Marketing for Good was the theme of the recent Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC) conference held at Otago Business School in Dunedin last week.
More than 480 delegates from across Australia, New Zealand and around the globe gathered to explore the benefits and global impact marketing can have on society.
Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Commerce, Dean of the Business School and Conference Co-Chair Professor Maree Thyne says Otago was delighted to host the event which was “a once in a lifetime opportunity to celebrate 25 years of the ANZMAC conference”.
“It’s especially notable as it was 25 years ago that the very first ANZMAC conference was held on the Dunedin campus.”
Keynote speaker Professor Janet Hoek of the University of Otago, Wellington, spoke about her more than 20 years of work in addressing public health questions that intersect with marketing, especially the work she and her colleagues have done to develop smokefree policy.
She also invited conference delegates to sign a petition calling on the Government to retain Aotearoa’s world leading Smokefree legislation.
Underpinned by robust evidence, the Smokefree legislation has strong public support, including from young people and those who smoke, she says. To date, 37,500 people have signed the petition which will be presented to Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clark, of Te Pāti Māori, at Parliament on Wednesday.
Professor Maree Thyne says she is pleased that the conference showed such strong support for the petition.
“Janet’s presentation and her passion for public health were so inspiring. The conference as a whole was buzzing with thought-provoking presentations and dynamic networking sessions,” Professor Thyne says.
Nicky Preston, Head of Sustainability at One New Zealand was the other keynote and spoke on ‘Acting and doing good: Two sides of marketing and corporate philanthropy’.
“This conference was an outstanding platform to think deeply about ethics, sustainability, place, history and society – and the role that marketing has to play in creating a better world for everybody,” Professor Thyne says.
A Doctoral Colloquium immediately preceded the conference, which was “a significant event in itself to run”, she says.
With 51 graduate student presentations and a panel of more than22 research discussants, the three-day colloquium was “constructive, collaborative and inclusive”.
Professor Thyne thanked the many people who made both the colloquium and conference such a success.
She thanked Doctoral Colloquium Chair Associate Professor Tony Garry, and his team - Masoud Karami and Wiebke Finkler.
Professor Thyne also highlighted the mahi of professional conference organisers JT Productions of Melbourne, who did “an outstanding job helping to organise this event”.
Finally, she was very grateful for the support provided by the ANZMAC Executive and her conference team - Associate Professor Sergio Biggemann as conference Co-Chair; Kirsten Robertson as Track Chair; Wiebke Finkler as Social Event Organiser; Mathew Parackal as Sponsorship Manager and Ismail Shaheer as Social Media Manager.
Kōrero by Communications Adviser, Sally Knox, Otago Business School