Welcome from the President
No, it’s not George W. --- this is Patrick Crane, the incoming President of the Marketing Research Council of the AMA.
In my comments for this issue of the newsletter I wanted to accomplish three things. First, to let you know the key things the council is working on this coming year. Second, to give you a peek at a newly-revised conference we are planning next year, and third, to introduce the 2008-2009 Council members.
The Council’s priorities for the coming year
As a volunteer council that meets just a few times a year in person, it is a challenge to make progress, so we work hard at really focusing on a few items. Our priorities this year are; 1) improving our three main conferences; 2) providing guidance for research content for the new AMA website; and 3) collaborating with other associations on research quality issues in the industry.
The AMA produces three main conferences a year for the research industry--the Annual Marketing Research Conference (September), the Advanced Research Techniques Forum (June), and, in the past, the Executive Insights Conference (January). This year the Council wants to take a hard look at each of the conferences, with an eye on making each of them the best they can be. We want to make sure that they provide the highest quality content in a fresh and engaging manner. One of the major changes we are making is to the Executive Insights conference, which I will describe in more detail below.
Second, the AMA launched a significant upgrade to the Marketingpower.com website this spring. The Council is excited with the possibilities this new website offers to serve the research community, so our second priority is to provide guidance to the AMA on the kind of content that the website should serve up to our members. We feel that the website should serve the educational, networking, and career planning needs of researchers, so we’ll be working hard to make prioritized suggestions to the AMA web development team.
Finally, the Council has begun work with the ARF, CASRO and MRA on the industry issue of research quality, particularly internet research quality. This has been a hot topic of discussion within the industry, and we feel we can best serve our research members by joining forces with other industry associations. Eventually we hope to offer courses as well as online resources to help educate our members on this complicated subject.
A peek at a newly revised conference for 2009
One of our three principal annual conferences was Executive Insights. The Council and the AMA felt that this conference was in need of a significant re-working—it really wasn’t living up to its potential. We have been given a “clean slate” by the AMA to re-design that conference, and the new conference will be debuting in the spring of 2009 as a new offering. Its name will be changed to “The Marketing Research Executive Forum” to reflect the audience we are targeting with this conference--the “client side” managers and leaders within our membership. We have conducted research among our target audience and are building a program we believe will be very attractive to our audience. More details will follow in upcoming newsletters, but needless to say we are pleased to have the opportunity to bring a fresh approach to this conference.
The 2008-2009 Marketing Research Council
I thought it would be appropriate to introduce the members of the Marketing Research Council.
●Our immediate Past-President is Beth Shriver, Staff Research Manager at First Energy Corporation of Akron, OH.
●Rob Arnett is our President-elect for the 2009-10 term. Rob is Senior Partner with Solutions Partners, Greensboro, NC.
●Lisa Gudding is Senior Vice President of GfK Custom Research, Minneapolis, MN.
●Joan Treistman is a principal of the Treistman Group, New York, New York.
●Doug Bowman is Associate Professor of Marketing at the Goizueta Business School, Emory University, Atlanta, GA.
●Marjette Stark is Senior Vice President at DMS Research, Dulles, VA.
●Ron Gailey, Senior Vice President/Director of Research and Customer Insight, WaMu, Seattle, WA.
.....And I am Patrick Crane, Director Brand Development, Eastman Kodak, Rochester, NY.
We welcome your comments and input. Please don’t hesitate to contact us through the AMA.