Brand Champion of the Day- American Marketing Association

On Mondays and Fridays I feature someone or some organization who understands what it means to be a brand champion. Today I want to highlight the American Marketing Association. Yesterday through tomorrow I am in Boston at the 2009 Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education, a program of the American Marketing Association. This is the fourth time I have presented at this conference. During the past several years the conference has raised the level of importance of branding and this year the conference has a track devoted to this important need for all marketers. As education branding becomes more and more a part of the higher education landscape, brand needs to be at the center of the marketers skill set.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of co-facilitating a session on internal branding. I want to thank those who attended. We had participants from the United States, Canada, Australia and Qatar. Communications and marketing leaders from public and private institutions engaged in a dialogue about the emerging trend of internal branding. From my experience the internal piece is often the last component of the brand building process to be embraced. Why? Because it is the hardest part. I applaud those forward-thinking institutions who sent their staff and supported their participation in our session.

I applaud the American Marketing Association for continuing to validate the need for marketers to understand the value of brand. I also want to commend my Colorado State Chapter of AMA for similar thinking. As VP for Brand Management, I look forward to sharing my experience in Boston at our next board meeting. For their efforts the American Marketing Association is increasingly recruiting and retaining brand champions, and is the Brand Champion of the Day!

Rex Whisman

Brand Champions Blog