What is the American Marketing Summer Conference?

The 2017 Summer AMA Conference, hosted in San Francisco, California, is the largest academic conference for marketing scholars, faculty, and doctoral students. It is the ideal conference to interact with senior and emerging scholars from around the world.

The city of San Francisco exemplifies the conference theme: innovation and sustainability through marketing. Innovations from this region have changed the world - think Apple, Facebook, and Google. Even services like Uber and Airbnb, both of which are shaking up their industries.

Why AMA?

It’s a safe bet that all marketers have heard of the American Marketing Association, the essential community for marketers. AMA leads an unparalleled discussion on marketing excellence and offers differentiated content which focuses on existing tension between Best Versus Next Practices™. Content is produced by scholarly journals, such as the Journal of Marketing, and publications, like Marketing News. All of this combines to offer a robust perspective that understands marketers are expected to provide both today and tomorrow’s solutions.

We had the chance to interview Russ Klein, CEO of AMA, for the Digital Skillscast

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How is this Going to Help You?

Marketing legend Roger Kerin argued in 1992 that the central strategic role of marketing is “the entrepreneurial work of the organization and organizational renewal and growth; in short, innovation.” Because innovation alone is a central piece to ensure a bright future, the ties it has to marketing are undeniable.

Though knowledge in the marketing field has advanced since Kerin’s time, the marketing environment is constantly moving forward. A big issue that was highlighted in the AMA’s Intellectual Agenda addresses the challenges that come with balancing short-term, incremental innovation efforts along with long-term, radical innovation efforts and recent attention focused on ensuring sustainability as innovation continues.

The theme of the Summer AMA Conference embodies the emphasis on forward thinking, done in hand with innovation and the three pillars of sustainability from the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing - economic, social, and environmental.

Still Not Convinced?

Work that will be presented pushes the boundaries of what we know in terms of three things:

1. The innovation and/or sustainability behavior of firms

2. The economic, social, and environmental motivations and outcomes of these behaviors,

3. How firms, managers, and consumers respond or adapt to the innovation and/or sustainability behaviors of other actors in the marketplace

Other work will examine the interplay of innovation and sustainability and what it takes to act upon both. If you plan on sticking around marketing, it’s no secret that these topics are going to benefit you short and long-term. 

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