Jim Eiche

Since 2004, Jim Eiche has been a lecturer in the Masters of Science program in Strategic Communications at Columbia University in New York City.  With faculty colleagues, Eiche also conceived and developed the curriculum for a new degree program at Columbia, the Masters of Science in Communications Practice, which launched in September 2009.   He has developed and teaches courses such as Positioning and Communications Strategy, Communications and Global Brands, Advanced Communications (Thesis) Project, Winning Teams, and Brand DNA.

In addition to his work at Columbia, Eiche works as an independent consultant with preeminent marketers, consultancies, and agencies on strategic branding, marketing, management, and training projects.

Eiche worked in the advertising business for more than twenty years at the Benton & Bowles, Jordan Case & McGrath, and D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles agencies. After establishing his career in New York, Eiche moved with DMB&B to Hong Kong, from which he managed DMB&B's entire multi-brand relationship with P&G across fifteen Asian countries.  Eventually, Eiche moved again, first to Taipei, then to Tokyo.  He started up and ran profitable DMB&B offices in both of those cities before returning to New York.

Over the course of his career, Eiche has worked with global marketers such as Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Kraft, DLA Piper, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, MasterCard, Credit Suisse, Aetna, General Motors, Kwang Yang Motors, the Australia Tourist Commission, Philips, Sony, and Samsung.

Eiche grew up in Indiana.  He holds a BA in broadcasting and theater from Indiana University and an MBA in marketing and management policy from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University.

Jim Eiche on the importance of communications strategy:
"When it comes to communications, no organization has the resources to meander down just any path, hoping to stumble one day across something that really works. An organization needs a strategy.  A strategy selects the right destination for communications and plans the most direct route for getting there. It identifies which audience can best further an organization's goals; what alternatives compete for the attention, support, and commitment of that audience; what message can motivate that audience to change; how best to engage the audience with that message; and how to tell if a communications program is succeeding."