Sidney Levy had become fascinated with marketing. A trained behavioral scientist, he suspected that branding went beyond soap, steel and candy bars. He’d been researching the social aspects of marketing since the 1940s and saw the field’s vast potential. In 1961, he began teaching marketing classes at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Levy’s first year at Kellogg was an exciting time for marketing, with a booming economy, booming consumerism and a baby boom in the years after WWII. The recently invented color TV was brought into living rooms across America, carrying with it hours of previously nonexistent ad space. A large audience was not only reachable but willing to be reached; marketing and advertising became more important than ever for big business. From 1950 to 1960, annual advertising expenditures in the U.S. quadrupled from

It was also an exciting time for the Kellogg school, which was transitioning from a traditional faculty and marketing program to a school that included scholars from outside the field. One such scholar was an economist named Philip Kotler.��

In 1962, Kotler was recruited to Kellogg and told by the school that he could choose to teach either economics or marketing. After a visit with Levy and other members of the faculty, Kotler says his choice was clear: “I chose marketing.”

“That was one of the attractive things in meeting the faculty and deciding whether to join Northwestern: meeting Sid Levy,” Kotler says. “Sid and I hit it off early. He’s a very charming and interesting man; an original mind, fresh insights into things.” 

Kotler, like Levy, did not have a marketing degree. He had studied economics under Nobel laureates such as , and . While Kotler didn’t have a marketing background, he—like Levy—did have a unique viewpoint and a desire to refine and expand the field. 

Fifty-five years after joining Kellogg, Kotler is affectionately known by marketers as the “father of modern marketing.” Over those five and a half decades, Kotler, Levy and other faculty members at Kellogg studied, explained and thought about marketing in ways no one had before. “We actually wanted to hire people who were not trained in marketing,” Kotler says. “Not that it was a prejudice. It was that we would go further if we had different social sciences in our group.”

“Both Kotler and Levy had a profound influence on marketing as we know it today. Levy did pioneering things in the domain of branding, culture and the realm of the symbolic. Kotler must be credited for having established marketing as an MBA and boardroom institution. It could be argued that Kotler is marketing’s best marketer.”
– Markus Giesler

That diversification of ideas spread throughout academia and, soon after, the marketing business world. Levy, who ran Kellogg’s doctoral program for 16 years, says the influence of Kellogg’s golden era stretched far and wide: His first three student graduates became the heads of marketing departments at the Sloan School of Management (); the Haas School of Business (John Myers) and the Wharton School (). Kotler’s textbooks are used in universities across the world. More than 3 million copies have been sold, and they’ve been translated into 20 languages.

In 2017, the ��������� turned 80, Kotler turned 86 and Levy turned 96. Though Kotler and Levy have not formally worked together in two decades, their impact on the marketing industry reverberates, and their bond as lifelong friends holds strong. 

Changing Marketing, Changing Society

In the age of post-WWII explosive spending, marketing was a narrow field that focused on practice sans theory. Businesses spent money but didn’t know what kind of ROI they were getting on campaigns or what went on in the mind of the customer, nor could they properly segment customer bases.

But for each of these issues, it seemed Kotler and Levy had an answer—or at least a series of edifying questions to ask. The duo brought unique concepts and ways of thinking to marketing, just as brought to behavioral economics. Take, for example, Kotler’s assertion that marketing is a branch of economics, a thought that likely drew some cross looks in the 1950s. Now, Kotler’s assertion is accepted and practiced by academics and executives. “The field of economics is becoming very rich because of what marketers have been studying for 100 years,” Kotler says. 

In his early years at Kellogg, Kotler spent a lot of time reading extant marketing textbooks. They were disappointing. Most books described what a salesman, wholesaler or advertiser would do in a given situation, but none were based on data. None had analytical models. The books were anecdotal, dry and not well-researched.

“The whole idea of being analytical and trying to get explanations of a phenomenon rather than just describing things descriptively was in my mindset,” Kotler says. “I immediately said that we needed a textbook in marketing which was based on four foundations: economics, organizational theory, consumer behavior theory and mathematics.” His bookwas a big risk, he says, because all the work could have collapsed if professors didn’t respond well.

Kotler was pleasantly surprised as professors not only responded well to his 1967 textbook, but many lauded it as the best book on marketing they had read. It was adopted in classrooms across the U.S., then the world. Fifty years later, the book remains in print and is in its 15th edition. 

Levy was doing his own intellectual heavy lifting. His landmark 1959 paper titled was the first to say that marketing goes beyond simply selling practical merchandise—it also sells symbols. Anyone with a pair of Nike sneakers or a Gucci bag likely knows this now, but at the time Levy’s concept was novel. Ever the social scientist, Levy argued that marketers needed to consider the personal and social meanings behind what people buy, the diversity of spending and “the recognition of modern goods as essentially psychological things which are symbolic of personal attributes and psychological goals,” as the paper says.

“This seems obvious if we grant the importance of symbols—but not all businessmen do, of course, and that has accounted for many failures in sales,” Levy wrote. “Greater attention to consumers’ modes of thought will give marketing management and research increased vitality, and, in turn, add to its own practical and symbolic merits.”

In addition to advancing the idea of brand symbols and brand image, Levy is credited by many with coining the term “brand.” Kotler says Levy first used the word at a conference where David Ogilvy, founder of Ogilvy and Mather, “picked up” the word from him. “So Sid didn’t get credit for inventing that,” Kotler says. “But many people have picked up ideas from Sid and used them as their own.” No matter, as Levy’s groundbreaking work on branding is in print for all to see. 

While each man did important solo work, perhaps their most formidable breakthroughs came in tandem. In 1969, Levy and Kotler co-authored a paper in the ���������’s Journal of Marketing titled Levy and Kotler laid out the idea that marketing was about more than goods and services, it was about places, people and ideas. Instead of simply focusing on soap, toothbrushes and televisions, they wanted to expand marketing to cover cities, ideas and policies, too. 

In 1969, the article was presented at the ���������’s Summer Educators’ Conference. “I regarded it as an assertion of the universal application of marketing activities to all individuals and organizations,” Levy says. “I had already done marketing research work since 1946 for numerous kinds of individuals and organizations—[such as] politicians, entertainers, hospitals—the article was a natural extension of the idea of marketing.”

“Quite independently of one another, Phil and Sid had as big an impact on marketing thought as anyone else I know. Through their joint work on broadening the concept of marketing, they further shaped how we even conceive of the field in the first place. … The atmospherewas special and made more special by the ways in which everyone stimulated the department’s intellectual goals.”
– Gerald Zaltmane

When this paper was published, Kotler and Levy polled of some of the top academic economists on whether they were in favor of broadening the concept of marketing or if they wanted it to remain defined as the sale of goods and services. “Marketing will either take on a broader social meaning or remain a narrowly defined business activity,” they wrote in the paper. The response to the poll was overwhelmingly positive and a broader definition of marketing was born.

What Kotler considers to be his and Levy’s biggest idea was that of “demarketing.” The 1971 paper, titled explained that there are some products that are either not good for people or are in short supply. These products need to be rationed, they wrote.

“So everything that’s opposite of building up the demand is to take down a demand,” Kotler says. “Demarketing is the science of reducing the demand for something, such as the demand for arrests or for using water very carelessly when there’s a shortage.”

In another 1971 paper—this one by Kotler and Gerald Zaltman, a fellow Kellogg staff member who is now the Joseph C. Wilson Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School—titled the phrase “social marketing”—now also known by many as cause marketing—was born. The paper showed how marketing analysis, planning and control could help solve societal problems such as safe driving and family planning.  

There’s no measurement of how far any of Levy or Kotler’s ideas have spread through marketing, but their pervasiveness is undeniable. 

“It Was Not Just Two Professors.”

Ideas from Kotler and Levy laid the groundwork for modern marketing, but the ideas also helped build the foundation for a 55-year friendship. “We had a family relationship, too,” Kotler says. “It was not just two professors.”

