We have ambitious goals for 2024 and beyond. We are driven by our vision—to elevate the CMO to their rightful place in the boardroom, by making marketing accountable. In 2023, we gained traction. 2024 is about making it happen.
We’ve just had a very successful Winter Summit. We’re always nervous about whether a virtual summit will work. And this one did! We had to cram a great deal of content into a relatively short time. But people stayed—almost all participants attended throughout.
All credit to the presenters and panelist who covered and debated a wide variety of topics – from measuring creativity to global brand evaluation standards, to marketing AI, accountability for software and our upcoming sponsorship book. We had excellent feedback on all of them. The standouts were Edgar Baum on brand evaluation, which gave us lots of new ideas, and Nobu Fukawa on the digital twin revolution, which was polarizing, as anything about AI should be. Thanks to Kantar for sponsoring the event!
We plan to greatly expand our membership. We’ve already made a start bringing on new members in 2024, including Coca-Cola and Mondelez International. We are in serious discussions with others. We are adding a new Hot Pursuit team for finance professionals. We are growing our executive and management team and are delighted to welcome Pam Forbus as Vice Chair.
In 2023, we launched five new priority initiatives. The goal for 2024 is to deliver first outputs from each of them. We are adding a sixth—Measuring Sustainability, led by Neil Bendle.
We are powering ahead with our existing core projects. We have six MMAP metric assessments and certifications underway and are doing our first for a software methodology. The Universal Marketing Dictionary is expanding its core group, adding expert teams and also starting to use AI. The ISO Plenary is scheduled for London in June. At it we will be conducting a review and updating the current TC289 Brand Valuation Standards. We’ve launched a new Financial Value of Brands video series.
We are initiating new forms of interaction, beginning with a webinar series, Making Marketing Accountable. The first webinar will be run by Sponsorium on the 10th of April. Its title is The Shortest Route to ROI is ROO. Registration is free!
We are introducing additional benefits for members. We’ve just launched our first member discount program with Proof Analytics. Members can give webinars and attend them for free, sponsor our summits and events, contribute to articles and white papers on marketing accountability best practices and trending topics, and produce video content for The MASB Channel on YouTube.
We started to raise our profile in 2023 with the huge success of our Bud Light “Brand Divorce” articles and the global uptake by academics of the course materials. In 2024 we will write more articles on topical measurement and accountability related subjects. We will communicate the importance of ISO brand evaluation standards, “the golden ticket for marketing” with Erich Decker-Hoppen as global communications leader. We will relentlessly pursue greater social media coverage.
MASB exists by and for its members. This is a collective effort. We urge you all to come up with ideas and participate!
Joanna Seddon