Launch of monthly marketing breakfasts

The first in the series tackles the thorny issue of advertising and marketing and asks the pertinent question: Why is the gap widening?

Due to take place on Wednesday, 14 March 2007, at Hackle Brooke (Gauteng), industry icons appointed to the inaugural breakfast panel debate include:

• Jeremy Sampson – CEO Interbrand Sampson
  
• Sarah-Anne Orphanides – marketing director Standard Bank
  
• Reinher Behrens – chairperson of the Association for Communication & Advertising and TBWA Johannesburg
  
• Godfrey Morley – former executive with FCB
  
• Thomas Oosthuizen – leading marketing consultant

Notes the Journal’s acting editor Jeremy Maggs, “There is a growing sense among the advertising and marketing community that as budgets are squeezed and skills become scarcer, the two crucial stakeholders are simply not engaging with and talking to each other. The victim is inevitably the brand.

“It’s imperative the chasm starts narrowing and the best way for that to happen is for serious dialogue to begin.”

Spanning the full spectrum of marketing issues from media to merchandising, (and everything in-between) the publication’s managing editor, Bronwen James is thrilled with the extension of The Marketing Journal’s current repertoire of expert offerings.

Says James on the launch of the first breakfast debate, “Our foremost objective is to provide a platform of opportunity for the media and marketing industry to network with key opinion leaders. And through this channel, we hope to encourage a collective yet democratic voice that will help facilitate industry change.”

Seats can be secured at a cost of R350 per head (excluding VAT), which includes breakfast. Go to www.journalofmarketing.co.za for more information.