I participated in the “Marketing Meets Wall Street 2″ conference in Boston today. An amazing gathering of the academics focusing on measuring the business impact of marketing. As the title suggests, this was the second time that the conference has been run (I was at the inaugural event at Emory in January 2009) and this event is every bit as good as the first – which is high praise indeed.
Being surrounded by such an accomplished group of academics – many of whom have quite literally written the book on marketing finance – is a stimulating environment. The thing I find particularly refreshing is the rigor with which the papers are assessed and discussed. There is a requirement that each paper have:
- A research hypothesis that has face validity
- A research approach that is rigorous
- A set of findings that advances knowledge in some material way
I cannot help but contrast the quality of the academic papers with the lamentable standards of most commercial “white papers” that companies put out.
Natalie Mizik did a fantastic job in presenting our paper on the “Value Implications of Brand Strategy in Mergers” and it seems to have been very well received. There were so many other high points of the conference that I cannot single one out for special mention – but I do intend to make a future post about the thoughts that the conference have prompted about how to improve the business credibility of marketing.
