27th INSEAD Sustainability Executive Roundtable

Thursday 10 and Friday 11 May 2012

The 27th INSEAD Sustainability Roundtable will examine the implications of sustainability for marketing and communications leaders. Potentially there is a major role for marketing and communications professionals to play in the development of new business models and market-based mechanisms that deliver sustainable economic, environmental and social prosperity. Yet there is also an increasing risk if not evidence that marketers either ignore or fail to understand the implications of sustainability for business and for marketing and communications practice more specifically. Equally, they may approach the topic in superficial ways that can easily backfire.

Marketing and Communications have a profound and growing impact on the everyday understanding of business. At the same time consumers and business customers are increasingly wary of the promises made by companies, not least when it comes to sustainability. Many marketers sense there is a problem, though often express it differently. They report increasing indifference from their clients and they struggle to keep their products and services relevant. Long-standing segmentation models are crumbling. New forms and models of communication are emerging that compete with mainstream business communication and are frequently found to be more credible among target markets. Brand and corporate reputations have suffered along with those of senior business leaders.

Given both the potential contribution of marketers to addressing the challenges of sustainability and concerns with current marketing practice, the roundtable will examine research and examples of best practice in regard to the following topics:

• Brand management in a sustainable future
• Understanding consumers: changes in consumer behavior and implications for market segmentation; consumer skepticism about marketing claims; rethinking customer value; sustainable consumption
• Developing superior and sustainable value propositions and delivering sustainability throughout the value chain
• Educating consumers: bringing consumers along where marketers are the leaders and not the laggards in sustainability
• Sustainable marketing practices in emerging markets
• Corporate reputation management: risks and opportunities of sustainability
• Stakeholder marketing: looking beyond the customer to other stakeholders; stakeholder engagement, inc. with “unwilling consumers”
• Championing sustainability internally: bringing the rest of the organization along where marketers are the leaders in sustainability

For more details and registration please go to

http://www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/centres/isic/events/Roundtable_may2012/

For further information on the logistics of this roundtable, please contact:

Larissa KERVENNAL (Office Residence D 0.02)
Tel: + 33 (0) 1 60 72 43 86
Fax: + 33 (0) 1 60 74 55 66
Email: larissa.kervennal@insead.edu

For further information on communications, public/media relations, please contact:

Miranda HELMES (Office Residence D 0.08)

Tel: + 33 (0) 1 60 72 91 16

Fax: + 33 (0) 1 60 74 55 53

Email: miranda.helmes@insead.edu

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