Highlights from the Practitioner Panel at the 2019 Summer AMA Conference
Attendees at the 2019 Summer AMA Conference were privileged to hear from an esteemed panel of marketing practitioners from leading companies across various industries in an interactive forum. The panelists discussed how practitioners and academics can collaborate to ensure that emerging research can be integrated into practice. Academics learned some valuable tips on how to make their research relevant and accessible to marketing practitioners.
The panel was moderated by Jim Mourey, Summer AMA Co-Chair and Assistant Professor of Marketing, DePaul University. Panelists were:
- Maggee Bond, Innovation Executive, Research – Salesforce
- Katie Malone, Director of Data Science – Civics Analytics
- Jamee Pearlstein, Senior Brand Manager – Blue Bunny, KraftHeinz
- Aaron Robinson, Marketing Science Partner – Facebook
- Ryan Elder, Associate Professor of Marketing – BYU Marriott
The practitioners noted the eternal problem: too little time, too much research. Valuable takeaways included the following:
- Make sure the managerial relevance is clearly highlighted when preparing a summary of your article; “when I look at research, I look for the nugget,” said Jamee Pearlstein. Ask yourself: How can it change the way practitioners approach a problem?
- Seek out alternative forms of media featuring recent research; Katie Malone mentioned podcasts as an effective way to reach busy practitioners. Anything that can explain the core takeaways of research in a conversational manner is useful. Other options are webinars and infographics.
- Content curators: Pearlstein summed up the problem succinctly: “I don’t know what I don’t know.” If practitioners don’t know what research is out there, they can’t seek it out. All panelists agreed that they would be interested in a curation of summaries on a given topic.
Marilyn Stone is Director, Academic Communities and Journals, American Marketing Association.
