Kellogg Marketing Club (KMC) | Annual Events

Kellogg has been running the Kellogg Marketing Week for over 25 consecutive years.  The Marketing Week celebrates the best in marketing at Kellogg with exciting events that discuss the latest and greatest in the marketing realm.

This past year, Marketing Week was held from November 14 - 18 and highlighted some incredible brands and speakers. Students learned more about what it means to be a marketer in the rapidly evolving Tech space, what a day is like from the perspective of CPG marketers, how to market themselves and establish a personal brand and so much more!

More to come on Marketing Week 2026. Stay tuned and follow us for updates in the fall!

2025 Marketing Week Highlights:

💊 Trust in an Age of Skepticism: Reimagining Pharma Marketing - Trust is now table stakes in pharma, built over decades and across every stakeholder to form a “matrix of trust” that sustains brands through any challenge. Thank you Prof. Tim Calkins for moderating and Pamela Buford, Caroline Brown, Liz Pfau, MBA, Brandon Drew for their insights.

🍔 Reframing Brands: The Hamburger Helper Comeback - Moderated by Michal Maimaran, Mala Wiedemann shared a masterclass in career pivots and brand reinvention. Her company's deliberate, data-driven turnaround of Hamburger Helper showed how timing and storytelling can revive legacy brands.

💼 Getting to the C-Suite: Lessons from Top CMOs - I had the privilege of moderating a panel with Andrew Rebhun, Brooke Mallick, and Melissa Weiss — three inspiring leaders who shared candid lessons on leadership, risk, and resilience. A few lines that stuck with me: “Perfection is the enemy of the good, “Failure is a false narrative, and “You work for a person, not a company.” Great leaders create the “weather” that enables others to thrive.

🌿 Sustainability in Practice: How Companies Are Building for the Future - Hosted by Professor Megan Kashner, this discussion with Elena Villarreal Daniel, MBA, Rachael Lawrence, Lauren Mahoney-Pick, and Jacqi Coleman explored how adaptability, collaboration, and purpose-driven leadership make sustainability real.

🏆 Beyond the Game: How Sports Shape Brand and Culture - Our keynote with Gordon Kane ’86 brought the business of sports to life, from Chicago’s Olympic bid to how brands and leagues build global influence. He even left students asking for a sports marketing pop-up at Kellogg — a true testament to his impact.

🤖 AI and the Future of Marketing - Our fireside chat with Jeff Jacobs and Prof. Jim Lecinski explored how AI is transforming marketing’s next frontier. The key takeaway: AI isn’t new — its accessibility is. As Prof. Lecinski put it, “Use the tool, but don’t outsource your brain to the tool.”

💳 The New Loyalty Playbook - We wrapped the week by exploring how loyalty programs are expanding beyond travel and retail — even into healthcare. The discussion examined the fine line between personalization and privacy, and how brands can build trust through relevance. Thank you to Tom O'Toole for moderating and Randy Crooks, Lauren Wachholder, Sarah Leonard Wyland, and Ansley Hamilton for closing out the week with such an engaging conversation.

Huge thanks to all our speakers, moderators, and partner clubs for making Marketing Week such a success!

The Annual Kellogg Marketing Competition (AKMC) is an annual event dedicated to giving first-year Kellogg students an opportunity to use their skills and creativity to work on a marketing campaign from beginning to end. Students form teams of 5-6 students and are assigned randomly to a real product from a sponsoring company. Teams have to create a full marketing campaign around the project, culminating in a special AKMC pitch competition to current brand managers of CPG companies, marketing professors, and KMC executive committee members.

The AKMC facilitates access to popular companies' recruiters and brand managers, and gives participants a great opportunity to exhibit their interest in marketing and to develop stories to share during interviews. Most importantly, AKMC is regarded as one of the most exciting and fun events at Kellogg!

More to come on AKMC 2026. Stay tuned and follow us for updates in the fall!

The biggest night in football is also the biggest night in advertising - the Super Bowl. For the last 18 years, Kellogg has been conducting the Super Bowl Ad Review, in which professors and students will grade the Super Bowl advertisements in real time based on strategic criteria known as the ADPLAN framework and produce a final ranking of their most - and least - effective advertisers.

Join Professors Tim Calkins and Derek Rucker in ranking the Super Bowl ads in real-time and learn how ads can help build brands, drive sales, and boost a company's profits through an evening of sporting excitement in February 2026.

More to come on SBAR 2026. Stay tuned and follow us for updates in the Winter!