True to themselves, the friendship was far bigger than marketing. When they first met, Levy and Kotler quickly discovered that their parents had owned retail businesses not far from each other in Chicago. Outside of campus, they spent time together with their families. Levy’s daughter babysat for Kotler’s young children. Kotler fondly remembers he and his wife, Nancy, sitting in Levy’s living room, pulling up a seat to a big table and finding out what Levy’s two children had learned that day. 

From left to right: Kotler, Levy and Nancy Kotler in Levy’s living room.

At work, Kotler and Levy would go to lunch and talk about anything—music, art, forms of government, health care. These big conversations were often not about marketing, but Kotler says they helped jar loose some of his and Levy’s biggest ideas. Levy was—like Kotler—also a “cosmopolitan type,” unafraid to broach any subject. 

“Sid and I may have talked a lot about Karl Marx in the sense of there was a proletariat, there are poor people and there are people who are super rich,” he says, touching on a controversial topic in the years after McCarthyism and the Red Scare. “We wondered, ‘What is a good society?’ We would talk about questions like that. ‘What makes for happiness in life?’ and so on and so forth. We were just free-thinker types.”

Often, their conversations would lead to action. Kotler recalls a lunch where he and Levy got out their pens and paper and worked out what an American single-payer health care system might look like. They weren’t satisfied with improving marketing: Levy and Kotler wanted to answer life’s biggest questions.  

In 1991, Levy retired from Kellogg. He remained an active member of the faculty until 1997, but then he and his wife moved to Arizona where the weather is a bit warmer than the snowy, windy conditions that tend to denude the trees on Lake Michigan’s shores. Ever the workman, Levy’s “retirement” turned into his chairmanship of the University of Arizona’s marketing department at the Eller College of Management. Now, at 96, he continues to live on Arizona’s campus and works as the Coca-Cola Distinguished Professor of Marketing.

Kotler, who still teaches at Kellogg but is mulling retirement in 2018, laughs when mentioning Levy’s attempt at retirement. “You think he’s retired, but he went from Northwestern to that other place,” Kotler says with an air of disbelief. Perhaps he just wanted to go somewhere warmer where his wife could have a garden full of plants, Kotler says. But listening to Kotler’s voice, one can sense his belief that he and Levy could have had more conversations, answered more big questions and made marketing even broader if Levy had stayed. 

Dealing with Disagreement

While the two men now see each other less often, Levy returns to Kellogg every two years—most recently in May 2017—to visit Kotler and Kellogg’s marketing students. During a 2015 visit on his 94th birthday, Levy gave a talk titled “A Theory of the Brand.” Levy discussed his belief that branding is the central concept of marketing. Unsurprisingly, a conversation broke out. Kotler stood up and disagreed with Levy, expressing his belief that marketing itself is the central concept and branding is only a piece of the puzzle. 

This type of disagreement has not happened often between the two—especially publicly—as their bond prevents odious comments from escaping the mouth of either. Kotler says he would never disparage Levy, but they disagreed from time to time. However, their friendship was not one that depended on agreement. They could push each other without taking it personally.  

“Their classic paper, ‘Broadening the Concept of Marketing,’ has led marketing departments at business schools to seek faculty with training in basic disciplines such as economics and psychology. This has had an enormous impact on marketing practice, helping it to move up the corporate ladder and now reside in the C-suite.”
– Alice Tybout

“We may disagree but it was with the best of intentions,” Kotler says, reflecting back on the 2015 meeting. “If I remember, we had the faculty listening to Sid talk and present a view and something in me said, ‘I would think differently about that.’ That was not to be cited as a typical thing between us. Most of the time we just enjoyed each other’s viewpoints.”

Levy recalls the humor of the event: “Actually, the one time we met at Kellogg a couple of years ago and he said he disagreed with me about what I had said about the priority of grand branding, I just said, ‘Philip, I am not going to disagree with you publicly,’ and that ended the session, with laughter from the audience,” Levy says. “I just meant I didn’t want to embarrass him by explaining why he was wrong.

“But we are good friends,” Levy continues. “Intellectual shades of difference don’t affect that. I have always loved and admired Philip and Nancy.”

Pushing the Boundaries of Marketing

From the time Levy and Kotler first shook hands 55 years ago to present day, marketing has expanded larger than anyone—Levy and Kotler aside—ever imagined. Levy and Kotler’s admiration for and conversation with each other played a big role in pushing them and the industry forward. Each wanted marketing to become bigger, but also moral and ethical at its core.

“Sid and I were always concerned about making marketing a good field, a field that people could be proud of,” Kotler says. “If I said, ‘I’m a marketer,’ people might say, ‘You’re trying to sell me something.’ And they always have stories of bad companies and bad selling. We wanted to make it a field that actually should enrich lives. The best definition we used to use was marketing’s aim is to raise the standard of living of a whole community, to give people higher aspirations and higher capabilities.”

This aim strikes at the heart of why Levy and Kotler wanted to expand marketing: It needed to become larger to be used for a greater purpose. While marketers should keep the best of the old tactics, Kotler says marketing is a field where professionals must always evolve and grow, just as he and Levy did. If a CEO came up to Kotler and asked him to sign the 1967 version of Marketing Management, adding that he still uses it in business today, Kotler says he’d look the CEO in the eye and tell him “you’re doomed to fail.” There’s always a new idea, always fresh knowledge, always something to expand upon.

Levy agrees, saying there’s still room to grow in a field pregnant with potential: “Despite all that has happened since WWII, which is tremendous, there is still a long way to go for people to learn about marketing and how to engage in it for greater benefit.”

Kotler and Levy were always forward thinkers looking for that greater benefit. During Kellogg’s golden era, Kotler says it was especially helpful to have each other.

“I like that island of social scientists,” Kotler says, counting off a list of professors at Kellogg and their differing specialties—anthropology, economics, social science—all with a focus on pushing the boundaries on marketing. “We even began to forget we were anything else. I didn’t do that much economics initially in the classical theory point of view; I was a social scientist. By the way, I went back to the University of Chicago for an extra year to bone up on more social science, so Sid was a major influence on my thinking.”

Levy says the atmosphere at Kellogg during his days of tenure were “remarkably familial.”

“We did not suffer the emotional divisions that some schools have among their partisan thinkers,” he says. “Our quantitative, qualitative and managerial groups were amiable, congenial and discussed in outspoken but friendly ways. We had a picnic at the lakefront every spring and a party at the Levy house every fall. Together, we built the eminence of Kellogg School’s Department of Marketing.”

When Kotler speaks about the golden era of Kellogg and his work with Levy in expanding the definition of marketing, he becomes reflective and pauses.

“You know, let me give you a little insight that I just realized myself: Maybe what we felt was marketing was too narrow for us. Our interests were so broad, we had to broaden it,” he says with a laugh. “In other words, ironically we did this for our own sake. We wanted to be thinking about bigger issues and the field was narrow. Broadening was our answer.”

Kotler and Levy smile upon their days of broadening marketing, even now across the broad expanse between them. “If I’m not too late for your meeting with Philip, please give him my regards,” Levy says from Arizona. Kotler laughs when he hears from his friend and partner, 1,700 miles away. “Sid’s a great guy and I’m looking forward to seeing him when he comes.”

Learn more about Philip Kotler and his research.

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Studies using Glassdoor data have found links between poorly 
rated companies and corporate fraud, and in-house research has confirmed the existence of a gender pay gap and the impact of college 
major on perpetuating said gap. 

Marketing News spoke to , Glassdoor’s director of corporate communications, about site features and getting the most out of 
your Glassdoor experience.

Q: What’s fair game when you are reviewing an employer?

A: First of all, let me just set the scene. Unlike other companies, on Glassdoor we require people to give a full picture of what it’s really like to work at a company, which means they have to enter pros and cons. No workplace, just like no relationship, no apartment, nor any bike is perfect. There are always areas where things are going well and areas that need improvement. 

