Merkle (www.merkle.com), a leading customer relationship marketing (CRM) firm and the nation’s largest privately-held agency, announced that its chairman and CEO, David Williams, will speak at the CMO Strategy Summit. Hosted by Advertising Age, the event will be held July 18, 2012 at the Ritz Carlton Chicago.

The CMO Strategy Summit is an invitation-only event where brand marketers, CMOs, marketing VPs and agency executives will explore innovative and creative tactics for getting the most out of their advertising budgets. A series of case studies will dive deep into the utilization of emerging technologies in marketing.  

Williams will deliver an address entitled “Creating Competitive Advantage at the Intersection of Big Data, Digital and CRM.” The session will discuss the importance of balancing the roles of IT and marketing, and how they can work together to not only manage and process massive amounts of complex data, but also to make a collaborative effort to monetize it.

“The consumer’s flight to digital, combined with big data and direct-to-consumer engagement have led to a perfect storm in marketing. Capitalizing on this will take a unique set of skills and executive commitment,” said Williams. “Industry conferences like the CMO Strategy Summit are keeping these topics at the forefront of the discussion. We are excited to be participating with Advertising Age and other marketing thought leaders in this inaugural event. I look forward to having open discussions with my colleagues about the new, integrated customer value chain that is forming; one that is focused on individual, consumer-level optimization.”  ”