Today at the June luncheon, we announced the following honors for May:
- Board Member of the Month: Colin Hageney, Bullpen Marketing
Colin was one of the chairs for the 2009 Crystal Awards. He was extremely valuable to this event’s success, not to mention others he has co-chaired.
- Volunteer of the Month: Julie Pitts, DMN3
Julie has been working to help our Nonprofit Marketing SIG with their recent events, and we thank her so much for all of her hard work.
Thanks to you both and to all of our volunteers for your help!
Over 400 marketers attended the AMA Houston Crystal Awards last Friday, and it was quite a show! Everything from the Las Vegas-style entertainment, to the cocktail conversations, to the great work shown at the event made for a very memorable night.
Special guest, Nancy Costopulos, the chief marketing officer of AMA, presented a special trophy for AMA Houston being named Chapter of the Year, the top award among all chapters in North
America. The top Crystal Award, the Judges’ Favorite trophy, went to the Greater Houston Visitors and Convention Bureau for their “My Houston” marketing program.
Top winners of the AMA Houston Crystal Awards announced at the event were:
2020 Exhibits
Alley Theatre
Axiom
Barrett-Wehlmann LLC
Centerpoint Energy
Century A/C Supply and Ice Blue Advertising
Croxson Design
CS Creative
DMN3
Ernst & Young
Gelb Consulting
Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau
Griffin Integrated Marketing
Gulf Publishing Company
Houston Symphony
KBR
Limb Design
Lopez Negrete Communications
Metropolitan Transit Authority
Oliver Russell
Parker : Hayden Advertising + Design
Pennebaker Fifth Ring
Sabre Marketing
Shadow Lakes - Rediscover Texas
Southeast Media
Spur Interactive, LP
Texas Children’s Hospital
Water Design Studio
Weatherford International Ltd.
Zenfilm
For a complete listing of winners and categories, be sure to visit www.crystalawards.org
Check out these photos from our May luncheon, as well as a Board event.
- The luncheon featuring Suzanne Penley
- Photos from the AMA Leadership Summit. Representatives from the AMA Houston Board traveled to Chicago to learn from other AMA Chapter Leaders on how to improve the AMA Houston experience even more!
The Online Marketing Summit will be here in Houston next Wednesday, May 20th as part of their 18 city “Whistle Stop Tour.” We’ve found a few reviews online from marketers that have attended in other cities that might be helpful in learning what you can expect and what the experience is like attending.
So which of you fellow AMA-ers are going next week? Let us know. If we can get a small group, maybe there can be an informal meetup afterwards to share notes and thoughts.
If you haven’t registered yet, just a reminder that you get 20% off with the AMA Houston discount code!
Today at the May luncheon, we announced the following honors for April:
- Board Member of the Month: Jo-Anne White, Frank White Photography
Jo-Anne is our New Member Services Chair, but really she does so much more. In fact, she has recently “stepped up” to take on additionally responsibilities and fill in where needed. She’s enthusiastic and loves to greet our members and volunteers at our events.
- Volunteer of the Month: Jose Monterrosa, Imagina Communications
Jose has been a great help on our recent Multicultural Marketing SIG events. He’s been invaluable in connecting AMA Houston to supporters and speakers so that we can put on these events!
Thanks to you both and to all of our volunteers for your help!