Every review goes through a robust review process. We take our data integrity incredibly seriously. What I mean by that is when people share a review, it goes through both a technological review and a human touch review. We have a real team of human moderators read reviews.

We want to empower employees to leave constructive reviews that are helpful to others to get a good look at what it is like to work at a company. People are empowered to leave their opinions, period. You can talk about what you think of the CEO. You can talk about what you think of your team, the work, the hours. You can talk about the commute. You can talk about things that you don’t like or need improvement, and you must give your opinion. What you’re not allowed to do is reveal facts about a company’s product roadmap. You cannot state things that are not true. You can state opinions. You can call out your CEO by name, or other public-facing executives. You cannot call out Sally in the next cubicle and talk negatively about her. We believe that goes beyond helping somebody find a job or company.   

Q: How do you put the ratings in perspective?

A: We want to empower our users to do the research and determine for themselves. If you work at a company with a 2.0 rating, then a 3.5 company may be really good. But if you work at a 4.3 and then you go to a 3.5 company, you may view that as bad. For some perspective, of the 700,000 companies that are featured on Glassdoor with content, the average company is a 3.3. 

You should read reviews and determine for yourself. See what people have to say about it. It’s not just a rating alone, which is why people need to write a review when rating a company. We find that most Glassdoor readers form opinions after reading about six to seven reviews. 

Q: Some companies that are huge have hundreds of reviews. Smaller companies might only have a handful. What do you think is a good sample size to get a sense of what a company is actually like?

A: There isn’t a do-or-die algorithm. It depends on everyone. However, if you are applying to a very large company, it could be helpful to expect and see more reviews, obviously. And actually small and medium-size businesses with fewer than 1,000 employers make up more than half of all employers in the U.S. labor economy. If you see 10 reviews at a company, but they only have 500 employees, that may be enough for you to get a sense of what it’s like to work there.  

The reviews on Glassdoor are a great added data point to really understand the company, but it shouldn’t end there. You should also be reaching out to friends, family, coworkers and people on social networks who work at the company to get greater insights. 

Q: What about people who are not actively looking for new jobs? What is their incentive to review their employer on Glassdoor?

A: The incentive for them is to get unlimited access to Glassdoor. We have what we call a give-to-get model, which means we ask our users to share a review or one piece of content, like a salary report, once a year. We believe that’s a fair ask. Even if you’re happily employed, when you want to go for salary negotiations, you should be using a site like Glassdoor to see what fair market pay is for your title, years of experience and where you live. You should use a tool like Know Your Worth, which allows you to calculate what you should be earning based on where you live, your employer, years of experience, your title and specialty. 

Workplace transparency is only going to increase. You’re helping others find a job that could be the right fit for them and you’re actually giving feedback to your employer. We have tens of thousands of employers who use our free employer account as an added data point to help them understand near real-time employee feedback at organizations. We hear from Salesforce, Facebook, Starbucks and a bunch of other companies across all industries that they use Glassdoor to gauge real-time sentiment. 

Q: Are there commonalities among the best employers or the worst employers in terms of what comes up during reviews?

A: Yes, there is. Each year we publish a list of the best places to work according to employees themselves. When we analyze this, the common themes among the best places to work are very clear. No. 1, what employees love about working at these very highly rated companies is that there is a mission-driven company culture. That means decisions they make, improvements they make, things that they want to do that help the business are all aligned to the mission. That makes people understand why they are doing what they are doing and that’s empowering. 

No. 2, people love working at companies with [further] career opportunities. Not only does it mean you like the job, but it means that if you want to stay with the company, there is actually a clear path for career opportunities. That’s great. It means you can go on to learn new skills, you can get promoted and you can bolster your salary, too. 

The third thing that really resonates in terms of a theme among highly rated companies is people love working for employers where senior leaders are clearly communicating to their workforces in the short term and the long term. That often means they are finding ways that cross time zones or markets. 

What resonates at lower-rated companies is the exact inverse. People are often working for companies where they just don’t know what the point is, the company changes its mission or its focus every day. They feel like there’s a lack of career opportunities and career growth, so they feel stuck. They are not hearing from anyone on what the vision is, so they don’t really know why they’re doing what they’re doing. 

Q: Is it dangerous to log-in to Glassdoor and just check out salaries for a position without looking at anything else? Do jobseekers focus solely on salaries at their peril?

A: No, the No. 1 reason people visit us is to search for the latest jobs. The next two reasons are to research salaries, followed by company research—what it’s really like to work there. It’s not a bad thing for anyone to come to Glassdoor just to research salaries. What we don’t recommend is applying to a job purely based on salary. In fact, the research shows that salary is a leading factor that people consider before determining where to work, but is actually not a leading factor when it comes to what keeps them engaged and satisfied in the long term.

Q: Any recommended do’s and don’ts for leaving a review?

A: In terms of the do’s, give a full picture of what’s working well and what needs improvement. Make your review current. Give people a fresh perspective on what it’s like to work there right now. Talk about some of your favorite moments. Give concrete examples; people love that. Be specific in your role.

Q: Glassdoor also posts open jobs. How does the aggregator work? Are these jobs only available through Glassdoor?

A: We do feature all of the available online jobs now. Here in U.S., there are just over 5 million, and that’s consistent with what the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out. Yes, there is still a small percentage of jobs [posted by] people who will put “help wanted” signs in the window of their businesses. We have the same jobs as other major job sites. It’s the same technology for how we get them. Whether it’s LinkedIn or Indeed, we’re able to work with employers or scrape job sites and use various feeds. 

Q: Is there any special bonus to job searching through Glassdoor?

A: Yes. Unlike job boards, we feature a split view of our jobs. Data has shown us that jobseekers find this more engaging. On the left-hand side, you’ll see all of the latest jobs, one on top of another. You’ll even see all of the estimated salaries for each job, which no other site offers. On the right-hand side, you’ll see the job description with all of our great employee-generated content underneath. So you can instantly read reviews from employees at the company.

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“We’re in a crowded category. We’re 
not a huge brand. We don’t have 
$10 million to spend on media, so we have to grab attention.” 

That’s the unvarnished rationale offered by , director of brand strategy and mission at baby food company , to justify the company’s latest eyebrow-raising campaign, “Do Your Part(ner).” Equal parts shocking and suggestive, the campaign delves into the very real issues of stress and fatigue that plague new parents. It also happens to embrace a line of thinking that Fiore finds deeply funny.

“A baby food brand wants you to 
have more sex to have more babies to help the bottom line. I think that’s hilarious,” she says.

The seeds for “Do Your Part(ner)” were planted two years ago when Plum Organics launched a separate initiative, “,” which was meant to reflect the raw reality of raising a newborn. The campaign conveyed that it’s an amazing time to grow as a person and a family, but there are also many challenges that create a lot of negative feelings people are often afraid to express. Plus, there’s a ton of messaging about parenthood that can make first-timers feel like poor providers.

The insight that Plum Organics gained with “Parenting Unfiltered” was that new parents are guilt-ridden, Fiore says. “There’s this constant sense of falling short because of our Instagram culture and everything that’s out there.” 

The resounding success of “Parenting Unfiltered” convinced Fiore’s team to continue with the theme for their next big campaign. They decided to go where no baby food company had gone before: the bedroom.

It was a big risk, but one that suggested the possibility of a big reward. Or, as Fiore says, “If we do this tastefully, tactfully and in a way that is really insight-driven, we definitely have a green light to start this conversation. And it’s great for the brand. It’s memorable. It’s ownable. It’s quote-unquote emote-able.”

Action

The project began by polling parents about their relationships through a survey developed on the advice of their PR firm, . What they found confirmed their suspicions that, for many new parents, intimacy is a concern. Seventy percent of millennial parents, for instance, said they feel guilty when they’re away from their child for a night out with their partner, while nearly 70% of all parents with a significant other talk about their kids the majority of the time they’re alone together. More than one-third of parents reported the thing they do most in their bed besides sleeping is catching up on news or social media.

