What a way to kick off this year's Experiential Marketing Summit (EMS)-- a candidly remarkable keynote from JetBlue's former vp of marketing, Amy Curtis-McIntyre.  Just two weeks into her new role at the Hyatt here in Chicago, Amy opened her presentation with a crack about the EMS hotel venue escalators only connecting floors 5 and 7 (yes, skipping 6) and ended it with an insightful and relative quote from Maya Angelou.  Covering a wide range of brand building topics, her plain-spoken, often comical stories about her successes at JetBlue were refreshing and well-put.  Like the "in-private" objective driving the development of JetBlue-- "Let's make coach suck less".

 

Warning that her presentation slides were simple and some of her media spots nearly got her fired, she seemed to make an immediate connection with the audience.  Lots of stuff to take away from her style alone, but here are a few simple, yet effective things she reminded us, as marketers, to never forget.

 

In her words:

 

(1) Sell something people want or need.

(2) Give people more than they expect.

(3) Tell people stuff they want to know, the truth for example.

(4) Hire the right people.  Get rid of the wrong ones.  Take good care of the ones you keep.

(5) Good design really does matter.

(6) Look outside your industry for inspiration.

 

For those of you that attended, feel free to share your thoughts.  This is just a start...