Cultivating a Brand Tribe (BAA Chapter Event) | 1-Day Conferences | ANA

Cultivating a Brand Tribe (BAA Chapter Event)

This event is over.

These days every successful brand is built around its tribe of core believers. People who truly embrace the brand, who follow it almost religiously and who actively advocate for it, evangelizing others into their tribe. As marketing guru Seth Godin puts it, “Today, marketing is about engaging with the tribe and delivering products and services with stories that spread.”

Sounds easy? It isn’t. Come and listen to a live panel of smart marketers who are successfully creating tribes of believers and advocates, and learn what it takes to create the kind of stories, experiences and leadership that bond a tribe together.


Agenda

Speakers:

Andrea Myers is the Vice President and Brand Director of Angel’s Envy.  Andrea brings over 16 years of award-winning beverage and alcohol industry experience to her new roles.  She also understands the unique challenges of managing a small company. During a brief agency sabbatical, she spent three years running a specialty wine shop, where she focused on education, pairings and gaining insight into the channel and distributor partnerships. Most recently, Andrea comes to Angel’s Envy from Upshot, a marketing and advertising agency where she worked for over 12 years. While she began as an intern, she was promoted to Account Manager, and then Senior Director before eventually taking the role of Vice President. With over 14 years of account management and strategy, executing national marketing plans, she’s worked with spirit brands such as Absolut, Captain Morgan, Crown Royal, Don Julio, Jim Beam and Wild Turkey.

Matthew Newell is the Manager, Digital Marketing at StateFarm, a Fortune 50 company and the #1 auto insurer since 1942, managing StateFarm.com and branded digital content.  Matthew spent the first decade of his career at BMG/Sony Music, marketing artists ranging from Dave Matthews Band to OutKast to Foo Fighters. He later served as a Creative Director for a boutique ad agency and then Director of Marketing at a Gannett-owned NBC television station.

Christina Bottis leads the product marketing strategy for CareerBuilder’s B2B products as the company evolves into a premiere HR SaaS organization. As the Director of Product Marketing, her focus spans across go-to-market strategy, messaging, positioning, sales enablement and product evangelism.  Christina has 10 years of digital marketing experience working with B2B brands.

Aleksandra Efimova is founder of Russian Pointe and Growing Through Arts, Chicago-based arts-oriented brands that provide elegant dance products and inspire dancers to lead extraordinary lives. Alongside her entrepreneurship and company leadership, Ms. Efimova is dedicated to the artistic and Russian-American communities. She chairs the Moscow Committee of Chicago Sister Cities International and Illinois Senator Mark Kirk’s Eastern European Advisory Board; serves as vice president, Midwest, of the U.S.-Russia Chamber of Commerce; serves on multiple boards and committees for arts, education and business; and frequently hosts events promoting the arts, business development and international relations.

Moderator:

Matt Wszolek is the Senior Executive of Marketing & Media at the University of Illinois.  Matt has been leading strategic marketing direction for some of the most powerful brands in Chicago for 15+ years. He first spent 10 years in the Chicago Cubs organization where he oversaw all sales/sponsorship activation along with all the clubs marketing and branding initiatives. After launching his own successful consulting firm in 2010 to help others achieve more efficient ad buys and higher returns on investment, he gave it up to pursue his lifelong dream of helping his Alma Mater the University of Illinois, where he currently oversees all strategic marketing, advertising, and communication decisions in support of the Illinois brand in Chicago and around the country.   In this role he successfully launched the first university brand campaign in Chicago since 1942 last year and many of his creative activation ideas have produced national acclaim including his “Illini for Life” promotion which won the Gold Medal at the 2013 National Association of Collegiate Marketing awards for best revenue generation promotion.