Using that data, Plum Organics patterned a digital campaign to address these pent-up feelings.

“The idea was to have a celebrity go from room to room narrating an experience that we’re all so familiar with of what really happens behind closed doors when you’re a parent in the evening,” with a playful non-shaming tone, Fiore says. 

Through their agency of record, , they were able to bring aboard actress

“On the long list of what your 
children need, parents who attend to 
their relationship as adults and as a 
couple should feature prominently,” she says in the video. “This is not about adding another thing to your list. This is about giving yourself the permission to care about yourself.”

After going through all the campaign content, viewers were asked to take a pledge affirming they would prioritize their own well-being and relationship health. Visitors who click the pledge are then directed through a series of prompts that help them carve out personal time in their life before contacting their significant others via e-mail to make a similar commitment.  

Finally, Plum Organics enlisted a network of influencers, including mommy bloggers and relationship experts to personalize the experiences shown to be common in the survey 
and reflected in the campaign content. This brought a deeper layer of realness to the message that was lacking at the brand level.

Result

Timed to launch around Valentine’s Day, the campaign went live on Feb. 7. Surpassing the team’s expectations, it generated 11.8 million total video views, widespread industry recognition and overwhelmingly positive feedback from parents on social media. Sample comments ranged from, “this is so us!” to, “best ad ever, I’ll be sure to remember it in six months when I start buying my now-newborn food.” 

The pledge, which took several 
steps to finish, had “incredible completion rates,” Fiore says. More 
than two-thirds of visitors who started 
it completed it, and more than 
one-third of all pledge-takers finished 
it more than once.

“There are obviously lots of conversion statistics, but it’s also nice to use your marketing dollars to make somebody’s life a tiny bit better as opposed to just sell a product,” Fiore says. 

The provocative campaign also proved to be largely free from controversy. While “Do Your Part(ner)” was being developed, Fiore’s team agonized over how to present the content in a way that was suggestive without being offensive.

“I was worried about striking the 
right balance,” Fiore says. “The truth 
is we were constantly stressed about it. 
We knew we wanted to be real, but sometimes in being real, you can say things people aren’t ready to hear.”

To that end, they largely succeeded, according to , chief insights and planning officer and director of branding at PR agency M Booth.

“I tip my hat to the brand’s courage and commitment to expanding the conversation with parents beyond 
just baby food,” Ulman says. “They 
have boldly gone beyond messaging 
about organics and nutrition by addressing a pain point for parents 
wholly unrelated to food. 

“The balance is always that line between how far we can push creative to disrupt and engage without leaning so far over the line that the consumer loses the thread and can’t find their way back to the product or brand.”

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The future of market research is uncertain due to ongoing changes within marketing and the surrounding business environment. Research ought to continue to play an important role, but it might be quite different in the evolving marketing ecosystem with the increasingly complex mix of marketers, media, service providers, agencies, data, tools and technologies. Rather than being a separate activity, standing outside of the daily operation of the business, research may become more embedded within the business itself.

The design of market research—the blueprint for data collection, measurement and analysis—provides a useful lens to frame the possibilities for the discipline. Three of the most important types of designs are the survey, observation and experiment.

The popular business media might give the impression that Big Data (gathered through observation rather than surveys or experiments) will become bigger and drown out other approaches. There are reasons to question the desirability and inevitability of this outcome. Trends in current practices with each of these designs give some indication of their prospects in the future of market research. 

Surveys

A key strength of the survey is its accurate representation of a population through random sampling selection. Other tools focus on narrower (e.g., current customers) and even sometimes artificially drawn populations (e.g., laboratory subjects). Surveys also enable measurement of a wide range of perceptions, intentions, attitudes and behavior that are not easily measured in other ways. However, the validity of measurement is always a challenge.

The random probability sample has faded from use and been replaced by data-driven methods of “engineering” sample representativeness to achieve a predetermined balance. Declining completion rates have raised questions about the soundness of the new approaches. Validation tools, such as linking surveys to actual in-market behaviors, provide important support for specific applications such as ad testing.

User-friendly questionnaire-building tools have enabled broader deployment of the technique by non-specialists. The result is not always good, such as when customer satisfaction surveys are conducted by sales and service representatives with an obvious, sometimes explicitly stated, vested interest in the outcome. Significant parts of the survey process can be conducted by robots.

Continuation of these trends would lead to a mix of positive and negative outcomes. Once the mainstay of market research, the survey is no longer the preeminent tool.

Observation

Observation once required substantial human effort to see consumers in their “natural habitat.” The big shift is to observation of many behaviors via computer-controlled sensors.

The observation method is valued for its realism, requiring less intrusion on consumers than survey questionnaires and creating less opportunity for imposing biases through question construction. Passively observed behavior is expected to be a more accurate reflection than other methods.

Observation generates a fast-growing source of data that can be used for research purposes. Consumer products increasingly have sensors that capture behavior in non-obtrusive ways—in cars, homes and appliances. Service interactions are routinely captured as data in doctors’ offices, phone calls, bank interactions and just about every place a consumer makes purchases with credit, debit or other electronic payment methods. Add to these examples the spreading array of apps that perform specific functions for the consumer—such as comparison shopping, making recommendations and issuing directions—all while generating time-specific data in the form of shopper journeys, consideration sets, reviews, opinions and locations.

What makes this cornucopia of data useful as marketing information is the technology to capture and organize it and perform advanced, real-time analysis. The depth and granularity of information on consumers goes well beyond what could be imagined in the prime of survey methods. Traditional predictive analytics are being preempted by artificial intelligence capabilities that attempt to anticipate and deliver against consumer requirements, for example refilling recurring purchases of household goods based on inventory, usage rate and available offers; dynamically pricing offers based on real-time demand (e.g., Uber) or managing your health via real-time feedback on physiological metrics (e.g., Fitbit).

The fact that early applications of these technologies don’t always operate smoothly doesn’t diminish their potential to improve over time as more data is gathered and software is upgraded. The 2017 Marketing Science Institute conference co-sponsored by UCLA, “Harnessing Marketing Analytics for Business Impact,” featured multiple instances of this pattern of increasing ability of analytics to help operate a business at scale. The abundance of data and tools put great pressure on marketing to perform. At the same time the obstacles to success are still substantial due to the size and complexity of the data and the inherent unpredictability of some of the phenomena of interest.

Ironically, as pointed out by UCLA Professor Randy Bucklin, continued improvement and success in analytics could lead to a reduced need for human researchers and analysts due to automation. There’s no specific prediction of when this might happen, but the direction seems clear.

Experiments

Experimental methods have been available for a long time. However they’ve been limited in marketing applications, possibly due to the difficulty and resource requirements to build controlled environments. The spread of digital technology to more aspects of life creates more ways to alter the environment via software for testing purposes. A test market need not be a physical or geographic location but a virtually defined group that is randomly assigned to alternative marketing such as ads, product concepts and prices. The vast volumes of traffic, purchase and consumption that flow through the internet create greater opportunities for systematically varying the relevant elements of the ecosystem.

Experiments have the advantage of isolating cause-and-effect relationships, thanks to randomization of independent variables. Other methods can only approach causality via assumptions and advanced analytics. Experiments have the advantage over other methods for testing phenomena, such as marketing stimuli, which don’t currently exist in the market. There is potential to avoid limitations of just improving past performance within existing business models. Experimental research is limited by the creativity of the researchers to develop new concepts and to create reasonable approximations to test in market.

