#BIZTOK: Does A Marketing Degree Even Matter?
Thursday Thoughts
Today’s Thursday Thought comes courtesy of a reader-submitted question: Would you say a major in marketing or working in marketing is advantageous?
First off, there are things I love and hate about Marketing.
I love it’s focus on sense and behavior, and how it allows things like instinct and intuition to live alongside some of the more verifiable skills necessary to business management.
But I hate its process.
The marketing industry is a trend in its self. It’s in constant evolution, chasing a never-ending stream of hype, sometimes just to prove it’s not only part of an industry, but also capable of the same evolutionary climb that the more applied areas of business don’t ever have prove.
That means Growth Marketing, Marketing Science, Performance Marketing. Honestly all of those traceable-proof modern new disciplines that I still don’t believe are even real. They used to live peacefully in their own companion departments like Research, Data, and Ad Operations before they were randomly rolled under the Marketing umbrella.
I’m a firm believer that metrics are lifeblood the capitalist maniacs and capitalist maniacs only. It’s a way to appease the control freaks who need proof that they’re succeeding (or failing) in an industry that has yet to even introduce a proven, replicable plan for permanent success. If mirroring an already-successful business’ plan and production maps was all we needed to do, then we’d all be rich.
Unfortunately every product needs a buyer, which means every product is at the mercy of a consumer. Consumer acceptance or rejection is the risk, and that is why marketing is crucial. To me, no matter what a brand says, the only metrics that matter are community. Most brands aren’t even aware that’s all they want.
They want to go viral, they want 1,000,000 likes and a thousand comments. I might’ve said this before, but as someone who has a viral video every month at this point, virality should be the last thing on any brand’s list. It brings too many unconvertible strangers into your space, most of whom are eager to drown out discourse where conversation is encouraged, peace where positivity is encouraged.
I started studying, and ultimately working in, media-based Marketing during its analog days, way back when when media was one-sided and engagement stopped at audience. You’d pay for audience and audience only. You bought ads on a TV network or in a magazine based on viewers and subscribers. To a certain extent, the industry’s success in advancing more easily measurable audience data inadvertently created its biggest new problem — the constant expectation of verifiable proof.
It’s getting harder and harder to negotiate with a Recession-era industry whose stakeholders and budget holders refuse to view humans as anything other than metrics.
I always say, if you want metrics, just buy ads. If you want relationships, talk to people.
I’m also a firm believer that brand safety is what is stopping brands from being successful. A lot of that is rooted in the way modern marketers just generally are. There’s a lot of routine, comfort, and complacency in corporate marketing. It’s full of people who are comfortable serving out the same extremely bland, mediocre creative. People who prefer to operate without challenge. People who are in leadership simply because they haven’t quit. The ones whose low-care companies allow them to fail, repeatedly. The ones who’ve accepted the mediocrity, unfulfillment and failure that sent most of the sensible people in the department looking for new jobs.
Sometimes it’s due to them not wanting to rock the boat, or sometime’s it’s just general laziness. It is always, however, due to hiring. There is a lack of diversity across all fronts — diversity of thought, of race, of perspective, of experience. The human experience is not linear and the perspective of those trying to appeal to it shouldn’t be either. Successful marketers should be dynamic, but those currently sitting in PR, Brand Marketing, and especiallyyyyyy Influencer Marketing seats at the moment most definitely aren’t.
I know my content is not content that would ever be considered brand safe. My blackness, which has been excluded from media and marketing long before the internet existed, means I am not “brand safe.” My perspective, my use of words, and my non-Eurocentricity is inherently a threat to the suburban, sorority-girl-turned-influencer marketing manager filling nearly all open seats in that field. Someone whose never had black friends, using budgets and brand deals as a way to approach (“cast”) influencers they would want to be friends with. Influencers who look like the only kinds of friends they’ve ever known. Being able to step outside of yourself is the only real skill you need to be a successful marketer. It’s also the most difficult skill to acquire. Your goal is to win favor with audiences, not colleagues, or even yourself. You (we) are not our audience.
Rick Rubin introduces meditation before meetings to clear distractions and ego. In my my marketing journey from Marketing major to Marketing Intern to Marketing Manager to Senior Marketing Manager to Marketing Director, I’ve had to consistently audit myself and relearn exactly why I love marketing so much. Most times, you’re not going to find fulfillment and encouragement in the roles you’re in. You’re going to find automation and what Andre Leon Talley would generally describe as “dreckitude.” Your own colleagues will be battling against ideas because they’d prefer not to do the work that brings them to life. I had a colleague once who would nay say every idea because she simply didn’t want to produce events. She didn’t want to run a production. She didn’t want to travel. She preferred the comfort of clocking out at 6PM and going home to her family every night, without interruption. It’s kind of like a firefighter being upset that he might have to get into a truck and maybe go fight a fire. Just saying that so you’re aware you will encounter people on your team who will actively work against you.
You will have a great ideas that will lose, you will be on teams where you’re not encouraged to think big. You will be dismissed for thinking competitively, for looking outside of your category for ideas. For pulling inspiration and applying what you’ve learned from Nike to your humble start-up beauty brand.
Defeatists are rampant in marketing departments.
Consider your degree program as a starting point, but know that in marketing education, your focus should be on learning habits You’re not learning technical skills because by the time you graduate, your books will be outdated.
Your survival is a major part of your continuing education. How you keep ideas alive. How you keep eagerness, curiosity, and advocacy within yourself. How you remain future-facing, hopeful, and instinctive.
I went from jobs where the culture of brand failure made me feel like I was dumb as hell. After that, I went to work for what many consider to be the best company in the world, in the best marketing department in the world, and being praised for my work and abilities. My skills hadn’t changed it that time, but the environment they were living in did.
You’ll be fighting for $5,000 budgets at one job, and be in charge of $5M budgets in the next. Sometimes you’ll have to revise an idea 10 times before you get a “yes.” Sometimes you’ll get one on your first try.
I don’t know if they even teach this, but scale and feasibility are probably the most important thought processes to carry with you. You should always thing b-i-g. Think “best case scenario.” After you’ve mapped that out, start editing. It’s crucial to learn how to get as close as possible to the true concept in spite of the budget, timing, internal issues (aka haters) standing in its way.
In my current phase as a marketer, I find myself feeling very much connected to Rick Rubin, his sensibilities, and his point of view. He’s helped me reset my role and worth at this stage in my career.
The goal for modern marketers should be to eventually graduate to a place where your perspective, not your output, has a price. You’re no longer selling ideas, you’re selling habits. You’re establishing a creative and strategic identity worth mirroring. Your intel, feedback, and direction are proof of your thought process. You’re being paid for your taste and your ability to remain consistent, decisive, and committed to concept.
I’m finding that I’m currently entering one of my best eras as a marketer, and it has nothing to do with a corporate job that pays me.
Anyway, to quickly answer your original question, yes, study marketing. Cross the academic part of it of your list quickly so you can move onto the more important work. Already knowing that it requires a lifelong willingness to learn gives you an advantage. You’ll never know everything you need to know. I thought knew everything about marketing, specifically social media marketing, but then I became a creator and realized I only ever knew half.
I am unapologetically here:
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Authors Note: Ignore all typos. I proofread 3x but I’m in Vegas, heatstroking, and drinking pina coladas so bear with me!
This is a great perspective. From haters on your own team to thinking big and outside of the box. All great words! You seem like someone I’d love to work with lol my current “manager” could learn a thing or 3 from this! 🫡🙏🏾