David Bell

Brands that shake up a category and change the retail landscape don’t just appear. So, how do successful startups move from idea to a game-changing disruptor? “Start by identifying your what’s broken for customers, then learn how to drive either ‘insight’ or ‘framework’ innovation,” says David R. Bell, president and co-founder of startup incubator Idea Farm Ventures and former Wharton professor who created the school’s first digital marketing and e-commerce program. In this interactive session grounded in decades of research and cases on the consumer and retail economy, Bell shares his proven framework that outlines actionable go-to-market strategies industry incumbents can follow to compete like their more nimble counterparts. With lessons applicable across a variety of product and service sectors, Bell’s experience and insights show participants how to identify sleepy categories, amplify real world environments through digital initiatives and ultimately build trusted brands and products that will stand out and be successful in today’s ultra-competitive retail landscape.

The business world is in the throes of the digital age. But just because digital marketing is indispensable doesn’t mean we can ignore the impact of offline presence. More than ever, consumers still need to interact with brands in person. Social interaction, frictionless transacting and mobile-enabled commerce create unparalleled opportunities, and yet also impose discipline and risk on new and established firms alike. David Bell provides research-driven and actionable insights into how firms must navigate this new environment and illuminates several examples from various industries. Bell discusses how to:

• build a lasting brand narrative;
• engage, retain and rapidly scale the customer base;
• execute the three levers of digital brand-building, and
• apply the LAW of Digital (Leverage, Amplify, Win Local)

Conventional wisdom holds that the internet has made the world flat and erased the impact of the physical world on what we buy and where we buy it (online or offline). Paradoxically, the rise of internet-connected devices and commerce innovation have made it more important to understand physical world geography and relationships, not less. Drawing from his award-winning book, “Location Is (still) Everything,” David Bell provides a powerful and practical metaphor and framework – GRAVITY – for thinking about how real world-virtual world interaction drives business success. GRAVITY embodies the levers executives must understand (Geography, Resistance, Adjacency, Vicinity, Isolation, Topography and You) in order to navigate the new commerce landscape. In this presentation, Bell shows audiences how to deploy the GRAVITY framework to drive commerce, leverage proven strategies for success from leading digital-first brands, and understand and capitalize on consumers’ behavior – online and off.

David Bell has been immersed in retail and consumer behavior since his days as a PhD student at Stanford pouring over scanner panel transaction data. He has authored award-winning research on retail pricing strategies (e.g., high-low pricing, EDLP) and in-store consumer behavior. Now, he focuses on retail transformation in logistics and information delivery where his ongoing work with established players as well as young digital-first brands like Bonobos and Warby Parker – both born online and now have thriving retail locations ­– continues to evolve. Bell discusses the future of marketing and e-commerce, and how to build the right omni-channel experiences for the right customers in the right locations. Furthermore, he shows leaders how to execute logistics and information innovations, illuminating why they need to be put in place, as well as how to navigate and thrive in an omni-channel world.

The Millennial consumer is transforming and upending the economy, and yet the nuances of how these consumers behave, and the outsized influence they wield, are poorly understood. As a result, large incumbent firms are being outperformed by nimble younger companies led by Millennial executives, who naturally have far greater insight into this generation’s spending habits, impulses and values. According to digital marketing expert David Bell, the relationship between the rise of Millennial customers and the disruption of traditional businesses is symbiotic: both drive and inform each other. Based on deep research of successful startup companies, and the subject of his forthcoming book, Bell devised the “B.O.S.S. Model,” a framework to help companies develop ways to understand, relate to and ultimately compete for the business of Millennials. The framework – Bonding, not branding; Orators, not customers; Showrooms, not stores; Science, not service – requires leaders to completely rethink how they approach and sell to this unique generation, and covers the connection, people, physical spaces and data science needed to appeal to Millennials (and the generations they influence). Millennials represent the buying patterns and values of the future, and companies must begin transforming their approach to marketing and sales now. Bell’s grounded and practical B.O.S.S. Model will be the first comprehensive blueprint for thriving during this wave of transformation.

The line between in-store and online retail has blurred to the point that being successful in either, or both, requires new thinking around branding and marketing strategies. Digital marketing and e-commerce trailblazer David R. Bell – researcher, Wharton professor turned investor and highly sought-after mentor for startups and legacy companies alike – helps organizations understand and leverage consumer behavior in the evolving online, offline and hybrid retail landscapes. In this eye-opening presentation, he’ll outline the new truisms of digital marketing, such as the importance of building a human-centered, compelling brand story that resonates with consumers on a personal level. He also explains that the Millennial and Gen-Z demographics can no longer be an afterthought, and he helps founders and leaders understand the consumer behavior and true buying power of these influential customers. With Bell’s proven frameworks, participants will gain new insights into how to build successful modern branding and marketing initiatives, particularly the vital importance of omnichannel retail strategies, how these strategies harness the lucrative buying power of the Millennial and Gen-Z demographics, as well as other cohorts who have adopted their psychographic and mindset.

Pharma, relative to some other sectors, has been slow to embrace digital transformation. The traditional method of marketing pharmaceuticals to physicians and patients is no longer effective, and doctors have been replaced by Google as the primary source of information for patients.  The digital potential in healthcare is enormous with 1 in 20 Google searches relating to “health.” Drawing on his work in “Pharma 3D: Rewriting the Script for Pharma Marketing in the Digital Age,” David Bell elaborates on the trends and opportunities facing pharma organizations and provides an actionable framework to help them win in the digital health care economy. He helps pharma leaders understand how to deploy care-flows, implement the 3D (Discovery, Design, Deliver) model, and emulate best practices from leading in-care pharma case studies.