Please welcome our New Members. The following professionals joined AMA Houston in May, and we are glad to have them as part of our community:
- Alex Barclay, Henry Technologies
- Gentry Braswell, Braswell Business Communications Services Inc
- Richard Cisneros, Saurage Research Inc
- Bill Courtney
- Tracy Donaldson, Compendium Blogware
- John Elias, Choice Energy Services
- Leah George
- Melissa Hebert, Wood Group Logging Services
- Cynthia Hilborn, Eagle Burgmann
- David Hoyt, Tangelo
- Fred Lepovitz, Parker Hayden Inc
- Lauren Levicki, Special Surgery of Houston
- Diana Lovshe
- Shawn Mayo
- Katelynn Nguyen, Cultural Consumer ConneXion
- Lawrence Nodee, The Guardian
- Rick Owen
- Patricia Pinckney, Peralta Pinckney Associates
- Ellen Ramsey, Lone Star Exhibits
- Brian Reeves, Port of Houston Authority
- Beth Robbins, Excalibur Exhibits
- David Schiller, Athletic Orthopedics and Knee Center
- Michelle Stephenson, VMS Communications
- Lee Wheat, Whole Wheat Creative
- Cynthia Wieties, American General
- Kathy Yale, Total Seminars Inc
Penny Todd - AMA Houston Past President, Susannah Moore Griffin, and Sherri Scott - current AMA Houston President
On April 8th, Sterling Bank Vice President and Corporate Communications Manager Susannah Moore Griffin gave attendees at the American Marketing Association’s monthly luncheon inspiration on how to market successfully during a downturn.
“Staying nimble and looking for new ways to engage your customers is essential to facing the challenges of this economy,” she noted to a crowd of well over 150 in-house marketers, agency executives and other marketing leaders at Houston’s Junior League. She lead the group through an overview of the ways a marketing leader can look past conventional mindsets and methodologies to reinvent the relationship to be even stronger in hard economic times.
And Griffin should know. Her team at Sterling Bank has focused on being able to concentrate its limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and create a maintainable competitive advantage in the face of constant change and a host of larger competing institutions. “But just because you can’t outspend the competition,” Griffin contends, “doesn’t mean you can’t outsmart them.”
Marketers in the financial services sector have had to contend with shrinking marketing budgets, growing market uncertainty, restrictive credit trends, changing technology, mergers & acquisitions, toxic assets, slowing national growth, widespread bank failures and a changing regulatory landscape.
Griffin noted that staying light on your feet in terms of implementation, while maintaining constant awareness in your target audience and competitive positioning, can help you overcome competing institutions even if they can outspend you.
Despite industry challenges, Houston’s Sterling Bank has maintained its marketing momentum by keeping the focus on the objectives, challenges and changes amongst its customer base–and looking for innovative ways to communicate and support them with their commercial and consumer endeavors. Since going public in 1992, Sterling Bancshares and its wholly owned subsidiary Sterling Bank have grown from $290 million to more than $5 billion in assets.
View more photos from this event on our photo gallery site.
In the new April 30th issue of Marketing News, local AMA Houston member Alex Lopez Negrete is quoted on page 24 as part of an article on Multicultural Marketing. The article speaks touches on the growing importance of the the Hispanic market to marketers, and how this segment is one that should be integrated into your marketing planning:
“I think corporate America gets it that Hispanic marketing is not a ‘nice to have,’ it is a strategic imperative. If they are to survive, to provide value to stakeholders and stockholders, marketing to Latinos has got to be on the radar screen.”
Be sure to attend one of our local Multicultural Marketing SIG events to stay on top of Hispanic marketing and other multicultural marketing trends.
At the April luncheon, we announced the following honors for March:
- Board Member of the Month: Brandy Obvintsev, Energy People Connect
As one of the chairs for the Energy Marketing SIG, Brandy has spearheaded two high profile and well-attended events over the past couple of months.
- Volunteer of the Month: Cindy Shanley, BrandExtract
Cindy has been working very hard to help our B2B Marketing SIG with their recent events.
Thanks to you both and to all of our volunteers for your help!
Please welcome our New Members. The following professionals joined AMA Houston in March, and we are glad to have them as part of our community:
- Ross Blanford, AZZ / RAL Rig A Lite
- Sean Conner, Dashiell
- Kathleen Deaton
- Zaundra Jackson, ConocoPhillips
- Betty Karlsson, American Red Cross
- Jay Kraker, Kraker & Company Inc
- Melissa Manning, IHS Inc
- John McCraw, BI
- Lizabeth Palmer, CITGO Petroleum Corp
- Denise Patrick, Pierpont Communications Inc
- Daniel Payton, Oil Air Hydraulics Inc
- Lynn Rentzel, VisionMonitor Software LLC
- Robert Skaggs, University of Texas Medical
- Ruben Trevino, RT&A
