STRONGBRANDS    Professor Tim Calkins, Kellogg School of Management

It is graduation week here at Northwestern. On Friday, several hundred Kellogg MBA students will walk across the stage and receive their degrees. There will be speeches and hugs and celebrations— it’s a fun time of the year. Soon enough, the graduates will get to work. Some will start in a week or two, while […]

It is back to school time! All around the world, students are organizing school supplies, looking forward to seeing old friends and becoming sleepless with the excitement of a new academic year. It is a universal experience shared by pupils of all ages. My daughter Anna started school yesterday, and my MBA students at Northwestern […]

It is graduation time, an exciting and festive part of the year. Here at the Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, students are trying on robes and getting ready for the commencement ceremonies later this week. Recently I provided some financial advice for graduates. This article is to offer advice on building a strong personal brand. It is […]

In less than two weeks, more than 500 students will graduate from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. While I teach marketing strategy and branding, each year I provide some financial advice to the graduates. If you follow my blog this will be familiar. Some things change over the years, but the core concepts remain. Save […]

This weekend Kellogg hosted the 14th annual Kellogg Biotech and Healthcare Case Competition. I help run the event. A total of sixty teams applied, and we selected eleven to compete. Representing ten different business schools, the list included Wharton, Chicago Booth, Tuck (Dartmouth), MIT Sloan, HEC Paris, Judge (Cambridge), Fuqua (Duke), Olin (Washington University), Berkeley […]

Last week I helped pick teams to participate in the Kellogg Biotech and Healthcare Case Competition. This is an annual event held at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in which eleven teams of business students from around the world gather to present their assessment of a business case and compete for a $5,000 cash […]

Today more than one thousand students will graduate from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. I’ve taught almost half of them. They will soon start at new jobs, branch out in different industries, and begin careers in cities around the world. It is an exciting moment, transitioning from one thing to the next. It is […]

This week my daughter Claire and I have been asking local businesses to donate items for an upcoming silent auction event. In June, Claire will head to Panama on a service project with Amigos de Las Americas, a non-profit group that brings volunteer opportunities to high school and college students. To support the trip, the […]

Phil Kotler is well-known as one of the world’s top marketing thinkers. He did more than anyone to establish Kellogg’s reputation as a great marketing school. He is a prolific author on marketing topics. I suspect most people don’t know that Kotler trained as an economist, studying at the University of Chicago and MIT. In his […]

This week, almost one thousand people will graduate from Kellogg with their MBA degrees. They will then embark on careers that will span decades. Last year I posted some financial advice for the graduates, and some people found that useful, so this year I’m sticking with the theme. Those who read last year’s post will […]

We are close to the end of the year. This is an important time for marketers to take a look at the business and reflect on how things have gone. Business leaders don’t devote much time to looking back. There is constant pressure to update the plan and execute, so people tend to work on the […]

The Chief Marketing Officer Council is out today with the results of its annual survey of marketing leaders. I was struck by two figures: – 81% of marketing leaders believe that share growth is likely and attainable this year. – 10% of CMOs are worried about their jobs. These figures suggest that marketing executives are an […]