalized TurboTax (RP 2)

Saikat Mukherjee, Intuit

Intuit, maker of TurboTax, Quickbooks and Mint, is on a multi-year transformational journey to become an AI-driven Expert Platform company to help consumers and small business owners with their taxes and finances. A foundation of this platform is combining Symbolic AI (Knowledge Engineering) and Machine Learning to make our products smarter and more personalized. In this talk, Mukherjee will highlight how we leveraged symbolic AI, natural language parsing and information extraction from tax forms, in combination with human experts, to bootstrap tax knowledge thereby reducing human effort in creating and maintaining compliance content.

9:30 – 10:00         Business Transformation Needs Marketing (RP 7)

Laura Jones, BAV Group

Transformation in any form is becoming a requirement for organizations to succeed in this ever-changing business landscape. The reality is many transformations exist in silos with too many co-dependencies to be fully realized. Brand transformation in particular cannot exist in a vacuum. The integration of the marketing function as a line function and the CMO as a cross functional integrator across marketing, product, tech and even human resources is essential to achieving growth. With the staggering statistic that more than 70% of transformations fail, it’s time to rethink the approach and move to a more intersectional, agile design.

10:00 – 10:15         Networking Break

10:15 – 10:45         How to Uncover the Health of Your Business Through the Health of Your Customers (RP 7)

Dan McCarthy, Emory University

MSI member firms express concerns about waning influence of marketing in the C-suite, in part because of difficulty quantifying to the CFO and CEO the financial value of marketing actions. Increasingly, they are also worried about how recent disruptions to customer behavior may affect their valuation (and for some businesses, their solvency). Customer Based Corporate Valuation is an emerging approach that addresses both of these concerns by measuring the financial value of a firm’s customer base. McCarthy will present tools for leveraging this framework to understand company health and how it can be enhanced through marketing actions.

10:45 – 11:15         Wrap Up

11:00 – 12:00         Lunch

12:00 – 1:00           Optional: Guided Tour of UCLA Campus & Hammer Museum

MSI has secured a block of rooms at the UCLA Luskin Conference Center at a discounted rate of $269 per night for a Deluxe King room. In order to secure a room at the group rate please use this link to book.

Availability and the discount for rooms can only be guaranteed until January 27, 2023, so please make sure to book your accommodations early.

UCLA Luskin Conference Center
425 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles 90095