Experimentation can control the noise that sometimes clouds inferences from analyses of observational data. It has the potential to correct for serious biases that can occur. In the case of advertising testing, researchers have developed creative ways to statistically adjust groups of people who have become exposed via natural (not randomly controlled) processes. They have refined the matching of respondents in exposed versus non-exposed groups to achieve better results. Yet, direct comparisons between methods show an alarming amount of variability in outcomes. Research is needed to explain the reasons and ideally lead to improved designs. Experimentation can serve as a “check and balance” on long-standing but possibly biased practices that estimate impact via analysis of observational data.

There is renewed interest in experimentation in marketing practice, still mostly based on A/B or test/control designs. More sophisticated designs can magnify the impact and ROI of changes that are introduced into the market. For example, multi-factor designs that systematically alter many variables at once and response surface designs that lead to optimizing outcomes (e.g., usage, revenue and profit) can be even more powerful than simple designs.

Technology may dictate the nature and amount of growth in the various methods of market research. Its influence on marketing-related behaviors almost ensures that research will follow its lead. It seems inevitable that observational data will increase its share of marketing research compared to surveys and experiments. The use cases for alternatives to digital observational data will have to prove that other methods produce more accurate results and that the impact translates to better business outcomes.

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Politics is risky business for brands, yet brands are under pressure like never before to take political stances. Activist consumers have carried their politics over to retail products. Despite these pressures, brands should think twice, even thrice, before jumping into politics.

Brands are not politicians. Taking a political stance makes a brand a lobbying or advocacy group. While this may appeal to all or part of a brand’s consumers, taking a political stance means that a brand is pushing a political agenda on behalf of an interested constituency. Unlike political groups, brands can’t win by doing so.

Political operators can win by dividing and conquering, and they do so routinely. Politicians and political causes emerge victorious with the narrowest of margins. It only takes one more vote. That’s not how brands win.

To grow, brands have to keep rolling up bigger numbers of buyers. They can’t afford to alienate a large percentage of their buyer base. It is assumed by many that brands can grow by strengthening loyalty through explicit political actions that align with the beliefs and interests of their core consumers. However, loyalty is not how brands grow.

The notion of loyalty as a driver of growth doesn’t make sense in most categories. Repeat buying just keeps a brand even with current demand. Loyalty must inspire more purchasing if it is to drive growth. Consider a consumer who replaces the tires on a car with the same brand. That demand stays the same from one purchase occasion to the next—but that’s not growth. If that customer replaces tires more frequently than is necessary or buys a fifth or a sixth tire for a car, that would be growth through loyalty, but neither scenario makes any sense. This sort of quandary about loyalty is true in most categories. Loyalty is important for sustaining current demand, but not for growing the brand.

The work of University of South Australia marketing science professor Byron Sharp, especially his 2010 book, How Brands Grow, has shown that brands grow by building penetration, not by strengthening loyalty. Kantar Worldpanel tracks more than 200 fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) categories in 39 countries, accounting for 76% of global GDP, and its data show the same. In 2015, only 47% of all FMCG brands grew, but of those, 79% grew because they gained buyers. Among brands that declined, 84% declined because they lost shoppers.

The takeaway is clear: Brands must have widespread, crosscutting appeal in order to grow. Brands can’t burrow into a niche and expect to gain market share. As Sharp has noted, niche brands are a popular misconception. It turns out that so-called niche brands are not niche; they are just small brands with customer bases that are few in number and not really differentiated. Locking a brand into a niche limits its opportunities for growth.

Brands have to appeal across the board and bring many different people together. Unlike politicians, brands can’t win with a divide-and-conquer strategy. Brands win only through unification. Big brands are big because they unite a diverse group of consumers with divergent values and preferences.

At its best, marketing is a powerful unifying force. Brands prefer to build their franchises on common ground. Politicians would do well to emulate brands, rather than the other way around. Of course, politics is inherently divisive, so common ground may not serve the purposes of politicians. For brands, unifying consumers is essential.

Activist consumers are unlikely to let brands off the hook. Victories not won at the polls can be prosecuted all over again in the marketplace, where another tactic is within easy reach. During the last election cycle—and especially after it was over—boycotts sprung up left and right. Brands that made missteps or didn’t move fast enough to show proper allegiance were faced with boycotts for their transgressions.

Target was the subject of a boycott over its bathroom policy. Kellogg’s, too, over steps to keep its programmatic ads from appearing on Breitbart. Budweiser was criticized for a Super Bowl ad commemorating its immigrant founder. On the other side of the political spectrum, dozens of companies have been singled out for boycotts largely because of ties to or support of President Donald Trump, including Nordstrom, Uber, MillerCoors, Amazon and NASCAR. Macy’s has been attacked from both sides, first for pulling Trump-branded merchandise, then for not pulling Ivanka Trump’s products.

Yet brands need not quaver in the face of boycotts. Some boycotts can be very effective, such as those against local businesses or the boycott of Nike during the 1990s over child labor. But most boycotts fizzle out. U.S. sales of French wine dropped 26% over France’s efforts to thwart international support of the invasion of Iraq, but sales recovered quickly and were soon back to trend line.

National boycotts have an effect when they are directed against a single firm and led by a major organization that can fund sustained media coverage. It helps if the boycotted firm is high on the Fortune 500 because companies of that size make for good press.

But even sustained, properly managed national boycotts don’t affect sales very much. When they work, they affect brand reputation, which in turn affects stock price. That gets a company’s attention. Research by Northwestern University business professor Brayden King finds that for these kinds of boycotts, stock values drop by an average of 0.5% on the day the boycott hits national media, then a little more than that for each day of media coverage. The vast majority of boycotts don’t operate in this way, though. In aggregate, only about 25% of boycotts result in any sort of concession from the targeted company.

While it is smart and safe for brands to ignore politics and to make most boycotts a secondary concern, this is not to say that brands can sit on the sidelines. Politics and lifestyles can no longer be treated separately. Lifestyles are the central focus of brands, so as politics and lifestyles blend, brands will need a new vocabulary for addressing consumers.

Employees, partners and investors care a lot about the values and character of those with whom they work, so they will put brands under a tighter microscope. Increasingly, brands are finding themselves as the proctor of last resort for enforcing civility and decency in public life. Even more, brands are the last bastion of optimism in a wary world cloven into rival political factions.

Brands must answer these challenges with purpose, not with politics. Political brands will get lost in a scrum of bitter divisiveness. Brands make a difference that matters when they take a stand as brands with purpose, not a political agenda.

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Social listening is a common practice for many organizations. It’s defined as monitoring digital conversations to determine what consumers are saying online about a brand, company and industry. Some organizations, however, may be missing a large audience by limiting themselves to social listening in only one language or to only one cultural group.

More companies are now realizing the benefits of engaging in multicultural social listening. This attempt to broaden the organization’s ear to hear more conversations opens the opportunity to gain a wider audience, new influencer opportunities and more nuanced customer feedback. It also proves the company’s interest in giving the audience what it often expects: a very personalized and immediate response.

The Importance of Social Listening

“I like to think of social listening as the technological version of active listening,” says Sarah Patrick, senior content strategist at , a company that identifies leading software and professional services firms. “It’s not only checking to see when people are tweeting at your company or messaging you on Facebook, but actively searching for people who are using terms that your business addresses or discussing your company without necessarily using your handle. It’s also a way for a company to seek out areas where they can improve their business or where they can attract new customers, and then taking the next steps by offering information of value.”

Patrick authored  on why businesses should engage in social listening, based on a survey of 300 medium and large businesses that use social listening tools. The survey found 25% of respondents undertake social listening to improve products, 24% do so to attract customers and 21% do so to offer improved customer service. Companies listen to audiences on popular platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, but the report also found 71% listen on Instagram, 65% on YouTube and 27% on Reddit.

There are a myriad of social listening options for those interested, ranging from simply setting up Google Alerts to track company and key term mentions to using specialized social listening tools and platforms. The goal is to monitor terms, products or concepts associated with the company or brand across multiple websites, social media channels, forums or news sources.

