From some people working remotely, to kids doing school from home, to many restaurants and other locations being closed for long stretches of time, COVID had the opportunity to change how your audience thinks and behaves. Some marketers have taken advantage of this. Others continued business as usual. Some just laid off their staff, fired their agencies, and hoped they could save their way through the pandemic.

In this 1-hour session, we will talk with an expert in Word of Mouth Marketing and an expert in data about what COVID has changed, what it hasn’t, and what you need to know in order to run the most effective communications possible.

ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS

Ted Wright, Fizz

In 2015 Phil Kotler described Ted Wright as “The Pioneer of modern Word of Mouth Marketing”. As the CEO of Fizz, Ted Wright has led one of the largest word of mouth marketing firms in in the world since 2001. Operating in 13 time zones around the world, Fizz’s clients include Coca-Cola, LVMH, JetBlue, Audi, Intel, Quidel, FIFA and many others. Besides their large company work, Fizz also has a specialty incubation practice where they grow CPG and agriculture brands with less than 5M USD in sales to over 100M before graduating them to become leaders in WOMM.

Ted has taught at the Wharton School since 2010 and in 2014 wrote the best-selling Word of Mouth Marketing book entitled “Fizz”. For fun, Ted surfs poorly and takes pictures of street art. He is a cum laude graduate of the University of Chicago’s business school and has been together with his very patient wife since 1987.

Alexa Langford, One & All

Alexa hails from Atlanta, GA, and has been with One & All for almost 14 years. She leads a diverse group of analysts who use market research and data science to further the missions of social good organizations. She’s proud knowing that her work is going towards helping men, women, children, and animals in her community and around the world.

Alexa’s specialties are developing talent, complex multi-channel analyses, predictive modeling, and generating actionable insights for clients and programs.

Rolanda Finch, It’s Your Birthday, Inc.

As the Founder and Executive Director of It’s Your Birthday, Inc., Rolanda is responsible for strategic planning, managing the Board of Directors, and day-to-day operations.

In 2014, she felt children in shelters would not have the best memory on their birthday. Wanting to make a difference – she founded, It’s Your Birthday, Inc. Their mission is to create fun and memorable birthday experiences for children in homeless and domestic violence shelters. The services provided by IYBI provide a sense of normalcy and help children to feel acknowledged and special.

Operating with 100% volunteers and a limited budget, Rolanda has successfully provided over 1,400 children with a better birthday memory in 18 shelters in the Missouri and Southern IL areas.

When she is not working to create normalcy for children in shelters, she is a Senior Program Director for The Boeing Company; where she is responsible for customer and partner education. She serves as an internal business partner to all Boeing customer-facing organizations with the purpose of advancing the development and growth of educational offerings. Currently, she is responsible for leading the development of programs for Ethiopian Airlines.

In her ‘spare’ time, Rolanda enjoys spending time with her husband and extended family, traveling and attending local festivals.

ABOUT OUR HOST

Eric Pratum, Bigwidesky

Eric Pratum is the President of Social Media Club St Louis and the Head of Digital Strategy at Bigwidesky. If you want a strategy that will get you actionable results and valuable data while also being creative, he’s the guy to talk to. When he’s not working, he’s exercising, doing unending house projects, playing with his family (or most likely cleaning up after his children), reading, and trying to play some music if time allows.