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posted by Lisa

Ian Wolfman (BS 95) lectures to advertising students on media convergence at the AT&T Center on 9-30-09.

Ian Wolfman, as the Chief Marketing Officer of IMC2 in Dallas, is in the forefront of the changing digital landscape for marketers and advertising. Wolfman, an expert at identifying innovative ways to help clients and prospective clients to leverage digital, emerging media, and traditional media to achieve measurable marketing results, spoke to a packed house of advertising students at the AT&T Executive Conference Center on September 30th.

See IMC2’s reel here: imc2 – Our Work

Read more about Ian’s lecture after the jump:

Wolfman, who teaches MBA courses at the Cox School of Business at SMU, gave a presentation on the spectacular evolution of marketing and a vision of the market place that is being transformed, not only by the new enabling technologies, but also by the attitudes, expectations and behaviors of people.

Companies that will thrive in this new era, Wolfman argues, are companies that use technology to go where people are (in both traditional and social media), and emphasize the “human touch” to maintain long term, sustainable relationships of value with their customers. Prime examples are companies such as Apple Computer.

Wolfman says companies will also be increasingly compelled to adopt the “long tail” approach to marketing used by internet successes like Amazon.com and Zappos.com. With consumers in the driver’s seat, the traditional brick and mortar approach of offering a limited number of choices to the masses is no longer effective. Wolfman argues that it’s not an accident that a company like Anheuser-Busch now offers over 100 types of beer. Consumer control is one of the most powerful trends in marketing today – and now that consumers have taken control, they aren’t likely to relinquish it. Companies who don’t meet consumer’s expectations will be quickly left behind.

IMC2 is an independent brand engagement agency founded in 1995 with offices in Dallas, New York and Philadelphia, and works with brands such as Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut, GlaxoSmithKline, Samsung USA and Unisys. Read more about imc2 here: About imc2

Ian Wolfman with Isabella Cunningham (chair of the Advertising Department) and Greg Flory, senior project manager at IMC2