Congratulations to the organizers for compiling a great event. If you want to meet high-level execs in a nice informal setting, MSI is the place for networking and hearing interesting talks.

The first talk was by Dr. Jeanne Harris (Managing Director of Information Technology Research at Accenture Institute for High Performance, see picture below) titled “Getting to ROI: Realizing Big Benefits from Big Data and Analytics”.

Next, Prof. Dr. Scott A. Neslin (Dartmouth College, see picture below) took the stage with his talk “Do’s and Don’ts of Big Data”. This topic is very close to our own work.

Next, he discussed lessons from the last big push towards more data, i.e., the availability of scanner data. These studies may have contributed to shifting spending from advertising towards promotion.

After the break, Joseph Puthussery (@Josephpty, VP Marketing at Cisco Systems, see picture to the right) gave his talk titled “Understanding Our Customers in a New Marketing World (Led by Data)”. He started off with an interesting statement “our website used to be a huge sequence of ‘first dates’”. He also presented a CISCO internal procedure to automatically qualify leads (see picture below). This approach is similar to our published research. In sum, a very inspiring talk!

Next, Prof. Dr. Carl Mela (Duke University, see picture below) took the stage for his talk titled “Producing Marketing Knowledge”.

After lunch, Will Bullock (Quantitative Research Manager at Facebook, see picture below) presented his talk “Big Data Isn’t Enough”. He emphasized the need for experimentation (on Facebook) to determine the true impact of an ad campaign. Strong targeting (of a particular target audience) as well as lagged effects may further complicate matters (see picture below).

Next, Prof. Dr. David Schweidel (@dschweidel, Emory University, see picture below) presented his interesting talk “Social Media’s Role in Data-Driven Marketing”. He emphasized both the trouble with and the potential of social media data, e.g., for brand health tracking, or assessing market structure from social media.

After the coffee break, it was time for a panel discussion on the future of data analytics. Prof. Dr. James Lattin (Stanford University, see picture below - person standing on the left). Panelists were (setting from left to right in the picture below): Tatiana G. Shusterman (Manager, Marketing Analytics at Intel), Maria Saltz (Senior Manager, Social Media Analytics at Adobe Systems), Mark Schwartz (Senior Director, Research and Marketing Analytics at Visa).

The final talk of the first day was held by Prof. Dr. John Deighton (@HBSmktg, Harvard Business School) titled “Market-Making with Personal Data”. He analyzed the structure of the Big Data industry.

The last activity of the day was a networking reception at the top-floor of the Nikko hotel.

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On August 1st, Brandon Paris (Senior Manager, Strategic Analysis, Global Customer Insights at General Mills, see picture below) kicked off the last day with his talk “From Surveys to Big Data Analytics: CPG Perspectives”.

Next, Prof. Dr. Sanjog Misra (UCLA, see picture below) gave a talk “Big Value from Big Data with Marketing Science”.

He discussed several analytics case studies. The first one is MGM.

The second case study is an anonymous pharmaceutical company, which was facing a salesforce challenge. Their salesreps were only putting in sufficient effort towards the end of their three-month sales periods. This resulted in very “peaked” sales (see picture below).

After the coffee break, Dr. Cerita D. Bethea (Behavioral Science Technical Leader, Global Marketing Research and Analytics at Kimberly-Clark, see picture below) delivered her excellent speech titled “No More Focus Groups”.

The final talk of the event was given by Xueming Luo (Temple University, see picture below) on “Mobile Targeting and Marketing Analytics”. After a general introduction, he talked about geo-fencing.

Next, he discussed a second study about geo-conquesting, i.e., geo-precision advertising for customer acquisition.

Finally, Executive Director of MSI - Prof. Dr. Kevin Lane Keller (Dartmouth College) - summarized the key take-aways of this two-day event: