News
← Back to IdeasOgilvy and Yale Center for Customer Insights Establish New Fellowship
NEW YORK, July 23, 2020 – Today, we are proud to announce the appointment of Jon Iwata, former Senior Vice President and Chief Brand Officer of the IBM Corporation, as a Senior Advisor to The Ogilvy Group, and the inaugural Ogilvy Fellow at the Center for Customer Insights at Yale School of Management (YCCI).
Why have we partnered with Yale to establish this fellowship? CEOs are increasingly embracing the role of their companies to create value for all the stakeholders who matter to their success – customers and investors, of course, but also employees and society at large. They are doing more than communicating the purpose of their companies. They’re using purpose as a core driver of growth, taking positions and adopting policies to address societal issues – from climate change to social equality – and transforming their corporate cultures to match words with action. All of this has significant implications for how companies are led, brands are experienced and, most importantly in this era of data, how stakeholders are engaged – as unique individuals, rather than “audiences” or “segments.”
The new fellowship at YCCI will explore these implications with a focus on the new skills, management systems and capabilities that companies need to build trusted relationships with their stakeholders.
Jon Iwata is the ideal inaugural fellow. He has been a valued client of Ogilvy for over three decades and was the guiding force behind some of Ogilvy’s most recognized IBM work, including “e-business,” “Watson,” and “Smarter Planet.” Jon is one of the world’s leading strategic thinkers on the integration of business strategy, brand, culture, and what it takes to build enduring trust and sustainable value in the corporate brand. He is an inductee of the Marketing Hall of Fame, the CMO Club Hall of Fame, and the B2B Hall of Fame. He was named a Brand Genius by Adweek in 2017.
As founder, David Ogilvy built a corporate culture of continuous learning, referring to Ogilvy & Mather as a teaching hospital for creative communications professionals. Throughout our history, Ogilvy’s purpose has been to make our clients’ brands matter to the world. Today, brands face extraordinary challenges to be relevant and engaging, to be trusted, to be meaningful and valued by all the audiences, or stakeholders, they serve.
It’s an extraordinary opportunity for us to work with Jon and the YCCI to study and share how best to grow and steward brands, particularly corporate brands, in this new era. David Ogilvy would be proud that his dedication to building brand and business value for the benefit of all audiences is alive and well today.
We will be collaborating with and convening Ogilvy clients and other stakeholders from around the world over the next 24 months on this important initiative, and we look forward to sharing our learning with those who are passionate about making brands matter – for all.
***
About Ogilvy
Ogilvy has been producing iconic, culture-changing marketing campaigns since the day its founder David Ogilvy opened up shop in 1948. Today, Ogilvy is an award-winning integrated creative network that makes brands matter for Fortune Global 500 companies as well as local businesses across 132 offices in 83 countries. The company creates experiences, design and communications that shape every aspect of a brand’s needs through six core capabilities: Brand Strategy, Advertising, Public Relations and Influence, Customer Engagement and Commerce, Digital Transformation, and Partnerships. Ogilvy is a WPP company (NASDAQ: WPPGY). For more information, visit Ogilvy.com, or follow Ogilvy on Twitter at @Ogilvy and on Facebook.com/Ogilvy.
About Jon Iwata
Jon Iwata is former Senior Vice President and Chief Brand Officer of IBM. He led the company’s global marketing and communications organization for a decade and was chairman of its corporate strategy committee for three years. During his 35-year career, Jon reported to three IBM CEOs. Today he is Executive Fellow at Yale School of Management, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and a director of the Ladies Professional Golf Association.
About Yale School of Management and the Center for Customer Insights
The mission of the Yale School of Management is to educate leaders for business and society. Throughout our activities, we seek to train leaders who are engaged with meaningful issues, both globally and in their communities; rigorous in capitalizing on the best data and ideas; and attuned to the impact they have on all around them. The Yale Center for Customer Insights (YCCI) partners with global leaders to develop, test and disseminate new insights that advance the frontiers of consumer understanding to drive growth. For more information, please visit http://www.som.yale.edu/cci.
# # #