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about / parnell woodard

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What makes Emerge different?

Bio

Parnell Woodard

President, CEO

Describe what you do in one sentence or less:
I am a Relationship Marketing thought leader who has worked at the senior most levels within Fortune 500 organizations on design, implementation, management and measurement of RM / CRM efforts.
Why did you found Emerge Partners?
Because I believe there's a better way to work with clients than the current model. Agencies are so bloated that they can't get out of their own way when a client needs something done quickly. Secondly, their cost structure doesn't work for clients anymore — especially when you consider that up to 20% of an agency's fees go to their holding company.
Where were you pre-Emerge?
I've had the good fortune to be able to work both agency side and client side in my career, prior to founding Emerge.

I served in a global capacity for all relationship and interactive marketing for Seagram Spirits and Wine Group. My responsibilities included North American digital and direct activities and agency management, while assisting the global teams with best practices and knowledge sharing across multiple international markets.

Before my time with Seagram, I served as VP, Planning for the Strategic Services division of MRM Worldgroup. The Strategic Services team was the backbone of MRM's strategic engagement and proprietary tool utilization and was responsible for growing existing business as well as playing an integral role in new business wins. Strategic Services was about not only creating the over-arching strategy and approach, but also ensuring it could really be executed. No "pie in the sky" recommendations from that team.

And prior to MRM, I spent a number of years with Lowe Direct, managing their Xerox business from their Rochester, NY office.
Can you brag about some of your career accomplishments?
I've been a part of teams that have won some of the industries highest honors, including the DMA's Diamond Echo for our work on GMC's Denali launch — the most successful new vehicle launch in General Motor's history. In addition to the Diamond Echo, I've received awards for Marketing Effectiveness, been on teams who won Webby's, Daveys, Effie's and more.

One program I'm particularly proud of was my role in developing and stewarding the Buick Relationship Marketing program in the late 90's. At that time, it was one of the single largest Relationship Marketing efforts ever undertaken with seven brands involved, over 15MM consumers targeted, complex lifecycle matrices, terabytes of data and rolling response forecasts for seven years. The program delivered an astounding 600% lift over the control — consistently for four years.
Extra-curricular activities:
In my spare time, I love to travel, golf and try red wines from around the world.
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