By Cat Schmidt, Marketing Consultant

The holidays have come and gone, and there is always one in the bunch that can’t quite get their holiday card and letter out until after the New Year. The calendar year of 2014 was a great year for the sfAMA.  A lot was accomplished and we were graciously recognized for our efforts. I’d like to swiftly give you what I considered to be some of the highlights of our best programs, events, and networking mixers.

Kicking off the year in January was the speaker panel Redefining Mainstream: Multicultural Marketing and the Changing Landscape. The panel cited specific examples of how their company’s dealt with the media landscape, the consumer, and organizational change. The discussion focused on the new bicultural, bi-lingual Hispanic consumer. Digitally savvy, their digital usage outpaces the general market. These consumers have become a hybrid, no longer wanting to be spoken to in Spanish.  We are seeing the rise of multilingual executions in the media marketplace citing “Live Mas” from Taco Bell as an example.

The event was moderated by Jake Beniflah, PhD, Executive Director for the Center for Multicultural Science.  The panel consisted of:

– Christian Martinez, Head of U.S. Sales, Facebook

– Maria Lopes-Knowles, Chief Marketing Officer, Pulpo Media

– Patty Silk, Global Insights Lead, Clorox Company

sfAMA participated at Ad:tech with a booth and offered discounts to the March event. While discussing the benefits of sfAMA and recruiting future members we enjoyed a great keynote from Sean “Diddy” Combs. The informative conference covered topics in mobile, social, video, data/analytics, content, programmatic, and strategy.

The roaring 20’s were evident with a bevy of flappers at our well-attended April spring mixer Shhh, Please Don’t Tell event at the famous (if not infamous) The Tip, a private penthouse lounge and former speakeasy, at advertising/marketing/design firm Duncan/Channon.

In May, sfAMA President, Gene Filipi was invited to deliver the keynote send-off at the 2014 marketing graduation ceremony at San Francisco State University. This was our biggest collegiate outreach and it was great to see all this positive energy and exchanges amongst seasoned and new marketers.

We found out what could happen when digital media and print unite at our June event How to Create Integrated Campaigns That Get Results. Rumor had it that print is dead. Is it, or has its role merely shifted? Print materials can’t create the flexibility of a digital platform, and digital content doesn’t have the same tactile human response as paper. Yet, print and digital can still live and thrive side-by-side, and when it comes to marketing, taking advantage of both is the smartest thing you can do.  The new media channels have not changed the basic strategy for marketers — the objective remains to produce the appropriate products/services for the target audience and then direct the target to the website or store for purchase.

The panel discussion was moderated by Ken McCormick, Vice President of Membership and Principal of Visual Identity Printed Media. The panel consisted of:

– Roman Hasenbeck, Managing Director, Metaio

– Ann Jordan, Creative Director, UNIT + partners

– Michael Fox, VP of Brand Management and Innovation, Safeway

– Aaron Haas, Director Product Management, NewPage

Since San Francisco can’t promise a sunny summer, we took a different approach for our Summer Social event. With an ambience more like a turn-of-the-century bordello; dark, red lights, antler candelabra, deep leather seating, we gathered at San Francisco’s most seductive and electrifying spots−Harlot. We teamed up with The Research Club (TRC), a global provider of social events held in London, Amsterdam, Hamburg, New York, Los Angeles, and more, whose mission is to bring together professionals involved in the market/social research industry to make new contacts, develop business opportunities and keep up-to-date with the latest industry developments.

In August we brought you, Startup Marketing from Garage to Billionaire. Behind every great startup there’s a great idea, product or service – but how do you go about marketing it? We learned from the experts who have “been there, done that” and led their companies to global success. Our panelists who have achieved an amazing amount of success by understanding the importance of omni channel marketing and utilizing the latest technologies, shared their successes – and their failures, and what they wish they’d done differently.

In October, sfAMA co-sponsored the Startup Marketing Conference. This event delivered on its promise to teach advanced techniques of rapid growth and digital best practices in just one day. Low-cost and high impact strategies to drive revenue were presented by keynote speakers and award-winning authors that included:

– Brian Solis, Principal Analyst, Altimeter Group

– Brant Cooper, New York Times Bestselling Author

– Tim Ash, CEO, Site Tuners

– Todd Wilms, Digital Marketing Leader, SAP

If you’ve forgone a taxi in favor of an Uber ride, skipped a hotel in hopes of a unique AirBNB experience or pitched in money to a random person’s Kickstarter campaign, you are one of millions of Americans contributing to the collaborative economy. While the idea of sharing goods and services certainly isn’t a new concept, new technologies are enabling this movement to grow far beyond car-shares. In a world where people are empowered to get what they need from each other, the role for businesses is significantly evolving.

Our October event In the New P2P Collaborative Economy gathered a big crowd and generated a lot of interest and questions from the audience.  Our speaker Jeremiah Owyang, founder of Crowd Companies, shared his vision and passion for the collaborative economy. He shared three ideas for brands to embrace.

1) Offer Access Over Ownership- brands must evolve by offering their brand as a service.

2) Embrace The Cycle of Product Exchanges- Technology is allowing products to be easily transferred, items exchange hands over and over. Brands need to ask “How can we be a part of these transactions?”

3) Build Platforms That Reward Loyalty and Community- brands are starting to tap into the power of the crowd, creating platforms that give a voice to communities and loyal customers.

Finally, no year would be complete without a totally awesome Black and White Holiday party benefiting the SPCA at General Assembly. A portion of the proceeds from the event were donated to the SFSPCA.

Indeed it was a great year and the hard work of the all-volunteer sfAMA chapter paid off. The chapter was recognized with multiple national awards for 2013-2014, the coveted Turn it Up Chapter of the Year and the Special Merit Award for Communications and Special Merit Award for Membership.  Gene Filipi, sfAMA President credited, “Strong leadership, creativity, and a ‘can do’ attitude is what won us these prestigious awards”. The awarding committee asked us to, “Accept our sincere congratulations and appreciation for your exemplary leadership efforts.  The San Francisco Chapter certainly epitomizes the qualities of an outstanding AMA chapter.  It is rewarding to see everything that can be achieved by such a hard-working group of talented volunteers. ”