As president of the Boston Chapter of the American Marketing Association, it was my pleasure to welcome representatives from several other chapters from the Northeastern Region.  Our guests included representatives from the New York Capital Region Chapter,  the Rochester New York Chapter, the New Jersey Chapter and the Hartford Connecticut Chapter.

On Friday evening, Amy Quigley, Maryanne Spillane McInturf, Keith Laferrier and Jim Gallant, members of the Board of Directors from the Boston Chapter, entertained our guests over dinner at the Tavern on the Water in Charlestown.

On Saturday, we met at the Constitution Inn in Charlestown for an all day conference with work sessions guided by special guests, Michele DeKinder-Smith from Tampa, Florida and Karen Stone from Nashville, Tennessee. Both Michele and Karten are successful past presidents of their local chapters and accomplished leaders of the Professional Chapters Council, for the American Marketing Association.

The purpose of  the leadership retreat was to bring several chapter leaders together from around the regionso we could support each other and exchange ideas. It was good to see old friends and to participate in such a productive meeting.

As I’m working on a marketing plan for a client, it strikes me how these five words can strike fear and doubt into so many executives - “How do you define yourselves?”

It is a painfully simple question, but the answer is so important.

Many hours can be spent on this question. In workshops, when I ask this question, the initial answer client’s give is often the most honest. Someone in the room inevitably blurts out the answer, and I write it down. Then someone else inevitably adds that the first definition is too limiting, and provides a different definition. Often a much broader one.

To give an example, I once worked at a very large company where the executive in charge decided how to define our business. His definition was the equivalent of defining a bakery as a “flour, water and eggs mixed together and baked for 12 minutes” business. Much easier to say, “We are a bakery.” His answer created confusion. Customers wondered what we were talking about.

Why all of the confusion? Many people, and companies, want to appear to be more than they are. They get caught up in internal thinking, strategic thinking and politics.

For lack of a clear definition, companies broaden their definition to a higher level in an attempt to cast a larger net. As with my example, this only ensures that no one will have any idea what they are speaking about.

So is this a complex question? It does need to be. Customers are looking for a simple answer. They are tired of trying to sort out what companies actually do versus what their Web site says. Give them a break - give them the simple answer. Save the complexities for internal documents.

One obvious question lies in waiting - how do you define yourself, or your business? If you are using more than ten words to define yourself, then you should do some editing. Write back to me and tell me your definition.

-Steven Halling, President

A few days ago, I was contacted by an experienced sports marketing professional that is relocating to Boston.  She told me that she was recently at the Mid-Atlantic Leadership Retreat being held in Baltimore. These retreats are an opportunity for several chapters within a region to come together to share ideas and best practices.

At the retreat, the conference leader promoted the AMABoston.org as the best chapter Website and referred to it as a model to be followed.  There are 78 chapters internationally.  The chapters in attendance were Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Richmond and Central Virginia.

Learning about the unofficial accolades through word-of-mouth was a great honor and although we still have a lot more we want to do with our Internet presence, my only hope is that our members are getting as much value from our site as possible. We really appreciate the efforts of everyone who continues to contribute to it’s success on a daily and weekly basis.

Even with such a complement from the international association, we are actually working right now on a redesign for the interface of our site.  Aloft Group is the agency we selected for the redesign and we are looking forward to what’s next!

In related news, Boston will enjoy the honor of hosting the 2009 Northeastern Leadership Retreat next fall.  Chapters are expected to attend from Providence, Hartford, Albany, Rochester, Montreal and Toronto.  We will welcome them to our city and hope to show them a wicked good time!

Myles Bristowe
President-elect, AMA Boston

On February 13th, Pedro Laboy, Senior Partner at Tocquigny, an Adweek Top-25 Interactive agency, and Author of Brand Nexus, gave a keynote presentation on what every marketer should know about Digital Marketing.

Pedro Laboy’s Presentation “Best Practices in Digital Marketing” is now available in the Resources section of the AMA Boston Website.

DOWNLOAD NOW!

The International office of the American Marketing Association has redefined the word “marketing,” to reflect its broader role in society.

The new definition reads: “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

The previous definition stated: “Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.”

Wikipedia defines the term this way: “Marketing is a societal process that is needed to discern consumers’ wants; focusing on a product/service to those wants, and to mould the consumers towards the products/services.”

Some very interesting differences between the definitions. The AMA revisits the definition for marketing every five years in a disciplined effort to reflect on the state of the marketing field. How would you define marketing?

On behalf of the Board of Directors and all the volunteers of the Boston Chapter of the American Marketing Association, I would like to thank Molecular for providing the use of their office in Watertown for our Mid-Year Retreat. It was a terrific team building all-day event and we would like to express our gratitude for their generosity… a special thanks to Amy Quigley and Annette Goldberg for setting it up for us.

Myles Bristowe
President-elect, AMA Boston

As this is the first post of the new blog for the Boston chapter of the American Marketing Association, I think it is appropriate to write a few words about the purpose of the blog.

A blog can enable an organization to publish information quickly, allow readers to subscribe to the blog RSS feed, and give organizations another way and form to communicate. The style of writing a blog post can be very different and informal than a traditional website. We hope to showcase the events, programs and local members of the Boston AMA, but we also want to be involved with the wider marketing community. The AMA Boston constitution has been my starting point in thinking about the topics we should cover and the focus of any advocacy in the community. The constitution boils down to the following:

-Help everyone do better marketing work
-Promote professionalism in the practice of marketing
-Promote a greater understanding of marketing principles and practices

If you want to help get involved with the blog and contribute articles that about these themes contact me or the AMA Boston blog team directly.

John Cass
Past President, AMA Boston