Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

Let's be honest here: You're trying to find this information but in reality, you're not, are you? You're hoping someone here will just give you the answer so that you can copy and paste the details and look like the golden, grade A student.

Where have you looked? What have you found? Which brands have you investigated? Which countries have you looked at and written off? Answers: nowhere, nothing, none, and none.

Here's the best piece of advice you'll receive this year: Do your own research, do your own thinking, do your own work, get your own results. earn your own grade.

Where do I begin?

First, trust me, I am QUITE serious.

Second, do yourself the biggest favour you can possibly do and build a bridge and get over yourself.

Third, rude? Not by a long shot.

I'm simply telling you what none of your tutors thus far have told you (or, it seem have had the balls to tell you). If you don't like it, tough: find another forum. You've posted two question on this forum in 24 hours, you've offered little in the way of solid evidence of any kind of commitment to a career in marketing, and succeeded, thus far, in making yourself look rather foolish.

If you don't like my opinions, don't listen to them.

Bleat. Bitch. Moan. Demand retractions. Complain about the indignity of it all. Go ahead: knock yourself out. Do you know where these things will get you? Do you know what it will earn you? A big, fat nothing.

Frankly, your background isn't the point here (oh, the joys of the logical fallacy). What IS the point? Your lack of evidence of how you've helped yourself. To receive, one must first be willing to GIVE.

If, right now, while you're at college you're incapable, unwilling, or unable to put in the extra effort and the extra graft to REALLY look, to work SUPER HARD, then, and sadly for you, once you get out into the real world you will be of no value whatsoever to a potential employer.

Yes, this IS a tough and harsh lesson to learn and NO, it's not fair that some "rude" person on a forum tells you something you don't want to hear. But right now, I'm investing my time in this forum and on this question to YOU (and despite your tone above), to help you see, once and for all that in order to succeed it's necessary to invest in your own success through work, effort, and applied thought.

There IS no simple answer to your question, and judging by your response above, your search isn't offering you any results because you're asking the wrong question and looking in the wrong place.

Brands don't fail, PEOPLE fail. Brands are driven, managed, and used by PEOPLE and really, getting snippy with me isn't earning you ANY Brownie points, nor does it make me feel all warm and fluffy to the extent where I'd lavish more of my time on you than you, in reality, deserve.

If you want to be patted on the head and to be told how great you are—and that here, questioner: take these answers and resources based on 25 years of solid experience and feel free to apply them as your own ... then you're living in a dream world.

There are none so deaf as those that will not listen, or that won't take the time to hear. There are none so blind as those that will not see, or, it seems, take the time to look.

You bought a book? One whole book? That's good but really, in this day and age and with the numbers of people that you'll be competing against once you get out into the workplace, buying one book is not enough.

Nor is reading a few journals.

Nor is looking "all over the Internet" (you combed the ENTIRE Internet? All 10.2 BILLION pages of the indexed Internet?) ... and you STILL couldn't find anything?

I think you're fibbing, just a little.

You're kidding yourself if you think this is anywhere near enough. It's not enough. It's not even close. If you're not pushing it now, while you're at college, while you have the time and while you're not having to answer to a real boss, with real deadlines, and with real problems you're doing yourself a HUGE disservice.

Once you're out in the real world you won't have the luxury of relying on other people to help you do your job: you'll HAVE to rely on yourself. It's for THIS reason that my initial response was so cutting and whether you like it or not, and whether you agree with me or not, deep down inside you know it's true.

Personally, I don't mind you ritzing me in public or trying to cut me down to size—you're not the first and you won't be the last. But don't waste your time or mine trying to cross examine me. I contribute to this forum and tell people what I think based on real world knowledge and experience. Whether you listen or not is up to you. It's your career and sadly for you, and for the many other students that I've responded to in similar tones, if you don't like my opinions—based in truth and the real world as they are—that's your problem, not mine.

In 1992 I gave a presentation to a group of design students just outside Minneapolis. I'm going to tell you now exactly what I told them back then and this applies to all the students that write in to this forum looking for someone to, in many cases, do their work for them.

Read this carefully: half you people shouldn't be here.

"If you're not 150% dedicated, passionate, and committed to becoming the best you possibly can be in your profession then you are wasting your time, you are wasting the place on the course that could have gone to a more able and more focused student, you are wasting the time and resources of your school, you are wasting your money (or that of your parents), and you are wasting the time of your tutors and teachers.

Of those of you that graduate between 15 and 20 percent of you will be fortunate enough to find jobs in the coming 12 months. Five years from now, as many as 60 percent of you will not be working in your chosen field—you'll be selling cars, or touting life insurance, or asking people if they'd like fries with their order, or busing dishes and waiting on tables.

In order to BE the best you must DO your best and then do MORE."

If you can't rely on your own smarts and on your own research NOW, while you've got access to a while college library you'll be of no benefit to an employer when you graduate.

I asked you several questions, all of which you ignored because you were too busy getting snippy with me to bother to think about them. Here they are again:

1. Where have you looked? LOOK AGAIN, but this time, look harder and do as much as you can to see patterns, even if there are no patterns that are obvious. Trust me, the patterns ARE there. You just have to look at things under a raking light.

2. What have you found? SEARCH AGAIN. You probably didn't find anything because you don't sound as if you know what you're looking for, so you're looking everywhere, finding nothing, and getting frustrated because time is against you.

3. Which brands have you investigated? FIND OTHER BRANDS. How do you judge failure? Failure in sales, in growth, in closing? Brands "fail" when their overall promise structure in some way tells the client or buyer to bugger off, that the promise is no longer worth their attention. Why look only at failure? Why not look at small brand success? The coin here has two sides AND and edge: that's three places to look, not just one.

4. Which countries have you looked at and written off? PICK OTHERS and for all the reasons above.

College might teach you something about marketing (although in reality, most of the crap that's been pumped into your head AT college isn't worth dick, it really isn't), but only your experience in—and your ability to make use of—the real world will make you an effective, practical, applicable, useful, result-driven marketer.

And finally, we arrive at your last sentence in response to my initial post. Here it is once more "Rather than posting negative responses, leave it to people who actually want to help."

Re-read this post. Then read it again. Then, rethink your question ... and your would-be withering response above, and then ask yourself THIS question: what if he's right?

Good luck to you. And believe it or not, I really mean that.

What would you have done if you hadn't found this forum? Time is running out and you don't have the example you need. Where would you look next? How will you resolve the dilemma if we don't resolve it for you?

Once you have the answers to those questions, let us know. We'll gladly react to your proposed direction. We'll be candid with you about whether we think you're on the right track or not, about whether your examples will support your thesis, etc.

But asking US to do the research is going too far. It's not the right way to use the expertise that is amassed here.

You've reached several dozen marketing professionals -- many with advanced degrees -- who have been where you are in your academic career. Somehow we all solved our problems, at least well enough to earn our degrees. What we've seen so far is that you're not being very resourceful AND you are not tapping into our knowledge and experience very effectively.

Don't get angry with us. We really want to be helpful. See if you can understand why we're reacting the way we are.