Beyond Trends: The New World of Brand Management & Marketing Strategy

The American Marketing Association (AMA) of Orlando presents “Beyond Trends: The New World of Brand Management & Marketing Strategy,” by Futurists and Kedge Principals Yvette Montero Salvatico and Frank Spencer. Check out their recent piece in Fast Company.

Managing brands in the 21st century requires new approaches and mindsets. The growing fluidity of the global economy, the dramatic disruptions of the digital revolution, and the radical empowerment of individuals through mobile computing and micro-manufacturing have combined to create a challenging future landscape for brand management and marketing strategies.

In an attempt to make sense of this growing volatility and complexity, organizations have turned to monitoring trends in their external environment, subscribing to research reports and maintaining their own “top 10 trends list.” Unfortunately, this strategy was most effective in an era when your only competitors were from within your industry, lifetime brand loyalty was the norm, and globalization simply meant cheaper goods at Wal-Mart.
Trends tend to keep us connected to what is immediate and surrounding us, but fail to stretch us to see what is changing, what is emerging, and what is possible. We must move beyond trends to recognize a new world of guiding narratives driven by values, implications, systems, design, and aspirations. These narratives are more than just stories, they help us to explain the world in which the trends exist, why different trends have not emerged, what new trends and patterns might arise, and how designing new outcomes can change our dominant culture and trajectory.

Join us to learn how to leverage the tools of Strategic Foresight to move past trends and discover the future of marketing strategy.

Learning Objectives

As a result of this session participants will:
• Expand their field of vision around the possibilities of the future so that they make better decisions in the present.
• Become more adaptive, resilient and transformational, adopting the cycle of “learn-unlearn – relearn” as a critical part of their organization’s culture.
• Identify the narratives that will completely reframe the future of marketing strategy.

Workplace Application

Futures thinking has been identified as one of the critical skill sets for businesses in the 21st century. We are used to depending on hindsight to run our businesses, schools, and countries, but this can no longer be our practice in a rapidly changing world. Our leaders must develop the skill of identifying emerging issues, building alternative scenarios, and creating transformational futures. The power of foresight, however, lies not primarily in its tools and methods but in its ability to alter perspectives and create stories of change. With an integrated approach, firms can create narratives of the future that have the ability to truly alter their organizational culture and redefine brand management for the complex landscape of the 21st century. It is through the creation of a future-empowered culture that processes are transformed, innovation is inspired, and targets are surpassed.

Act quickly-there are only 25 seats available for this event!