Jack of all trades,
master of everything. Marketing educator Karen V. De Asis puts a twist to
the popular figure of speech with recognitions and successes in various
industries under her name. This coming October 21, 2015, De Asis will be
expounding on her knowledge and experience on branding in the forthcoming Agora
Circle Conference hosted by the Philippine Marketing Association. The
gathering, which will be held at the Marriott Grand Ballroom, will see past
Agora winners share their personal stories behind their winning marketing
strategies.
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De Asis is a name to reckon in the
marketing landscape. She received the Agora Award for Marketing Education in
2003 and boasts of a long career in strategic marketing, both as a practitioner
and an educator. She has extensive experience in education in graduate business
schools, and, for more than 10 years, has been an adjunct faculty of the Asian
Institute of Management. She has also taught at the De La Salle Graduate School
of Business and Ateneo Graduate School of Business. She was the recipient of
the 2008 Outstanding Faculty Awardee of the De La Salle University.
As an educator, she says her Agora
Award proved her relevance to the industry that she is working in.
“It’s an acknowledgement of my
contribution to the industry, and because the award is along marketing
education, it is also an acknowledgement from the students, the peers and,
likewise, the people outside the education industry.”
She continues, “I think the
judging criteria of the PMA require that you go beyond marketing theory.
Usually if it’s education, you think of academic practice only. But a
distinctiveness of the marketing education award of the PMA is your relevance
to the industry as well. Every marketing education awardee is acknowledged by
both the academe and the industry. It’s like both theory and practice. That is
its essence.”
Presently, she is the chief brand
strategist of MKS Marketing Consulting, with major expertise in building
laggard brands to market challenger and/or market leader positions. She is also
an executive business coach to a number of board of directors of family
corporations challenged by new and old, recurring business issues. She writes
for the Business Features Section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and has
authored the best-selling easy-to-read branding book, “Color Folders in the Mind:
a Branding Story.”
This year’s Agora Circle
Conference follows the theme “Fifty Shades of Marketing Darker.” The conference
will feature the biggest names recognized by the reputable Agora Awards and
will be open to members of the academe, industry professionals, and students
who have an interest to the local marketing industry. Topics to be discussed
will span the branding, entrepreneurship, social responsibility, and technology
spheres.
As a teaser to her talk, De
Asis shares this bit of knowledge with marketing professionals: “What is
important is reinvention, looking back at the history of your brand. You look
back at history and then learn how to reinvent it across different generations.
Others have a tendency to just make changes, when in fact; there is a
possibility that there were good things in the past that stay relevant in the
present and in the future.”
