The Brands Lectures
Don't miss out on our next lecture
Pre-register your interest to attend the 24th annual brands lecture
The 23rd Brands Lecture
Where Were You in the Revolution?
Professor Byron Sharp
Professor Byron Sharp is one of the world’s most influential marketing scientists and a leading force behind the global shift toward evidence based marketing.
As Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute of Marketing Science and author of the international bestseller How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don’t Know, Professor Sharp has fundamentally challenged conventional thinking about how brands compete, attract customers and grow.
The Institute research has helped reshape modern marketing practice, bringing empirical evidence to questions once dominated by intuition...
Past Lectures
Since the year 2000, the annual Brands Lecture, delivered by leading figures in their field, has been a popular event in our members’ year. Each lecturer has focused on a different aspect of branding or its effects. The following gives a taste of each lecture but you can read the full version by clicking on the links to download transcripts of the event.
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The 22nd Brands Lecture
Building Blockbusters: From M&M’s to Pedigree, and Beyond Products to Services
Grant F Reid
What really makes a brand unforgettable? Is it a flash of cultural magic, a campaign that shifts generations, or something deeper, woven into the way businesses are built? In a world of fleeting platforms and shifting consumer habits, the answer matters more than ever.
Few leaders know this better than Grant F. Reid. Over a 34-year career at Mars, he helped steer household names including M&Ms, Snickers, Galaxy, Dolmio, Pedigree, Royal Canin and Whiskas to new heights.
As CEO, he grew sales by more than 50% to over $45 billion, expanded the workforce to 140,000,...
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The 21st Brands Lecture
The history and future of brand management
Mark Ritson, Columnist and Founder, Mini MBA in Marketing
On a sunny morning in May 1931 a young P&G advertising executive called Neil McElroy sat down at his typewriter and bashed out two pages and created a new discipline of Brand Management. In this entertaining and applied talk, Mark Ritson follows the red line of that discipline’s evolution from that moment through to the present day and out into the future.
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The 20th Brands Lecture
Let’s make this more interesting
Adam Morgan, Author and Founder of eatbigfish
For all that we’ve learnt about marketing effectiveness, the big beige elephant in the marketing room is that most brands and marketing are still unforgivably boring. But what is the real cost of Dull? Why are so many smart, well-intentioned people producing such boring communications, inside and outside our organisations? And what should we be doing about it?