Letter from the Director
Hello Alumni & Friends
Hope your December and the holiday season are going well. Our fall semester is wrapping up and soon the students will head off campus for their well-deserved break.
We had a fun time exploring some new activities for the Marketing Leadership Institute this semester. A huge success was a marketing department welcome event to kick off the semester for the faculty, staff, and students. The event featured a panel of CMOs – thank you to SC Johnson, Fetch and UW Credit Union for participating. It allowed students to see the experiential learning events the MLI hosts as well as a way for students and instructors to connect outside the classroom. We also piloted a new ‘MLlive’ speaker series to help students learn about various marketing career paths and different roles in marketing. Read more here to see who spoke in this inaugural semester’s series.
2024 is shaping up to be an exciting year as well. We’re taking MBA students to Brazil in January; these global marketing learning excursions are a phenomenal learning and bonding experience for the students who attend. And then our big biennial Marketing Summit will be September 12 & 13th (Don’t forget to check out the preview). This is our biggest event where we aim for you all to return to campus for lifelong learning and reconnecting with us, fellow alumni, and our students. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Lastly, a heart-felt thank you for all the alumni and friends who have supported us in 2023. Between speaking on campus, mentoring or mock-interviewing students, financial donations, or any of the many ways you have interacted with UW and the MLI – thank you. Your involvement is what makes our program so strong and unique. Our students have such a more robust experience because of you.
Thank you & On, Wisconsin!
Kristin
Fall Semester Recap
This semester has been one of growth and learning, for the students and for the MLI. It has been filled with events and memories that inspire us and people who continually challenge us to be better. We’re excited to share this look back at the Fall 2023 semester with you.
MLlive
This year we introduced a new speaker series called Marketing Leaders live, or MLlive for short. In its first semester we welcomed nine speakers to join us in our newly renovated Networking Lounge. Shout out to our MLlive speakers: Beth Goeddel of Clasen Quality Chocolates, Brian Frances of Nature’s Fynd, Chelsea Johnson of PepsiCo, Josh Torres of Sargento, Linda Liu of Intuit, Margaret Whiting & Giulia Quattrone of General Mills, Melissa Siems of Syndio, and Rodrigo Stabio of Microsoft. What truly makes MLlive a success is the speakers who have joined us, the stories they have shared and the nuggets of advice that have resonated with us and the students. Read more about MLlive this semester. If you are interested in being an MLlive speaker in the spring semester chose the ‘Select MLI activities and interactions I’m interested in‘ option in this survey.
Current Topics
What makes our Marketing Current Topics class stand out is the applied learning sessions. We are so grateful that each semester alumni and companies from all over step up to host a class. This Fall we we fortunate to have innumerous alumni, American Family Insurance, Kimberly-Clark, Intuit, SC Johnson, Emmi Roth, Varicent, Swift Prepared Foods, Dscout, Salesforce, Syndio, Microsoft, and Amazon join us on campus for class. Thank you to the alumni and friends that made it all happen!
Visiting the Forward Madison Football Club
The MLI’s first foray into hosting an off-site undergraduate-focused experiential learning was this Fall in collaboration with Forward Madison FC. Three months after the brand launch, Forward Madison had an international social media presence and viral content. The visit gave students the opportunity to meet with the Club’s marketing team to learn about their strategies for engaging with fans and promoting a team.
WSB Generative AI Event
Wisconsin School of Business faculty are actively researching the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in a range of disciplines. Some of this work was in the spotlight recently as part of an applied learning day for Business Badgers. The event focused on generative AI—an area of AI that can create images and other media—and large language model applications like ChatGPT and was sponsored by WSB and co-led with industry partners. Read about the Generative AI Event
CMO Panel
We kicked off this semester’s events with a wonderful discussion from a panel of three Chief Marketing Officers. We were incredibly fortunate to have Birk Cooper, CMO, Fetch; Renada Ferraiolo, CMO, SC Johnson; and Anne Norman, SVP & Chief Marketing and Product Strategy Officer, UW Credit Union join us at Grainger Hall to share their insights into Marketing Today & Tomorrow. It was a great way for staff and students alike to ready themselves for the semester and fuel their marketing ambitions. We appreciate the help that went into making the event a success!
Fall Field Trip
Shout out to General Mills and Target for hosting us, and 45 students, on our Fall Field Trip to the Twin Cities. We loved the opportunity to tour your campuses and we appreciate the number of volunteers recruited to speak with our students. This year we added a new lifelong learning component to the alumni & friends reception thanks to feedback from our community. Thank you to our wonderful panelists, Sally Theiler, Director of Sustainable Brands & Products, Target; Jim Roots, Senior Product Manager, NVIDIA; and Andrew Woodbury, Product Marketing Leader, Boston Scientific.
