The last A.C. Nielsen Center External Advisory Board Meeting took place on April 7-8, 2022. The last one, you ask?
Not to worry. The A.C. Nielsen Center is not disappearing or going away, but this was the last meeting before the center becomes part of the Wisconsin School of Business’ new Marketing Leadership Institute, and formally changes to the A.C. Nielsen Hub for Marketing Analytics and Insights.
The Institute will merge Wisconsin’s established marketing knowledge centers, the A.C. Nielsen Center for Marketing Analytics and Insights, and the Center for Brand and Product Management. As well as add an additional leadership in the area of technology product marketing. Each discipline will have its own hub in the new institute, laying out three defined marketing paths for students to follow as they begin their MBAs.
With this change, the structure of the A.C. Nielsen External Advisory Board will also evolve to meet the needs of the new Marketing Leadership Institute. Stay tuned for updates on that.
The EAB meeting included:
- Updates from Malcolm Thorne on CDIS’ N+1 initiative with Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau, Chair of the Computer Science department.
- A faculty research presentation from assistant professor Remi Daviet on AI and advertising.
- The industry discussion facilitated by Lisa Gudding was a thought-provoking session, and
- A conversation about how academia and industry can partner on research also sparked many ideas.
Of course, the most exciting part was the student presentations and what the Nielsenites-in-training have been up to this past academic year. Second-year students presented on the semester-long Marketing Consulting Practicum:
- Krystal Tran and Mackenzie Jahn shared their experience conducting a real-world exploration of the Gen Z user group for Microsoft.
- Bilal Usman and Alyssa Spiel talked about their Kimberly -Clark project uncovering how micro-trends are reshaping generation behaviors and habits and impacting family care paper products.
- Jason Lee spoke about his Clorox project creating consumer profiles for a niche product offering and big data toolkit recommendations.
Other notable student presentations included first-years Joseph Morris and Alec Rockwood, giving us a high-level overview of how they tackled a case problem earning them 1st place in the Graduate Marketing Network Case Competition. Beyond marketing research-focused student presentations, we also heard from Logan Butson. He detailed his new mission-focused business Unframed which he launched through the Weinert Applied Ventures in Entrepreneurship (WAVE) class.
The highest student accolade, the Janet Christopher/Bob Drane Award, was awarded to Amelie von Below, a well-deserved recognition! The award celebrates a second year student that has excelled not only academically but has made notable contributions to their cohort.
The last EAB dinner had a celebratory atmosphere.
Still, the acknowledgment that this would be the final gathering of this amazing group made the evening emotion filled. There were tears by a few, nostalgic stories from the early days of the center, laughter over classes taken, and trips made, but more than anything, there was gratitude. As each board member received an A.C. Nielsen Center book and addressed the room, they all shared their immense appreciation for the center that launched their careers, made their careers, or allowed them to see others’ careers flourish. As a proud Badger and now a WSB alumna, I’m honored to be a part of such an intelligent and highly involved group of professionals that will continue building the center as it now takes a new form. On, Wisconsin!
