Kellogg Launches First-ever Executive Education Program on Influencer Marketing in Partnership with Emeritus

EVANSTON, Ill., Oct. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Kellogg Executive Education at Northwestern University is launching its industry-leading executive education program on influencer marketing, a high-impact learning journey that helps learners create tangible value for their brand and business through strategic influencer marketing. The Influencer Marketing Strategy Program was created by Kellogg Professor Mohan Sawhney and Adjunct Lecturer Amanda Russell. Guest speakers include top influencers, subject and brand experts, including Jesse Itzler, Founder of NetJets; Abigail Posner, blogger and Brand Director at Google; influencer and TV personality Nigel Barker; Larry Namer, founder of E! Entertainment Network; and best-selling author Erik Qualman. This program will teach marketers, brand and media managers how to use social influence to build brands and drive growth.

Launched in partnership with Emeritus, the global leader in making high-quality education accessible and affordable, the eight-week online program will help growth seekers from every industry understand the true power of influencer marketing, offer frameworks for achieving win-win outcomes, and illustrate how to achieve an integrated marketing strategy.

"We created this course because we wanted to empower passionate leaders with the tools to succeed with influencer marketing," says Amanda Russell, consultant and author of The Influencer Code. "Because at its core, it's about people and relationships. It's not about creating buzz or garnering attention – attention without trust is simply noise. The secret comes in understanding true influence. Shifting the lens from influencers to influence as an outcome will help marketers and brand leaders drive sustainable growth." Russell also created and teaches Kellogg's new course in the Kellogg Full-Time and Evening & Weekend MBA programs, called "Influencer Marketing: Identifying, Employing and Developing Influencer Strategies to Achieve Business Goals."

Kellogg Professor Mohan Sawhney, a globally recognized scholar and consultant, doubles down on that view. "Influencer marketing is relationship marketing, but this approach is really misunderstood in the market. We're helping brands to drive growth by understanding what influences their customers, activated through a series of proprietary frameworks and tools."

The global influencer marketing industry is valued at $13.8 billion, more than doubling since 2019, according to Statista. As influencer endorsement continues to mature as an industry, the size and value of influencer marketing platforms also continue to expand every year, making collaborations between brands and creators more profitable than ever. Program participants will learn firsthand from Kellogg faculty, practitioners and peers to advance their understanding of how influencer marketing can drive growth and create brand saliency.

In a noisy market where it's hard for brands to break through, the question becomes: how can we unite all elements of business and marketing into a strategy that builds relationships and trust with stakeholders in a meaningful way? The answer is influence.

Participants will learn:

• A deep understanding of what influencer marketing is
• A playbook of ways to integrate and leverage influencer relationships across all elements of your business, culminating in a final Capstone project
• Frameworks for measuring and improving the performance of your influencer marketing effort
• Firsthand accounts from industry experts of how influencer marketing propelled their brands forward
• Examples of influencer agreements designed to develop long-term, win-win relationships

"We are excited to bring a program teaching such cutting-edge skills to professionals all over the globe," says Lisa Rohrer, head of university partnerships at Emeritus. "Coming out of the pandemic, brands are eager to gain back any lost ground and learn the most impactful methods to drive growth. This unique program will teach skills to help organizations leverage these techniques to achieve their goals."

The program starts on December 9, 2021 and is designed as a digital-first experience.  The program fee is $3,300 with flexible payment options available and discounts for multiple enrollments. Visit the program page for more details.

About The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University

The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University is a premier global business school committed to its mission to educate, equip and inspire leaders who leverage creativity and innovation and bring empathy to every decision. Based just outside of Chicago, our vibrant, global community of faculty, staff, students and alumni shapes the practice of business and organizations around the world.

About Kellogg Executive Education

Kellogg Executive Education empowers business leaders to foster growth in themselves, their teams and their organizations. Our renowned faculty, consisting of the world's best researchers, educators, and practitioners, provide practical insight that participants can apply as soon as they return to work. Providing a collaborative, immersive environment for our executive development programs, we serve a variety of businesses and executives from a myriad of industries and geographies.

About Emeritus

Emeritus is committed to teaching the skills of the future by making high-quality education accessible and affordable to individuals, companies, and governments around the world. It does this by collaborating with more than 50 top-tier universities across the United States, Europe, Latin America, Southeast Asia, India and China.  Emeritus' short courses, degree programs, professional certificates, and senior executive programs help individuals learn new skills and transform their lives, companies and organizations.  Its unique model of state-of-the-art technology, curriculum innovation, and hands-on instruction from senior faculty, mentors and coaches educates more has educated more than 250,000 individuals across 80+ countries. Founded in 2015, Emeritus, part of Eruditus Group, has more than 1,400 employees globally and offices in Mumbai, New Delhi, Shanghai, Singapore, Palo Alto, Mexico City, New York, Boston, London, and Dubai. Following its $650 million Series E funding round in August 2021, the company is valued at $3.2 billion, and is backed by Accel, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Leeds Illuminate, Prosus Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, and Bertelsmann.

SOURCE Emeritus