Patrick says one of the greatest opportunities for organizations engaged in social listening is the ability to add value to a consumer’s experience. The way most brands use social media, in general, is to promote personal content, events or products. However, Patrick says  social listening allows companies to use materials in a way that helps consumers and adds value.

The Clutch report gives the example of an outdoor company that tracked the term “camping” with a social listening tool and came across a question on a forum asking the community for tips on the best tent for camping. The outdoor company has an opportunity to direct the person to a resource, perhaps a blog post on its own website that compares different tent brands—all of which are sold by the company.

“People may not know how to use your website as a resource, so you can speak directly to that,” Patrick says. “It’s indirect self-promotion, but it’s done in a way that appeals to the audience because it’s not demanding that they buy a product. It’s showing how their product or resources will help the buyer.”

Listening to Other Voices

Even if your company doesn’t have an in-house employee who speaks a variety of languages, there’s a platform for that. One such offering, , focuses on providing users with U.S. Hispanic social insights. The number of Spanish speakers in the U.S. is projected to rise through 2020 to between 39 million and 43 million people, according to a . A 2015 found approximately 9.6 million U.S. Hispanics on Twitter, 31% of whom prefer Spanish.

Natalie Asorey, head of social at , points to the $1.5 trillion in purchasing power held by Hispanics in the U.S. She says that while companies may capture a bilingual Twitter or Facebook user in English, adding a cultural nuance helps to drive a brand’s point home.

“It really shows the brand understands who that consumer is,” Asorey says. “On Facebook, for example, there are about 20 million active monthly Spanish-dominant consumers. That’s more than half of their monthly active users when you look at the entire Hispanic population on Facebook, which is about 31 million. It’s a prime opportunity for brands to engage them in a way that’s not only about the language, but also about being culturally relevant and tapping into what their passion points are.”

Asorey says one of the benefits of cultural listening is in finding potential influencers who have already connected with the company’s desired audience.

For example, one of Boden’s clients, McDonald’s, identified Johnny Lozada as a key influencer for the company’s Hispanic demographic. Lozada was a member of Puerto Rican boy band Menudo and is a talent on Univision. He previously partnered with McDonald’s for a McCafé coffee campaign, so there was an opportunity to reestablish that connection while also reaching some of his followers. For Lozada’s birthday, McDonald’s put together a gift of two bibs for his granddaughter, McCafé coffee and a mug that read “Para el abuelo más cool de la televisión,” or “For the coolest grandpa on TV.”

Lozada took a photo of the package and , tagging McDonald’s—by way of its U.S. Spanish account —and the post received numerous likes, retweets and responses. These interactions may have helped create or deepen a connection between McDonald’s and U.S. Spanish speakers following Lozada.

Magda Urbaniak, global community manager at social media monitoring company , says this effort speaks to something that is key to social listening: learning the needs, problems and preferences of the audience a company aims to reach. A big piece of that attempt to understand a potential customer is having regard for a variety of cultures.

“Communication is not just about speaking, but also about listening itself,” Urbaniak says. “As the definition points out, we are open to what our public wants to convey to us. Naturally, we respect that there are speakers of many languages. We’re showing other cultures that we not only hear them, but that we are also part of these conversations, ready to react and help. Of course, this allows us to reach the global market.”

Urbaniak says communities are more demanding than ever before in terms of brand communication with expectations for a quick and personalized response. The up side of this, she says, is that consumers truly appreciate when their experience is particularly positive.

“Social listening is not about reaching a particular cultural, social or linguistic group,” Urbaniak says. “It’s about reaching out to specific individuals. This is both the most difficult and beautiful aspect of social listening: It requires precision, patience and determination, but it is one of the highest-quality roads in which to reach a target audience. Multicultural listening might be challenging, but it is a worthwhile effort to create the highest-quality communication.”

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Milton Friedman famously said that the “social responsibility of business is to increase profits.” To many observers that is the accepted paradigm.��

With few exceptions, most businesses throughout the world take a different view. Just look at the missions and value statements in annual reports. In most cases, firms have a social or environmental purpose alongside their mission of creating and marketing a functional offering and increasing sales and profits. 

Walmart, for example, has an offering-driven purpose to “Save people money so they can live better.” The firm also has a second purpose: “to use Walmart’s strengths to support and improve the social and environmental systems to increase economic opportunity, enhance sustainability and strengthen local communities.” Toward that end, Walmart has dozens of programs that aim to make its operation run on renewable energy, influence suppliers to make products and packaging more sustainable and encourage 2.6 million associates to directly help communities.

Why have higher-purpose objectives and programs gotten so much traction? There are five reasons. 

1. Employees need a higher purpose.

They need a reason to come to work besides increasing sales and profits and getting a paycheck. They want to respect and admire their firm and have meaning in their lives. A higher purpose can address these needs and represent an energizing common goal that leads to more productive and committed employees. 

Many millennials, in particular, are looking for meaning in their working world as well as their personal life. They are interested in working for an organization that will leave society and the environment better off because of its policies and programs. It is not hard to imagine that by 2020, when millennials become 51% of the workforce, a higher purpose will become an even greater imperative. 

2. Customers want to have a relationship with brands that share the values reflected in an organizational higher purpose.

Even if that group is relatively small, it can still mean the difference between struggling and financial success. In addition, a small committed group can have an effect well beyond its numbers by reaching out to others to tell the organizational story and reaffirm the value proposition. Further, those customers who voice support for a brand’s higher purpose but do not change their short-term buying choices may still be influenced in the long run, especially when new products are introduced or the brand runs into a negative public relations issue.

A higher purpose is increasingly important to customers because it can provide self-expressive benefits. Sharing a higher purpose with a brand or organization is a way to affirm a person’s values and passions. Driving a Prius, with its unique design, affirms a desire to combat global warming. Avoiding brands or organizations seen as contrary to a personal self-image is part of the same motivation. Being connected with exploitive off-shore manufacturing is often a brand issue to a meaningful segment.

The challenge is to get credit for social or environmental programs. That involves having meaningful programs that connect and inspire but also getting communication breakthroughs that make the programs come alive for the target segment. This is not easy because of the tendency to view such programs as self-serving, without substance and with claims too similar to other firms.

3. There can be a tangible positive effect on profits from a higher-purpose program.

One profit kick can come from energy savings. Walmart decided to undertake its ambitious environmental program around 2005, which affected the stores, products carried and logistics. One early finding was a surprise: the “do-gooder” energy programs actually saved money.

Expanding markets present another opportunity. Unilever points out that increasing the health and economic status from developing nations creates meaningful markets for their products.

Businesses have enormous advantages over government-led solutions with insights in local conditions, assets and their ability to manage programs and implement quickly.

Social and environmental programs can create energy and visibility not otherwise achievable to brands. Consider the Always #LikeAGirl video where the image of running or throwing like a girl was shown to be very unlike the self-image of 11-year-old girls. The video, designed to help the self-esteem of those making the transition into womanhood, got more than 80 million views. No product advertising campaign could do that.

Higher-purpose programs can reduce the risk of catastrophic damage to the environmental, social and economic framework in which we live. Objectively, such an achievement should be a plus for long-term business profitability.

4. The stock market rewards social and environmental programs. According to the Global Sustainability

Investment Alliance’s 2016 review, $8.7 trillion was invested in the U.S. at the beginning of 2016 with sustainability and social impact criteria involved, up 33% from only two years prior. That number represents 22% of all investment assets in professional management in the U.S. It is not clear whether there is a need to turn against the stock market to have a social or environmental higher purpose. 

5. Social and environmental programs are right from a moral and ethical perspective.

Salesforce’s Marc Benioff says, “All businesses can and should help make the world a better place.” Unilever’s CEO Paul Polman notes that, because of the limits of capitalism, we have partly created an unsustainable set of problems, which include global warming, resource depletion and an increasing gap between the rich and poor. The Unilever business model calls on the firm to be an active contributor in finding solutions and makes the needs of citizens and communities carry the same weight as the demands of shareholders.

