Agenda set for Kids Today’s 9th annual conference
-- Kids Today, 11/25/2008 11:40:00 AM
The agenda is set for the 9th annual Kids Today Conference, Momentum, Gaining Strength in Today’s Economy. Join us Feb. 24-25 in San Antonio at the Westin La Centera Resort as we explore exciting ideas to help bring your business through trying times.
This all-industry conference is packed with expert advice, strategies and inspiration and hits on topics like brand building (and maintaining), marketing to moms, discovering trends and making them work for you and much, much more.
Combined, our speakers have more than a 100 years worth of experience, expertise and excitement they’re ready to share with our industry.
Our Keynote this year is renowned speaker and retail expert Doug Fleener. His presentation, No Kidding: Make 2009 Your Best Year Ever, Simple and Effective Lessons for Creating Positive Retail Results, has something for everyone in a fun and fast paced program. No complicated theories, just lots of ideas for you to improve your top and bottom lines.
Fleener is a former director of the Bose Corporation, veteran retailer, author of The Profitable Retailer, publisher of the retail industry’s only daily subscription newsletter, The Daily Retail Experience and president and managing partner for Dynamic Experiences Group, a proven retail and customer experience training and consulting firm.
Linda Morgenstern and Mike Docherty will show how to gain momentum through licensing and brand building strategies.
Morgenstern, executive vice president of Nancy Bailey & Associates, Inc., the premier 25-year old brand licensing agency with clients such as Procter & Gamble, Crayola, USA TODAY, Travelocity and Coppertone, will present Grow Your Business with Brand Licensing, and help you better understand how to leverage a brand for your own product or retail location and create instant recognition by consumers. This compelling business model will be simplified through Licensing 101, providing basics and formulas supported by case studies from Fortune 500 brands that have reinvented themselves.
Morgenstern recently licensed the USA TODAY brand to airport-based concessions and the Coppertone brand to sunglasses. She was responsible for creating divisions for Sunbeam Products, Inc. and Sony Music that used licensing as a business model to generate both incremental revenue and brand awareness.
Docherty is founder and CEO of Venture2 Inc., a unique professional services firm specializing in connecting and commercializing innovation through collaboration. His company works with leading companies including Procter & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline, Kraft, Whirlpool and others. Docherty brings more than 25 years of broad-based leadership experience in general management, marketing and new product development. Prior to Venture2, he was a Vice President and General Manager for Sunbeam Products, Inc. (now Jarden), in the successful turnaround of the company. His previous career includes consulting as well as corporate positions in marketing and planning leadership at Ford, General Electric and Rohm & Haas.
Docherty’s presentation, Leveraging the Power of Partners for Growth will provide practical tips on how to think differently within your own company about innovation and growth through collaboration.
In today’s competitive marketplace, companies are struggling to find new sources of growth while still ‘doing more with less’. Innovation is key for growth—but the old rules are gone. Today, real growth requires new approaches that deliver innovation more efficiently. Where do you find it?
Increasingly, leading companies are looking beyond their own organization to find untapped sources and breakthrough innovations for growth. Collaborative and ‘open’ approaches to innovation are proving to be an effective way to deliver growth by leveraging the power of partners. These partnerships can deliver new products and technologies, enable entire new business models and open up new sources of revenue that companies could previously not achieve on their own.
Case studies from leading companies such as Procter & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline and Whirlpool, as well as inspiring success stories of start-ups and entrepreneurs will be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of partnering for innovation and growth.
Gaining strength and momentum also comes from setting yourself apart in the market place by understanding and harnessing the power of design.
Whistle & Wink designer Bridget Kelly will unlock the mystery of trends by showing you not only how to find them but also how to make them work for you in her presentation, Demystifying Trends: Trusting your instincts.
Kelly, a Fashion Institute of Technology graduate, has more than 20 years of design experience specifically for children’s fashions and products. Some of her clients have included: Esprit, Nike, Diane von Furstenberg, Mattel, CBS Television and Lucas Learning. She also was behind the creation of the Vitamins Baby brand and was the brand developer, designer and design director of Pottery Barn Kids.
Top 100 Furniture Today retailer Jim “Mack” McIngvale, founder and owner of Gallery Furniture in Houston, Texas has more than 30 years of retail experience. His $120-million-business generates about 10-15% of its sales through youth furniture. McIngvale will share some secrets to his success as well as his philosophies and retail-know how.
Finding new ways to reach our industry’s core customer—MOMS—might well be your top priority for 2009.
Stephanie Azzarone, president of Child’s Play Communications, will talk about your customer— Moms in her presentation, Marketing to the Motherhood, Online: How to Reach Mommy Bloggers.
About 16.5 million moms either publish or read blogs. Azzarone’s company specializes in reaching moms online, particularly through blogs. She’ll share case studies, her experience with Web Mom Directory and Team Mom, and what she’s learned in the process, including why moms blog, where to find the right mom bloggers for your needs, and how to work with them most effectively.
Child’s Play Communications, the first public relations and marketing communications agency to specialize exclusively in products and services targeted to moms, celebrate its 20th anniversary this year and some of its clients include Warner Bros. Consumer Products, National Geographic Kids Entertainment, Hasbro, Gund, CVS/pharmacy, Parents magazine, Sylvan Learning Center, Samsonite and Kidz Bop.
We’ll also have a consumer panel and an important safety overview and update.
Registration is coming soon. Call Robin Martinez for information on sponsorship, 336-605-1024.
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