Student voices
Reflection on my first semester – Phillip Glapa
A lot of our students relate their first semester of their MBA to ‘drinking from the firehose’, with the amount of studying, career prep, and fun that is thrown at them as they adjust to becoming students again. Phillip Glapa, has done exceptionally well at handling all of that in addition to his role as Company Commander for the Wisconsin Army National Guard. Read Phillip’s reflection of is path to WSB, this semester, and what the future holds here. »
Mastering the Art of Data Storytelling: About the Data Visualization Course – Libby Gormley
There’s been a lot of new graduate level courses that have come out in the past few years at the Wisconsin School of Business. Thanks in part to investments into data analytics and expanding our expertise in the tech industry. One class that is required for Marketing MBAs studying Analytics & Insights is GEN BUS 720: Data Visualization for Business Analytics. Read Libby’s synopsis of the course here. »
Reflection of a project completed this semester – Sol Santecchia
One of the most exciting parts of our program is the opportunity to work together as a team to tackle real-world business challenges. In our Marketing Management class, we recently had the chance to put our knowledge and teamwork to the test as we delved into a Harvard Business School case study on the well-known skincare brand, Kiehl’s. With its strong brand identity and loyal customer base, Kiehl’s presented us with an intriguing problem: how can the company expand its revenue channels without losing its unique identity? Join Sol as she takes you through her group’s analysis and recommendations for this fascinating marketing case. »
Tech Trip to Seattle
This spring break the Marketing Leadership Institute in partnering with the Erdman Center for Operations Management on our annual Tech Trip. Our 2024 location is Seattle, WA. Each year our students enjoy a behind the scenes look at what it means to be a marketer in the world of tech and insight into life in a silicone city. If you are interested in hosting a site visit, please reach out to Alan Stoffer via email. Otherwise, be on the lookout for your invitation to our alumni networking reception. Dates will be between March 24-27th.
The 2024 Summit
In the words of past attendees, the sentiments ring clear: “The content and speakers were superb; the venue was great; and networking excellent.” These words sum up the Marketing Summit. It’s not just an event; it’s an unparalleled meeting of learning, connection, and inspiration that awaits its participants. The 2024 Summit promises an event that goes above ordinary. What can you expect?
The heart of any conference lies in the insights and ideas shared. This year, we are proud to host an exciting lineup. Speakers like Erin Price, Sargento; Julian Lopez, USAA; Crystal Zerrenner, Thinx; and Jordan Williams, Starbucks; are set to captivate audiences with their innovative insights and actionable strategies.
Read the full Preview of the 2024 Marketing Summit
Alumni News & EAB Updates
Board Member Spotlight – Julian Lopez
Julian Lopez is currently the Assistant Vice President of Brand Strategy and Insights at USAA. He is also a 5-year member of the Marketing Leadership Institute’s External Advisory Board (EAB). Julian has thoughtfully shared his time to give us an idea of what his day-to-day career is like and what leadership means to him. As well as share some insight about his time on the board.
View the Spotlight on Julian online »
Alumni Spotlight – Farin Williams
You might think you know Farin Williams, Brand alum from the class of 2017. But, do you know what she’s been up to lately? Or why her role is the perfect fit for her? Second year student Sarah Hogue meet with Farin to get the latest scoop.
Read up on Farin in this Alumni Spotlight »
Marketing at WSB
Ishita Chakraborty Wins American Marketing Association’s 2023 Don Lehmann Award
Ishita Chakraborty, Thomas and Charlene Landsberg Smith Faculty Fellow and an assistant professor of marketing at the Wisconsin School of Business, is a recipient of the 2023 American Marketing Association’s (AMA) Marketing Research SIG Don Lehmann Award for Best Dissertation-Based Article.
Chakraborty’s early dissertation work and resulting article, “Attribute Sentiment Scoring with Online Text Reviews: Accounting for Language Structure and Missing Attributes,” looks at online restaurant reviews using Yelp data, mining text phrases for attributes of the consumer’s restaurant experience, such as the type of food ordered and its price.
Read more about Ishita’s work and award
CMO Danielle Tiedt of YouTube joins the WBS Trusted to Lead Campaign.
Danielle Tiedt, the CMO of YouTube is one of two new WSB graduates to join the school’s Trusted to Lead brand campaign. The campaign features personal stories about diverse paths into business, leadership values, and passions that act as catalysts for leaders to create something bigger than themselves. A total of eight profiles now share perspectives on what it means to be Trusted to Lead in business. Read the spotlight about Danielle Tiedt
Media Mentions
In Episode 4 of JMR’s How I Wrote ThisJoann Peck and coauthor Andrea Webb Luangrath discuss the process of bringing their 2022 paper, “Observing Product Touch: The Vicarious Haptic Effect in Digital Marketing and Virtual Reality” to fruition. Knowing the paper addressed a relevant question digital marketers were interested in plus a theoretical gap, they talk about how they pushed forward post-rejection and worked with coauthors William Hedgcock and Yixiang Xu to bring this now well-cited paper to publication.
