Marketing Society changes membership requirements

The Marketing Society is to change its membership criteria to an “invitation only” scheme in an attempt to revamp itself as an “exclusive” organisation for senior marketers. The move means the society will close its membership to new marketers until early next year.

The revamp of the organisation follows the appointment of Hugh Burkitt to the newly created role of chief executive earlier this year (MW April 17). He has appointed Diana Marsland, the former marketing and communications director at Fidelity Investment Services, to the new role of marketing director, with a brief to spearhead the changes at the society.

Burkitt has also appointed Harrison Troughton Wunderman to help target the marketers who will be invited to join the society next year. The society has a membership of about 3,000.

Burkitt says: “The Marketing Society provides a forum for senior marketers, to help them share best practice and inspire leading-edge thinking. This is what the changes will reflect.”

The announcement about the new membership criteria was made at the Marketing Society pre-conference dinner last week by the society’s president, Keith Weed. Weed, chairman of Lever Fabergé UK, was appointed as the Society’s first president in April this year.