The ethical rationale usually comes from getting close to problems. If you see devastation caused by global warming, children dying or receiving inadequate education, and your firm can do something about it within your business model, why would you not act? 

In the face of this logic and firm behavior, we saw the specter of Brazilian private equity group 3G Capital, which owns Kraft Heinz—whose strategy was summarized by Fortune as “buy, squeeze, repeat”—rebuffed in its effort to buy Unilever. 

Unilever is a shining light with its embrace of a social and environmental purpose for all its brands. Its vision was launched in 2010 under the umbrella USLP (Unilever Sustainable Living Plan). The firm has specific environmental goals, such as cutting its environmental footprint in half, getting people access to safe water, increasing the use of renewable energy and stopping all hazardous waste going to landfills. Social programs abound at Unilever. Consider the Dove programs to raise the self-esteem of girls and women and Lifebuoy’s program to get 1 billion people to change their hand-washing habits to reduce infant deaths throughout the world, which they are half way toward realizing.

What would 3G’s strategy do to Unilever?

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Adding interactive, energetic common space was important for Little. Shea dreamed up a kitchen featuring a communal table and “Kick Ass Bar” stocked with libations, both with plenty of workspace and opportunities for employees to collaborate in an informal environment.

Architecture and Interiors by Shea, Inc.

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There’s a big “what now?” moment that emerges during many professionals’ careers. Maybe this moment occurs because their knowledge has gone stale, they want an edge on the competition or they’re looking for a new job. For marketers—or those looking to gain entrance into the marketing field—there are numerous options for updating your know-how and résumé.

1. Industry Leadership Certification

The ���������’s Professional Certified Marketer (PCM) program currently has two tracks: marketing management and digital marketing. The latter launched in March and allows marketers to demonstrate that they have specialized digital marketing skills and are aware of the best practices in the field. 

“This was developed for the purpose of giving people the tools and the knowledge they need to advance their career,” says Christopher Bartone, director of digital content at the ���������. “It’s about career advancement and allowing marketers to take agency in trying to gain an edge.”

William Trevor, a faculty program director for marketing programs at Excelsior College, is a Professional Certified Marketer, Digital Marketing after taking the exam, and he says the biggest draw is that the exam is backed by the ���������. It is important to him, as a marketing professional, that his credentials convey his commitment to keeping his skills updated and that the certification is developed by leading industry and academic experts.

 “Fundamentally, the certification helps me to show that I am current with industry best practice,” he says. “I have appended it to my e-mail signature and put it on my social media profiles, which has also generated a lot of comment and discussion from my connections and colleagues. It also hangs proudly on the wall in my office.”

Bartone says the ��������� found that its members are seeking independence in the way they gain certification. The digital marketing certification exam takes about two hours and has 120 questions with an optional break about halfway through. The questions are multiple choice and true or false, with questions covering metrics and conversions, SEO, content marketing, social, community and more. The ��������� served as a curator, pulling together the most recent, relevant information with its partners, with questions to be updated as the industry itself changes.

“When the trends in digital marketing change, the ���������’s digital marketing exam can respond in real time,” Bartone says.

The ��������� partnered with  to design a learning path for the exam, using LinkedIn’s videos on various digital marketing topics that were recommended by a committee of marketing experts. Those looking to take the exam can use the 40-plus videos to study, but there is no obligation to watch. For instance, if a test-taker needs only to brush up on SEO, they can focus on just those videos.

“As someone who has been in education and online learning for a number of years, I really felt that the content was well-presented, current and designed to help me pass the exam,” Trevor says of the LinkedIn Learning videos.

A free practice exam is available that includes 28 questions representing each section of the certification exam. The practice exam can help potential test-takers decide whether they want to go directly to the full exam or shore up some of their skills with some LinkedIn Learning videos, Bartone says. And this isn’t a one-attempt test, either. Once the exam is purchased, marketers may take it three times over the course of a year.

“What the ��������� is trying to do is help the marketer take control of their own curriculum and have the ���������’s community validate that this is where digital marketing is and these are the skills you need to know,” Bartone says.

Trevor says the exam required him to illustrate how his competence in the digital marketing area could be tested in the real world, and it tasked him with applying his knowledge in a practical and relevant way.

Once the exam is passed, the marketer is immediately issued a three-year certification. The ���������’s research showed marketers want the process to be rigorous, robust and conveniently accessible. “This is what provides the ��������� community advantage,” Bartone says. “It gives them the confidence and an edge to be successful in their career and job search.

2. Bootcamp-Style Practical Training

 CEO and co-founder Jake Schwartz calls his organization “the solution to the global skills gap.” The education provider focuses on coding, design, data, business, marketing and career development. GA’s digital marketing program is available to students online and in-person at a number of its locations (there are 20 campuses in six countries).

There are two options for the digital marketing program: part-time or intensive. The part-time course lasts 10 weeks, with students meeting twice per week in the evenings. Most of these attendees already have full-time jobs. The one-week intensive program is typically for students without a full-time job. The program begins by building on the marketing background most students have, then shifts to a deeper dive into topics such as Google AdWords and Twitter buys. The students are working on a project throughout, and many use their own company, brand or campaign as the focus—particularly those who received funding from their company to take the course.

“For example, let’s say you’re developing a campaign on LinkedIn for tech recruiters,” says Taylor Golden, partnerships manager at the . “You’ll work on the audience segmentation first, then you’ll work on developing Facebook ads. Working on these different components for a single objective helps you see the build of the actual campaign. You’re also exposed to classmates’ presentations twice during the course, then throughout the class when you’re talking about a particular topic and everybody’s sharing.”

The curriculum is built in collaboration with GA’s employer partners, says Jonny Vu, regional director at General Assembly in Chicago. The course reflects what these employers are looking for in graduates, or the sorts of tools and devices the companies are utilizing. The New York-based curriculum team gets feedback from all the campuses about what is relevant in each market as technology changes. Because the class instructors work in the field, they also bring in current, on-the-ground knowledge.

“Bringing those industry tidbits into the classroom is so valuable,” Vu says.

General Assembly’s coursework can be very flexible compared to a traditional or university setting. Golden says this ability to respond immediately to industry changes helps GA achieve a more iterative curriculum.

While the program is not certificate-bearing, the focus is on GA’s mission of advancing students from education to employment. A large piece of that is in the community-building that’s offered to students both during and after they take the course. The digital marketing instructors are encouraged to invite speakers to the class, and GA locations frequently host guest panels, networking activities, boot camps and other events that bring together thought leaders from the community.

“There are so many ways to work with General Assembly,” Golden says. “We’ve had different speakers come from all walks of the marketing world. Then they might send an employee to take a class, who then perhaps hires data scientists, UX designers or web developers from our other classes. It’s a weave of people that’s continuing to grow.”

3. University Tie-ins 

Choosing ongoing education programs by way of a university can be a great fit for professionals looking to gain customized training, but not a degree. One such example is the , where courses are taught by marketing experts from the academic and business communities. Topics covered in class range from social media to website design.

“DePaul’s mission is to reach out and connect with the community,” says J. Steven Kelly, executive director of the Kellstadt Marketing Center. “My goal was to build something that helps people reinvigorate their skills in marketing. People just want to find out how to get their skills upgraded.”

Marketers can earn a certificate in certain classes or the , which is a package of classes. The classes, which remain on the smaller side—about 10 to 20 students per section—ensure more interaction and include group projects that allow classmates of varying ages and backgrounds to collaborate and share knowledge. Kelly says if there is a project on mobile solutions, for example, he could see a student with a social media background paired with a person who has a strategic marketing background.

“I don’t ever see an age clash,” says Jurate Murray, associate director of the center. “I think they benefit from each other. Older students are learning from younger, and young students are learning from their [older classmates’] experience. They also keep in touch. I know a couple of students even started their own consulting business.”

