Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

Dear Sam,

Hoorah! Put the flags out!

At last!, a student who can ask a decent question, who has already done some work, and who has taken some responsibility. You, dear Sam, are a rare, rare bird.

First, I suggest you AVOID anything to do with social media.

In the last few months there have been what's felt like DOZENS of student questions on this forum about every aspect of social media and truthfully, they're all going to sound the same.

SM will have been done to DEATH before next year and God help the poor assessors that have to trawl through yet ANOTHER tome asking all kinds of questions about Twitter, and Facbook, and YouTube and yawn, zzzzzzz!

I fear these assessment people will go mad, poor souls, which might go some way to explain why you'll find them muttering to themselves at the local bus stop or newsstand, but I digress.

OK. Of questions 1,2, and 4, all sound like winners to my ear. But that's just my opinion. Consider those of others BEFORE you make your final choice.

Your "cause-related" question could really fly because of the societal differences between east and west and the recent 20th anniversary of the Hungarians opening the frontier "just a little bit"—as one former Hungarian diplomat put it back in 1989.

Your first question could gain teeth and claws by injecting elements of serendipitous PR over manufactured PR; or by asking what it is that attracts the media to the aspects of stories they're attracted to.

There's possibly lots of scope there to interview journalists, editors, and columnists for newspapers and magazines, all of whom are much more accessible these days because of e-mail (the opinions of writers for The Guardian, Independent, The Times and so on, weighed against The Mirror, The Sun, and The Express might make for interesting reading, particularly when contrasted against writers from The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, The International Herald Tribune, the WSJ, NYT, and USA Today!).

And question 4's a corker! (I'm British, I can write things like this on this forum and get away with it!).

As baby boomers age, and life spans increase, and as the Gen Xers become older, wiser, smarter, and richer, new consumer values and the ways we all look at banks, mortgage companies, and insurance peddlers, (to name but three once, highly respected, now mistrusted beyond words in many cases) and other, increasingly more socially responsible organizations (Google? Virgin? Zappos?), marketers will need to inject less spin and more caring—without it sounding sappy and wimpy—to really, truly, and finally reinforce the notion of economic accountability and marketing believability.

"Why and how must marketers adapt?" is a stellar question, to which the potted answer is, because if they do NOT adapt, if they FAIL to embrace significance for their customers, those people will SPRINT, not walk, but SPRINT into the open arms of companies putting out messages that really, really connect with the deep-seated needs, wants, dreams, and desires of their clients and customers.

The core here that's woefully ignored is the notion of customers as competition, not just companies that provide similar products, services, or goods. The customer can be both savior and accuser, with great, good, or horrendous consequences unleashed upon the company and marketer who excels, gets it right in the middle, or who really screws up when it comes to the focused delivery of service and expectation, and of the generation of loyalty versus just satisfaction.

The days of spin, flimflam, and meaningless messages are numbered, and marketers that fail to wake up and smell this particular coffee are in for an even ruder awakening farther down the line. And THAT's a show I'd pay good money to see or read about.

So, that's my humble two cents' worth.

If I can offer other advice ... or an editorial eye (I've done some reading and editing for the University of Delaware Press), contact me off forum by clicking on my name at the top of this post. Or, contact me through Twitter (@GaryBloomer).

I hope this helps you. Good luck with your thesis.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA