It’s wonderful to see an experienced professional so passionate about the subject area they’ve been a part of for several decades. Listening to Christine Moorman talk about creating new knowledge and using marketing for a better world was inspiring.
Moorman has had an impressive career, and she currently sits as Director of The CMO Survey and was the former Editor in Chief of the Journal of Marketing. During this fireside chat, she shared just how powerful marketing can be in helping grow a company. Her time in the research space has also shown her the importance of translating work from academic language to more familiar, approachable language.
To me, the most interesting part of the conversation was when Moorman explained a creative method for innovative thinking and perspective shifting. She presented a scenario where we were trying to improve a doctor’s office, but instead of staying in that medical lens, she assigned us each a lens outside of that industry. Some of us were given the lens of Airbnb, while others were given the lens of supermarkets, financial services, or Disney. These lenses seemed distant from a doctor’s office, but we were able to learn valuable lessons from these varied lenses and come up with innovative solutions. Moorman continued to go on and explain how one example from a supermarket lens for improving a doctor’s office is transparent pricing, similar to the pricing model at grocery stores. To close out the scenario, Morman explained, “Most innovations come by looking at other industries and bringing the innovations across to a different industry.” This exercise was all about practicing whether we can transfer what is happening in a successful industry over to another context.
Our conversation with Christine Moorman ended with discussing how marketing encompasses selling ideas, and we’ll all be doing that throughout our careers. So, there’s such an importance in learning the fundamentals and useful skills of marketing from the beginning of our careers. It was wonderful to listen to this fireside chat between Moorman and Luther Hodges Scholar Larkin Gliddon, and I’m grateful to have gotten the chance to be a part of this event.