There are some classes offered online through the center, but both Kelly and Murray emphasize the impact of the classroom experience. Kelly says many classes benefit from guest speakers and the type of group work that would be difficult to recreate in an online experience.

An advantage of education and certification through a university is having the institution’s accredited name attached. Murray says a number of foreign students find this particularly appealing.

“International students really value that this is an accredited institution, it’s a known university,” she says. “They go back to their home country and often get promoted because they have an education from the United States. A lot of students do want that piece of paper.”

When a program is associated with a university such as DePaul, Kelly says, there’s an awareness that quality should be measurable, and the programs must go through an approval process similar to the university’s degree programs. The curriculum must have clear objectives, and there needs to be a definition of what it’s trying to accomplish.

The types of students who come to the Kellstadt Center may vary widely in age and ability, but Kelly and Murray say they reflect a desire to grow with the industry. They are active learners and understand the need to update their skills. Some students even return to refresh their craft.

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So many phrases attempt to give consumers an understanding of a product’s shelf life, but their meanings are nebulous. For years, the bevy of terms used to denote the longevity of packaged foods at grocery stores has created confusion instead of clarity.

It’s a problem that has significant real-world implications. In 2013, the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic and Natural Resources Defense Council teamed up to produce a report , valued at approximately $29 billion. Research conducted by the U.K. sustainability nongovernmental organization, Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) indicates 20% of that waste comes from uncertainty over the meaning of freshness labels. Leading food waste reduction nonprofit ReFED estimates that standardizing food labels .

In the face of all this data is a growing movement to assimilate quality and safety messages. Under a proposal endorsed by both the and , there is an industry-wide push to standardize food labels by the summer of 2018. 

“Right now, there are 10 to maybe 20 different phrases that are used on packaging,” says , senior director of sustainability at GMA. “The retail grocery and manufacturing sectors, over the course of a year, have worked to develop a voluntary national standard to streamline the phrases used on consumer product packaging in the U.S. to help reduce consumer confusion.”

Under the new system, Stasz hopes that the plethora of terms seen on shelves will be phased out in favor of just two. The main packaging language is slated to become “Best if used by.” This is an indicator of food quality, not a hard expiration date. It’s what most of the product labels used today indicate, although studies have shown most consumers view such labels as firm “use-by” dates that denote the last day before product spoilage.  

“After that date, they are OK to consume,” Stasz says. “They might not taste quite like you would expect. They might not have as much vitamin content as the stuff on the label, but they are safe to consume.”

Products that are highly perishable, such as meat and dairy, will be stamped with a shorter, firmer “Use by” description, indicating the maximum length of time the item is safe for consumption. 

Stasz says market research has indicated that American consumers respond with the most certainty to these two terms. 

“There have been a number of different proposals on how best to streamline the product date labeling language. We wanted to make sure that we are promoting phrases that work best with U.S. consumers,” Stasz says. “These phrases were tested several times over with consumers in the U.S. to make sure they understood the difference between the two phrases and they would be able to translate [them into] action.”

The campaign to standardize labels comes as lawmakers scrutinize the labeling of store items. While there is no federal standard, legislation proposed last year by two Democratic members of Congress sought to impose uniformity throughout the grocery aisles, requiring widespread adoption of “Best if used by” and “Expires on” nomenclature to indicate quality and safety, respectively. The bill would also have required such dates to be placed prominently on packaging in print no smaller than 8-point font. Enforcement of the standard would have been the responsibility of the USDA and Department of Health and Human Services, in coordination with the Federal Trade Commission. 

While their proposal never advanced out of Congress, the lawmakers have indicated they are looking to reintroduce the law. That may not be necessary if the current FMI-GMA push is successful, although it is completely voluntary for both retailers and manufacturers.  

Nevertheless, some of the biggest players have 
already signed on. 

“We have exceptionally strong support for and buy-in from both the retail grocery and manufacturing sectors,” Stasz says. In fact, the GMA press release touting the initiative includes support from executives at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Dean Foods and Wakefern Food Corporation.

Wal-Mart has used standardized “Best if used by” labeling on its nonperishable Great Value items since 2015. In a company blog post, vice president of food safety Frank Yiannas wrote, “After surveying our customers about how they would choose a food label that indicated a change in quality but not safety, there was a clear winner: ‘Best if used by.’ I expect the standard labels to have an even bigger impact on waste reduction since many of our suppliers sell products under their own labels outside of Wal-Mart. This is significant, as the global economic impact of food wastage comes to about $750 billion each year.”

In an e-mailed statement to Marketing News, Jack Jeffers, vice president of quality at Dean Foods, said, “Dean Foods has always strived to make sure our dates are as consumer-friendly as possible, and eliminating confusion for the consumers to help reduce waste is a win-win for the consumers and the food industry.”

Kristine Mulford, communications manager at Conagra Brands, says her company will begin updating its labels in a phased approach with completion planned for July 2018. “We are pleased that the industry has aligned on consistent labeling language to offer consumers greater clarity around the quality and safety of their food,” she says.

“Nobody really wants to get direction, but I think most of us want to make things as simple for our customers as we can,” says Joe Oberweis, president and CEO of , a food manufacturer and restaurant operator throughout the Midwest. 

Oberweis says his company hasn’t yet looked closely at the specifics of the FMI-GMA proposals, but he would be inclined to favor standardizing labels, so long as it frees companies from the burden of navigating a hodgepodge of state guidelines on food labeling.

Stasz says that while the “vast majority” of store product is eligible for relabeling under the voluntary national standard, companies will still need to comply with state law where applicable.

However, Oberweis raises a bigger question about the food labeling system. Right now, he says his company stamps calendar dates onto his products with no accompanying text. “We’ve always treated it as an expiration date, but the reality is that our product lasts something like a week beyond that,” he says.

So the fuzziness or lack of clarity with his products could be contributing to food waste that the standardization initiative seeks to reduce. But, he says, the nature of his products is such that he believes people are bypassing the date on the label altogether and using the “smell test” to determine whether or not they are safe for consumption.

“We have the advantage of selling milk. If milk is bad, all you have to do is smell it and you know,” Oberweis says. “It’s not really hard to determine whether milk is sour or not.”

What about less-perishable foods like ice cream, which can last much longer if kept at the right temperature?

“If you took ice cream and stored it in a deep freezer at 20 degrees below zero, even two years later, there’s not a health risk,” he says.

What Oberweis is getting at—and at the crux of the label question—is there’s a certain degree of variance in estimating the date a product will lose quality or spoil. While the date listed on the package is an educated guess, mileage may vary. Even honey, widely known as a food product that does not go bad, is often stamped with a quality label two years from the production date.

“There’s less precision than I think consumers assume around expiration dates,” Oberweis says. “If you take half a gallon of milk and warm it up to 60 degrees and let it sit for four hours and then put it back in the refrigerator and let it cool to 35 [degrees], that expiration date is no longer appropriate.”

Some of the dates listed on packaged foods are regulated by state law, but most are determined by the manufacturers themselves. 

“Companies’ food scientists and food safety people are some of the best in the world, and for most products the dates are set [internally],” Stasz says. “The date is selected based on how the product performs in different environments. It’s a highly scientific process. With that said, we know a consumer education campaign is going to be a critical part of any standardization effort.”

For the next year, while the push to standardize unfolds behind the scenes, Stasz will be developing a campaign to inform consumers about the exact meaning of the new quality and safety phrases. She plans to involve QR codes on packages, introduced by the GMA as part of the SmartLabel campaign, to help spread the message. Likewise, the FMI’s FoodKeeper mobile app is another resource that Stasz can rely on to push out the campaign and reinforce the new messages consumers will soon be seeing in stores if they are not there already.

“This is not a silver bullet solution for food waste,” Stasz says. “It’s really about providing better, more and clearer information to consumers to improve their experiences with products.”

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