I mean if you cant measure the impact of your promotions or the price elasticity or category lift based on your spending, how do you manage anything.
so they talk about BCG matrix or the GE matrix from a product positioning perspective, but they never get into how you weigh the factors to evaluate the opportunities.
I am sorry but even marketing gurus like Cotler...their text books are just way too general. I say this after being taught by Cotler.
The disconnect between academia and industry in this case is a little concerning. If you dont believe me, ask one of your students what do they think goes on in an ad agency. and then see how they focus on the later steps of the process and not the first middle or last :) tell em what happens from category assessment to campaign measurements and then see what they say.
^ I'm with you on this... I've never paid much attention to the disconnect myself since I don't teach marketing, and have only had a chance to work on two big projects which involved creation of new marketing programs. I guess I also never realized the gap in marketing courses since it was quite natural for me to use decision models in marketing as well... but admittedly, I didn't acquire the knowledge and skills from marketing courses.
My background is in marketing and strategic mgmt, and my roles have included strategy consulting, strategic marketing, product development, product mgmt etc.
Cool man, I just graduated my degree is a double major in management and marketing. Why are all marketing majors potheads?
Anyways, how did you start out with your career once you graduated?
I agree with both Umar and Fraudia regarding what is taught today in Marketing courses. There was only one class that dealt with the quantitative aspects of marketing, which was actually quite good and was taught by an Indian professor who did it old school. The only problem was that the course was only built around case studies, so we didn't have a formal curriculum based on a text book where we could read about the subject. Most of the students struggled quite a bit in the class.
Cool man, I just graduated my degree is a double major in management and marketing. Why are all marketing majors potheads?
Anyways, how did you start out with your career once you graduated?
I wanted to go the strategy route, but was advised that while I had done stratrgic marketing and dstrategy work earlier I needed to get some ops experience. I went to Citicorp in of syndicated securitis trading, and ran a project for process redesign to align ops with strategic directions. From then I went teh route of e-business, but focus on the fornt end pieces and was in consulting for 5 years, and then to the insutry in 2002 taking on a variety of marketines roles.
why are all marketing majors potheads? hmmm because we knew we would not be going in investment banking and making bundles so never picked up the habit of crack.
you should look at the ppl in HR and Ops Mgmt careers they all just sniffed glue in college
I am sorry but even marketing gurus like Cotler...their text books are just way too general. I say this after being taught by Cotler.
The disconnect between academia and industry in this case is a little concerning. If you dont believe me, ask one of your students what do they think goes on in an ad agency. and then see how they focus on the later steps of the process and not the first middle or last :) tell em what happens from category assessment to campaign measurements and then see what they say.
I personally prefer Cotler's books. Easy to understand, easy examples.
As far as real industry is concerned - ofcourse real case studies are the big help. I've learned the basics from his books which later on helped me in understanding the industry trends etc.
I had one Marketing Research course (indian author) which taught me the basics - then my internship with a Marketing Research company polished my knowledge.
Personally, i believe that Mrkg is common sence that we can build based on our educational background and close industry observation. Books are there for just some basic guidelines - and thats all.
so keeping in touch with the industry - reading business/mrkg magazines regularly does help a lot.