Listen to “How I Wrote This” Episode 4: How Vicarious Touch Made it from Hibernation to Publication on Apple, Google, Spotify
Amber Epp was featured on Wisconsin Public Radio. She shared analysis of a study that looked at how same-sex couples reckon with the long-held binary of ‘bride and groom’ in America’s wedding industry, as they planned their own ceremonies and celebrations. Listen to Wisconsin researcher looked at same-sex couples navigating the disrupted wedding industry space here.
Recent Publications
Michael Johnson’s paper titled “The Influence of Corporate Social Responsibility on Stakeholders in Different Business Contexts” was accepted for publication in the Journal of Service Research. The authors report the results from a large-scale secondary dataset showing that CSR activities influence firm value through customer satisfaction and that this effect is weaker for service (vs. product) firms and stronger for B2B(vs.B2C) firms. The findings offer important implications for marketing theory and practice.
Do your customers need a hand in judging product weight when purchasing online? Joann Peck‘s research findings, published in the Journal of Retailing, can help you in creating images that increase consumers’ confidence in product evaluation. Read her article, Conveying Product Weight in Digital Media Using a Hand Image.
You can also find recent work by Joann Peck in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. In “Does your demonstration tell the whole story? How a process mindset and social presence impact the effectiveness of product demonstrations.” Utilizing the principles of mental simulation, cognitive flow, and narrative transportation, Peck and colleagues propose that when customers engage with a demonstration emphasizing the process (as opposed to the outcome), it facilitates the customers’ deep immersion into the product story. Ultimately leading to heightened purchase intentions for the showcased product(s).
Additional recent publications of note include, Yi Liu “Unintended Consequences of Advances in Matching Technologies: Information Revelation and Strategic Participation on Gig-Economy Platforms” in Management Science; Jan Heide “Business-to-Business Projects, Task Configuration, and Innovation” in the Journal of Marketing Research; and Neeraj Arora‘s “What Cookie-Based Advertising Effectiveness Fails to Measure” in Marketing Science.
Support the MLI
Foster MBA Enrollment
We need your help in recruiting future marketers! Admissions for the class of 2026 is underway. Help us spread the word about our program and bring in another phenomenal cohort of graduate students.
Connect us with colleagues and friends that are interested in an MBA. Applicants referred by alumni, board members, and friends of the MLI have their application fee taken care of by the MLI. And new this year, the referrer (you) will get a Wisconsin School of Business MLI Fleece when the referree starts their application.
Participate in our Brand Boxes. What is a Brand Box? A marketing effort where we mail a package to prospective students. It features items from hiring companies and the amazing places our alumni work along with information about the MLI and our MBA program. Primarily mailed to under-represented minorities, women, veterans, and high scoring GMAT takers. We are aiming to send 500 Brand Boxes annually. Brand Boxes are just one of the many ways Wisconsin’s MBA markets itself to stand out for prospective students.
Why should you donate items? You get your company top of mind for internship and full time recruiting by putting your product in prospects hands. Alumni that received brand boxes a decade ago can still tell you exactly what products were in them!
Sponsor or Speak at the Summit
We are seeking speakers and sponsors for the 2024 Marketing Summit. We have spaces available for both keynote speakers, who address the full audience, as well as in our three tracks – aligned with our hubs specializing in Marketing Analytics & Insights, Brand Management, and Tech Product Marketing. To speak at the Summit get in touch with Kristin.
There are sponsorship opportunities available for the 2024 Marketing Summit. Our last event sold out of leadership level sponsor spaces – so if you’re interested in the top tier we suggest you move early. Please reach out to Kristin or Christine for more information.
Give to the MLI
Making a gift to support the Marketing Leadership Institute is simple and greatly appreciated. We hope that you will consider adding us to your 2023 giving. Donations from our alumni & friends provide us with the resources to offer a breadth of opportunities for students in applied learning, site visits, professional development, conferences, scholarships and so much more. When you support the Marketing Leadership Institute you are supporting the next generation of marketers.
If you would like to discuss additional gift options please reach out.
Create Content
You can create content that can help students and prospective students learn more about marketing at UW and about marketing careers and roles at your company.
Film a brief, informal Day in the Life video for students
The goal of these videos is to demonstrate to students, especially undergraduate students, the type and range of projects, meetings, discussions, and tasks in your job as well the people you work and interact with such as internal cross-functional and external partners. Help students understand the ‘typical’ day of a Marketer in your position – or that there is no typical day. Note: these are intended for private use only. Download the Day in the Life video brief.
Interested in additional content opportunities such as social media posts/takeovers or writing an article for our blog? Please contact Christine
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