Michael Solomon

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Metaverse and Ties to Social Media.The Metaverse is a digital universe of shared meanings that unites consumers via websites, blogs, virtual worlds, augmented reality, and other social media platforms. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn also allow marketers to relate to customers who want to play a much more proactive role in determining the value and meaning of their brands. Two domains will be focused on: strategic thinking as well as tactical options. Attendees will understand how the fundamental way they relate to customers must evolve. Marketing techniques will be used with customers, not to them.

Getting Consumers to Consume in Tough Times: How can Marketers Motivate Relucant Buyers? This presentation will review emerging techniques to ramp up consumers’ reliance on the brands that matter to them – even as they jettison the ones that don’t. These approaches involve changing the way marketers think about their customers – elevating them from pawns to partners. Some specific ways to do this include social networking, mass customization, open-source marketing, engaging shoppers in immersive 3D computer platforms, and integrating lead users into the product design cycle. Attendees will benefit as they take away new ways to think about enhancing the value they deliver and in the process calm the nerves of anxious customers. 

Finding Gold in the New Green Economy. Is there gold in green marketing? We are witnessing a global revolution as the ethic of sustainability seeps into more and more industry sectors. Environmental and economic changes dictate that we must develop and successfully market sustainable products. Ironically, business leaders often are several steps ahead of their customers. Many consumers are slower to embrace the value of sustainability – particularly if they think they need to pay more for it. The worldwide recession also muted the growing drumbeat for a green economy. 

The target audience for this seminar is executives with responsibility for marketing, new product development, and/or communications. The presentation explores the concept of sustainability – primarily as today’s consumers understand (or misunderstand) it. We will review some of the fundamental drivers of consumer behavior and understand how these processes either facilitate or impede market acceptance of green products. 

The Brave New World of Consumerspace. Evolving trends in technology and lifestyles are fundamentally changing the ways relationships between consumers and companies are formed, maintained -- and dissolved. Many people now feel empowered to choose how, when, or if they will interact with corporations as they construct their own consumerspace. In turn, companies need to develop and leverage brand equity in order to attract the loyalty of these consumer "nomads."  

· What are some significant changes in consumers' values and lifestyles that influence how they search for product information

  and evaluate alternative brands? 

· How can we better understand consumer/product relationships -- from the consumer's vantage point? We need to appreciate

   how products and services are used in the enactment of daily rituals, the animistic qualities of products, and the role these

   goods play in defining consumption communities.  

·  How are firms innovating to optimize their presence in consumerspace? Reality engineering strategies such as social

    networking, product placement, advergaming, virtual Internet communities, and guerrilla marketing are some alternatives for

    penetrating consumer awareness.

·   How can firms perpetuate consumer satisfaction by transforming passive buyers into active partners? Mass customization,

    personalization of shopping environments and Web sites, open-source marketing of lead users into the product design cycle

    have the potential to let producers and consumers work together to map the brave new world of consumerspace.

Welcome to the Metaverse: B2C and B2B Applications of Virtual Worlds. From Second Life to World of Warcraft, Habbo Hotel to MTV’s Virtual Pimp My Ride, today millions of consumers live a parallel, digital life in virtual worlds that make up the Metaverse. A virtual world is an online representation of real world people, products, and brands in a computer-mediated environment (CME). To many mainstream consumers and advertisers, this is largely an unknown or underground phenomenon – but it has real marketing consequences. It’s estimated that by 2012, 53 percent of kids and 80 percent of active internet users will be members of at least one virtual world.  Indeed, the Harvard Business Review predicts that within the next five years virtual worlds are likely to emerge as the dominant internet interface.

Clearly virtual environments will fuel new marketing trends over the next decade. These platforms have exciting branding and promotional implications for consumer-facing companies. They also hold great value to B2B firms who can harness them for virtual trade shows and sales training programs. These engaging interfaces provide highly cost-efficient and environmentally friendly options because expensive travel is minimized and participants’ engagement is much higher compared to more traditional, “static” platforms like chatrooms or videoconferencing.    

However, due to the newness of the medium companies still struggle to figure out the best way to take advantage of these environments – or to decide if they should enter them at all. This presentation examines best practices to engage with virtual worlds and distills learnings from successful and not-so-successful applications to provide a map that will help companies navigate these brave new worlds. 

Why We Buy. Learn how firms have successfully used modern-day consumer rituals and magical beliefs associated with activities and products from bathing to blue jeans to drive their marketing communications and positioning strategies.

Consumer Trends 2009. Today’s consumer is a moving target.  Learn how trends such as product simplification, disintermediation, time poverty, hedonism, ethnic diversity, and Generation Y will impact your bottom line.

Are You In or Out? Styles come and go, and being “in fashion” is a hot button for consumers.  What determines what’s hot and what’s not?  We usually equate fashion with clothing, but in reality fashion process influence the fortunes of many products such as cars, home furnishings, music, and even high-tech items. Explore how a style is created, how it spreads through a market, and why it dies.

Consumer Behavior and the Marketing Mix. Understand fundamental marketing strategy from the perspective of the consumer.  Explore how shoppers infer product quality from such signals as price, place of purchase, product design and packaging, and marketing communications.  Learn how firms around the globe have successfully used these elements of the marketing mix.

Travels From
Pennsylvania

Local Fee Range
$10,001.00 to $15,000.00

West Coast Fee Range
$10,001.00 to $15,000.00

East Coast Fee Range
$10,001.00 to $15,000.00

This specific fee falls within this range. Ranges are presented as a guideline only. Speaker fees are subject to change without notice. For an exact quote, please contact your Leading Authorities representative.