Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

Dear Aleb_666,

You'll be graduating in what, 2012? 2013? Hmm.

So much to think about, so little time.

First, if you're going straight to university, your first year will last a hundred thousand years; your second year will last a century, and your third (and possibly fourth) year(s) will fly at the speed of light.

A great deal can happen in three to four years and if you REALLY want to make the most of a background in marketing, I'd pay attention to your lecturers, but I'd also strongly caution you to do as much reading and research on your own as you possibly can.

Here's why.

Your professors may well be professors or even Ph.Ds., but university theory and lectures bear little resemblance to what goes on in the throbbing, sweating outside world.

No doubt at university you'll learn marketing abstracts and all manner of algebraic flimflam, all of which looks jolly impressive on the pages of a text book or on a lecture hall blackboard, but little of which may be of use to you when you cannot meet the needs of a customer in a meaningful way.

That, in truth, is what marketing is all about: creating messages that pass on the core benefits and repeating values of the product, goods, or services on offer to the client or customer in a meaningful and problem solving or pain eradicating way, at a fair price, and in a timely and captivating manner.

Many students enter the educational world of marketing thinking that marketing is all about selling.

It's not.

It's my contention (based on 25 years' worth of observation and real world experience) that 90 to 95 percent of marketing has NOTHING to do with selling, that in truth, it's mostly about persuasion and psychology; it's about meeting needs, solving problems, salving and treating points of pain and distress, and doing it all in a compelling, persuasive, logical, friendly, valuable and benefit-driven way.

Marketing isn't about selling stuff. It's about meeting people's needs, exceeding their expectations, and over delivering on benefits and values.

Things like brand equity and corporate profit come AFTER delivery of the aforementioned points, NOT before.

Too many marketing people never come to terms with this point, and it's for this reason that so much marketing and advertising is mindless, insulting, pointless, meaningless crap.

Think NOT what an MBA can do for you, think instead what your skills, abilities, beliefs, thoughts, and knowledge can do for your potential employers and for your employer's customers, clients, and prospects.

There are some great courses offering masters qualifications in advertising, but before you get to them, you need to figure out if that's what you you want to do? And the term advertising is pretty broad. What part of it would you want to study? Accounts, brand management, creative, media, strategy, new business? And once you've studied your possible sector, then what?

By all means think about what might be in it for you to study marketing and then advertising. But career-wise, you might be better off thinking what's in it (meaning, your education), for the people you'll be unleashing it on. I'm NOT trying to cut you down or hold you back, all I'm doing is urging you to think things through.

Perhaps your degree could come first, then you could get a few years of real world work experience under your belt and then go back for a masters? This route, although longer may well do you more favours in the long run because it will show you both sides of the coin: the academic side, and the commercial side. This could therefore make you way more employable and far more level headed and realistic, both in your expectations, and in your ability to deliver positive, effective, and customer-driven results.

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA