Optimove’s head of marketing kicks off Optimove Connect with an overview of today’s consumer, marketer, industry and the overarching challenges we’ll be discussing throughout the day.
Amit Bivas, VP Marketing, Optimove

How many times have you woken up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, afraid that machines are taking over your job? With the rise of AI, more professionals are fearful of losing their jobs. In most cases, this fear is unjustified. Machines are here to help us, not to replace us. In this session, we’ll be showcasing how, throughout history, machines have made things easier, improved our lives, changed the way we look at things and have done (nearly) no harm.
Pini Yakuel, CEO, Optimove

Customer-centricity isn’t a new buzzword, but in the last few years, it has become a reality that can no longer be ignored. Brands with best-in-class products can easily be trounced by brands with best-in-class customer relationship marketing. More than ever, the value brands deliver to their customers goes far beyond the product itself. In this panel, CMOs from four leading brands will highlight some challenges they’ve faced, share their experiences while overcoming them and discuss the best practices they’ve developed during their journeys to true customer-centricity.
Panelists:
Prof. Barak Libai, Professor of Marketing, IDC
Jackson Jeyanayagam, Chief Marketing Officer, Boxed.com
Darren Lovern, Chief Marketing Officer, Fortuna
Lev Peker, Chief Marketing Officer, Adorama

More and more businesses are trying to adopt Amazon Prime’s subscription model. Transactional businesses that develop a subscription-based offering are able to generate significant recurring revenues, leading to improved margins, business stability, and other benefits. However, many businesses that start making this shift tend to underestimate the core differences between the transactional and subscription models, as well as the significant changes required in terms of CRM marketing. In this session, Gloria Synn, VP Member Strategy at Dollar Shave Club, will showcase what relationship marketing looks like from the perspective of one of the most successful subscription-based business in the world today.
Gloria Synn, Vice President, Member Strategy and Monetization, Dollar Shave Club

Grab a plate, pile it up and be ready to discover what all the fuss is about Israeli’s (incredible) cuisine

15 years ago, strategic investment in CRM was considered revolutionary. Today, everyone does CRM. In competitive direct-to-consumer environments, better CRM is no longer only an advantage, it has become necessary for survival. In this session, industry expert Gil Rotem will share from his experience what makes great CRM, and why smarter CRM is critical.
Gil Rotem, Former Board Member, Bet365 Group

With the rise of companies like Netflix, Spotify, and many others, the question of whether or not subscription-based business models are appealing to consumers has been put to rest. At the same time, transactional models have always been there, and will always be there. Consumers grasp these two models in different ways to fulfill different needs. As such, CRM goals and strategies must differ for each of these models. In this panel, executives from companies employing both types of models will discuss the similarities and differences between the required CRM strategies, and what each can learn from the other.
Panelists:
Jessica Granata, Director of Marketing, Paul Stuart
Natalie Malevsky, VP Product Marketing, The Culture Trip
Stephanie McKay, Senior Manager, Email Marketing & Personalization, Lucky Vitamin
Gloria Synn, Vice President, Member Strategy and Monetization, Dollar Shave Club

Anyone can buy anything on Amazon. So, how do independent retail brands survive? In the Amazon Era, brands need to reinvent themselves in order to stand up against the “giant.” Innovative strategies and meaningful brand-customer relationships are the only way to thrive in these challenging times. In this session, a marketing executive from a leading global consumer electronics retailer will share how his brand sticks it to Amazon and continues to command a significant share of this ultra-competitive market.
Lev Peker, Chief Marketing Officer, Adorama

Sip some tasty coffee or grab a soda – whatever it takes not to fall asleep before the grand finale!

In this panel, marketing practitioners and university professors will join together to identify the key drivers of customer loyalty, to debate whether or not it is even possible to proactively build loyalty and to discuss how to build loyalty without reducing returns or eroding profits.
Panelists:
Andrew Cochrane, Chief Commercial Officer, SBTech
Hugony Francesco, Online Gaming CRM Strategy, Sisal
Rinat Halifi, Head of CRM, Fiverr
Daniel Wiesenfeld, Sr. Director, Customer Analytics, J.Jill

Consumers have significantly changed over the past decade. Online, mobile, gens Y and Z, Facebook, Amazon, GDPR and many other modern phenomena have changed the world for good.
Consumer 3.0 is intolerant to irrelevant marketing and expects brands to speak with her and not at her. Consumer 3.0 has developed keen messaging filters and does not allow just anyone to pass through them. Today’s consumers expect more, and if they don’t get what they expect, they quickly shift to the competition (and tell their friends all about it). To survive and thrive, marketers need to adapt to the Consumer 3.0 mindset. In this session, veteran marketing executive Jackson Jeyanayagam, currently CMO of Boxed.com, will discuss how he built marketing strategies that successfully accommodated the needs and preferences of the modern consumer.
Jackson Jeyanayagam, Chief Marketing Officer, Boxed.com

This final session will present a very interesting point of view on the future of relationship marketing. What is the next phase of the customer-marketing-technology continuum? This session will leave you with the food for thought that Optimove Connect is all about …
Yoav Susz, VP Revenue, Optimove

Chillax on the roof with corny cocktails and an amazing sunset.
We promise there’s no better way to conclude this year’s Optimove Connect.