On April 1, the fifth annual Conference for Positive Marketing drew scholars and practitioners to the Lincoln Center campus to strategize on how to tap into consumer motivation for the sake of empowering and energizing these markets to create the greatest good for the world.

“Marketing strategies look at how we can influence consumers to take a certain action or change their behavior in some way,” said conference presenter Eve Rapp, PhD, an associate professor of business at Salem College.

“This conference is a forum to talk about how we can use our roles as marketers to look at societal problems and to make a positive difference.”

Rapp and her colleagues—Jaya Rapp, senior analyst of market research at Amway Corporation, and Ben Applebaum, executive creative director at Colangelo marketing agency—offered an interactive example of positive marketing through their presentation, “Using A Human-Centered Design Process to Tackle the Societal Problem of Food Waste.”

What is a human-centered design?

EVE RAPP: Human-centered design is similar to qualitative research [as opposed to quantitative research]insofar as it’s about gathering insights from the consumers themselves. It comes down to sitting with consumers, talking with them, and finding out how and why they act they way they do, or shop the way they do. For instance, [in the case of food waste,]what do you know about the issue? What would it take for you do change the way you purchase or store food?

How do marketers create behavior change in consumers around wasting food?

ER: The EPA and the USDA have called for the food industry to cut waste by 50 percent by 2030. To do this, we need to work with food manufacturers, growers, grocery stores, and other stakeholders. But all of these stakeholders are driven by consumer behavior. So, any real change has to also involve the consumer. Our session explores what we can do to make people aware of the problem of food waste, figure out what motivates their shopping choices, and then use that incentivize them to change their behavior.

Can you give an example?

ER: One of the most successful strategies in terms of battling food waste was by the French supermarket Intermarché, which ran a campaign called “Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables” to help sell the disfigured fruits and vegetables that usually get thrown away. They put a humorous spin on “ugly” fruits by talking about the “disfigured eggplant,” the “grotesque apple,” and the “failed lemon,” and in doing so let people know that these fruits and vegetables are just as good as ones that look prettier. In addition, they sold these “ugly” fruits and vegetables at a 30 percent discount. It turned out to be a very successful campaign.

How do you approach this issue?

ER: In the first part of our talk, we set the stage about food waste and why we need to care about it. Second, we’ll do a group activity to demonstrate the process of human-centered design. Finally, we talk about how to put these ideas into a marketing platform to create messages that will start changing behavior. So, [it is]a bit of an inventive approach to show the audience—as participants and as consumers—how this process would work for a larger societal problem like this.

The conference was sponsored by the Center for Positive Marketing at Fordham. Visit the conference website for more information.

Popcorn, a best-selling author and “futurist,” will share her predictions about a future shaped by the intersection of personal technologies, changing family composition, and data security.

High fashion and flawless marketing make their way to Fordham on Wednesday, Oct. 2 when Fordham Schools of Business’ Center for Positive Marketing launches its “Marketing Lessons from the C-Suite” with Tony Spring, president and COO of Bloomingdale’s. Spring will deliver a talk titled, “Inside the Brown Bag: What Makes Bloomingdale’s Bloomingdale’s.” The event, to be held at the Lincoln Center Campus’ South Lounge, promises to be a packed house.

The series will bring successful business executives from a variety of sectors to hold forth on subjects that don’t always full under the purview of their official title, said Dawn Lerman, Ph.D., associate dean of graduate business education and executive director of the center.

“Often it’s the case that students tend to look at things in the silos of which they’re studying, but every particular business function is impacted by every other business function,” said Lerman. “Marketing lessons don’t necessarily come from the marketing department, they can come from the COO, CIO, CFO, and of course the CEO—the lessons really can come from anywhere.”

The backbone of a business education often requires that business functions be taught separately, said Lerman, but curriculum must also provide perspective on how those parts come together.

The series aims to mesh these functions via the perspective of individuals who have worked their way up to the executive suite of the chief officers—”The C-suite.”

“C-suite executives view business holistically because they experience it that way firsthand,” said Lerman. “The series will present people at the top who have found ways to manage their career to get there.”

Here’s the lineup…

Tony Spring, president and COO of Bloomingdale’s will be speaking at Lincoln Center Campus on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 6 p.m. in the South Lounge.

Chris McWilton, president of U.S. Markets and former CFO of MasterCard, will be speaking at Lincoln Center Campus on Thursday, Oct. 17, 6 p.m. in McMahon 109.

Salman Amin, COO-North American Markets, S.C. Johnson and Son, will be speaking at LC on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 1:30 p.m., Room TBD.

John Osborn, President and CEO of BBDO New York will be speaking at the Rose Hill campus on Monday, Nov. 11, time and room TBD.

For more information contact Linda Purcell, 212-636-6115, [email protected].

Dawn Lerman, Ph.D., executive director of the Fordham Schools of Business’ Center for Positive Marketing, presented Amin with the center’s Cura Personalis in Positive Marketing award in recognition of his role in PepsiCo’s Performance with Purpose campaign, which has focused the firm’s goals on sustainability and healthier food choices.

“Performance with purpose is about building brands that help sustain us as individuals, and as a society. It’s also about reducing the burden put on society by modern ways of production and consumption, through investment in things like biodegradable packaging technology, or reduction of carbon emissions in the production process. And it’s about doing all of this without compromising on taste,” Lerman said.

In his keynote address, “Performance with Purpose: Creating a Sustainable Business in a Changing World,” Amin detailed three core aspects of PepsiCo’s engagement efforts with customers around the world who buy brands like Quaker Oats, Lays, and Tropicana.
Engagement needs to be direct, digital and authentic, he said. The last aspect is particularly important.

“You better say what you mean and you better mean what you say,” he said. “You have to deliver against the brand’s promise. Our challenge, as well as our opportunity, lies in our ability to make our campaigns hyperlocal and enormously relevant.”

He pointed to Gatorade as an example of a brand that had briefly lost its focus but has been revived in recent years. While it had once been mislabeled as a soft drink, it is now known as an integral part of exercise regimens. Part of the brand’s success is due to a cutting-edge social media operation that Amin said monitors online conversations related to exercise and hydration.

Above all, Amin touted change as an opportunity. Shifting global demographics will, for the first time, see people 17 and younger outnumbered by those 50 and older, he said, and an estimated 1 billion people will soon join the ranks of the middle class in Asia.

“To be part of an era in which global communication is being completely revolutionized is an opportunity that previous generations could only dream of,” he said.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a more exciting time to be in the business or in the marketing field.”

Unlike other research centers, most of which focus on the supply side of consumption — the marketers’ perspective — CPM will focus on the demand side. By examining marketing from the perspective of the consumer, CPM hopes to uphold marketing as a force for satisfying needs while also providing positive outcomes.

“Marketing is one of the main ties that binds the themes of globalization of, and social responsibility in, business,” said the center’s director, Dawn Lerman, associate professor and area chair of marketing. “Fordham’s Jesuit mission and the caliber of its business schools make the University uniquely positioned to house this type of research center and to explore these themes.”

Led by Lerman, along with Associate Professor of Marketing Marcia Flicker and Assistant Professor of Marketing Luke Kachersky, the Center seeks to be the premier resource for information on the impact of marketing on consumers and society. It already possesses the immediate advantage of harnessing the collective expertise of the marketing faculty.

Future plans include establishing an executive-in-residence program, funding research fellowships, developing a survey and index on consumer well-being, holding an annual conference and convening roundtables and seminars.

“We start from the premise that marketing exists to improve peoples’ lives,” Lerman said. “One of the issues that we can examine, for example, is how the plethora of choice has made us less-efficient decision makers.”