Speaker Biography

Melissa Parrish

Principal Analyst&Research Dir

Sessions Featuring This Speaker

Forrester's Marketing Leadership Forum 2012

04/18/2012

  • 08:40 AM - 09:15 AM

    Your Next Consumer: The Convergence Of Social And Mobile

    "SoLoMo" (social, location, mobile) is on the tip of everyone's tongue. Mobile technology is making it possible – and desirable – to enhance customer relationships through location-relevant and socially enabled engagement. But are we missing the point? Younger audiences are so fully immersed in connected devices that they no longer think of social, location, and mobile as discrete ways to interact with people and brands. Rather, SoLoMo is a ubiquitous part of how they live their lives. This session will explore:

    • The speed at which the new generation of consumers is gravitating toward immersive and ubiquitous social/mobile computing.
    • What the consumer life cycle will look like for this consumer.
    • What marketers must do now to prepare to meet the needs of their next consumer.

Research Focus

Melissa is a research director and principal analyst serving Marketing Leadership Professionals. As Forrester's leading authority on mobile marketing, she has defined the stages of mobile marketing evolution, the best objectives for mobile marketing, and the always addressable customer to help brands develop their mobile marketing practice and successfully engage their increasingly mobile customers. Melissa also brings to her mobile research deep expertise and experience in social media, which gives her a powerful understanding of how these complementary technologies can be used in combination to effectively bring marketers and customers ever closer together. 

Melissa has been quoted frequently in publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Fortune magazine. She has spoken at the Churchill Club, OMMA Global, SXSW, and Social Media Week on mobile marketing and social media.

Previous Work Experience

Before joining Forrester, Melissa was the director of community strategy at Time Lifestyle Digital group, where she was responsible for community and social media initiatives across the network's 10 titles, which include Real Simple, Southern Living, and Cooking Light. Prior to joining Time in 2007, Melissa was part of Crayon, a conversational marketing consultancy, where she managed social media projects for brands like Coca-Cola and American Airlines. Previously, Melissa held senior product and community roles at Meetup, the world's largest network of local groups, and Bolt.com, a community of more than 10 million teenagers and young adults. In parallel with her work in social media, Melissa led early innovation initiatives in mobile marketing at several of her previous companies.

Education

Melissa earned a B.A. in drama and philosophy from Loyola University New Orleans, an M.A. in liberal studies from The New School, and an M.F.A. in dramaturgy and script development from Columbia University.