FORTUNE Magazine recently published a survey of the world’s most respected brands. The Seattle area boasts 6 in the top 30. 

As marketing and advertising professionals that call the Seattle area home, we are global stewards for the brands by nature of our profession. Join AAF Seattle as we continue the discussion around diversity and multiculturalism from the perspective of driving brand engagement, both from the agency and brand perspective.

We'll touch on such topics and questions as: 

• How prepared are we to support billions of consumers that share the Great Circle of the Pacific Rim? 
• What are the key insights we can share on how to optimize the brand experience and messaging? 
• What role does multiculturalism play in our ability to connect with consumers? 
• What works (and may not work so well) when it comes to strategy to addressing diversity in your teams and your advertising message?

AAF Seattle is bringing together a panel of global thought leaders to address this key topic for advertising growth. 

Panel

Ben Rudolph
Director, Sales Evangelism, Worldwide Retail Channel Marketing, Microsoft

Natalie Rouse is an award winning, nationally recognized expert in multicultural marketing, product strategy and content distribution. She brings over 20 years of multicultural marketing, operations, media and international business experience to your organization’s projects. Ms. Rouse possesses comprehensive experience and intimate working knowledge of the processes, systems, and procedures prevalent in Fortune 100 companies. Ms. Rouse developed the Multicultural Marketing business for Comcast and during her tenure the business grew to over $1 Billion in annual revenue. Along the way, she has received over 40 national awards for multicultural marketing excellence in recognition of her strategic successes and is a published award-winning author of "The Practical Guide to Multicultural Marketing."

Natalie Rouse
CEO, Southern Cross International

Ken Cho is the CEO and co-founder of People Pattern, an audience intelligence platform that uncovers and analyzes the unique "who" behind audiences, optimizing efforts in market research, content marketing, lead generation and media planning. Prior to People Pattern, Ken founded Spredfast, an enterprise social media management software platform that allows organizations to manage, monitor and measure their social media programs. Ken lives in Austin with his wife Laura and daughters Callie and Eliza, and holds a B.A. in Economics from Wesleyan University and an MBA from The McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. He claims he is nothing with Oasis' Wonderwall.

Ken Cho
Co-Founder and CEO, People Pattern

Shelly Kurtz is the Executive Director of Sales & Marketing for International Media Distribution (IMD), a division of NBCUniversal. Shelly joined IMD in 2000 after spending 3 years at KSTW as their Director of Public Affairs. Currently, Shelly leads the planning, strategy and execution of B2B and B2C marketing for a portfolio of over 35 international television channels targeting Asian, European and Middle Eastern consumers. In her tenure at IMD, Shelly and her small team of multicultural marketers have received awards for excellence by national industry publications and diversity organizations over 45 times. Shelly has been a featured speaker and panelist on several stages and was a Judge of the 2013 Miss Washington USA & Miss Washington Teen USA competition. A native of Washington State, Shelly graduated cum laude from Pacific Lutheran University with a degree in Communication and a minor in Spanish. She spends her spare time traveling internationally, volunteering, looking for misplaced sticky notes and planning her retirement in Argentina. She lives in Seattle with her husband and two children. Her favorite guilty pleasures are talking to taxi drivers about their media consumption habits, shoe shopping and eating juicy pork dumplings at Din Tai Fung. She once took a 100 day trip around the world where she visited 13 countries including such global hotspots as Africa, India, China, and Japan.

Shelly Kurtz
Executive Director, NBC Universal, International Media Distribution

Moderator

Andy Boyer has had a long career in the world of online marketing. In 1996, he joined a start-up called ProgressiveNetworks (later called RealNetworks) before there was such a thing as video on the internet. Later, he was a partner in one of the earliest social media agencies in Seattle, Spring Creek Group. He currently manages Social3i, a boutique agency helping companies transform their web presence into a Corporate Broadcast Network, and is an Adjunct Lecturer teaching classes on Entrepreneurial Marketing, Content Marketing and Online Marketing in the University of Washington's Foster School of Business MBA Program.

Andy Boyer
Adjunct Faculty, University of Washington Foster School of Business MBA

Agenda

6:00-7:00 - cocktails and mingling
7:00-8:15 - panel discussion
8:15-8:30 - Q&A
8:30-9:30 - more of the mingles

Cocktails

Beer, wine and light food will be provided.

Social

Use #AAFInsights to add your tweets, pics and vids to our social stream.

RSVP on Facebook to keep up with event-related news.

Stay tuned for a pre-event discussion with our panelists in our LinkedIn group.

About

Market Insights is our series of informational panel and speaker sessions featuring industry-leading professionals and thought leaders.

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