Will knew he should be looking for a job but was
coming to grips with the very real and very scary notion that he really didn’t
know just how to work the system of online job boards. He was fearful that his
skill set was becoming outdated. He believed in his heart that there was still
room for an organized manager with a creative vision and an ability to get things done.
But he was painfully aware of the pervasive chatter of social media and the
digital age. As if everything that came before in marketing was now “old
school” and irrelevant.
Berry seemed to be a dramatic illustration of where
the world was headed. A professor recruited to UMSL to implement coursework in
digital marketing was making tremendous strides. Will met him at the Remarkable
Leadership Conference put on by the American Marketing Association – St. Louis
Chapter at the Missouri History Museum in February. They became quick friends
because, in part, Will was connected and Berry was seeking to build his local
network quickly. Ironically, the world seemed to be buying what Berry was
selling so much more than the basic “blocking and tackling” of message strategy
and attention to the touch-points that telegraph the quality/design/promise of
a brand. Suddenly, the soft science where “Art meets Commerce” that Will loved
was about technology, crowd-sourcing and engaging the multitudes in
conversation.
Last month Berry and Will sat for a while in the
Starbuck’s Coffee Shop in Clayton. Berry’s Digital Marketing Conference was compelling
proof that marketing is changing with big data, social strategies and new rules
of engagement. Will could see it but, like many of his boomer generation, he
was slow to embrace it. As a chapter leader for the American Marketing
Association in St. Louis for more than 15 years he is the first to admit the
changes brought on first by the internet and personal computing and now the
plethora of electronic devices is puzzling to him. What does it mean? What
happened to thoughtful planning? How are you supposed to manage marketing in
this environment? Where is it all heading? Students, agency leaders, businesses
(large and small) represented in the audience of 400+ filled the JC Penney
Conference Center on the campus of the University of Missouri, St. Louis (UMSL)
that afternoon. It was early April and the audience was hanging on every word
for clues.
Will remembered a time when such a meeting over
coffee with a professor was on a different footing. It was the professor who
was living in the ivory tower and out of touch with reality. Now the tables
have turned. The platform of rapid change in the marketplace offers a natural
confluence of events for the campus setting. It’s a place for learning and
discourse. Berry is a runner and he is pacing himself well in front of the
pack. He’s old enough to be a part of a time when direct marketing offered the
best chance for studies of stimulus/response. (But only after test cells were
carefully constructed with a “control” module as a basis for comparison.) One
wonders if there will ever be time for such experiments ever again.
“Colleges are for rhetoric and the hypothetical and
still somewhat less than authentic. Nevertheless, we are living in a time that
is unreal and fantastic at the same time. The world is connected in ways which
only a decade ago seemed impossible.” Will reminds himself. “A marathon runner
like Berry can only hope to record what is happening anecdotally,” He’s
thinking. This is not a criticism as much as a frustrated acceptance of how he
sees it.
The rush of runners crowding a finish line is a
useful metaphor. Won’t there be slower runners (indeed some casual walkers)? Some might be entirely disinterested in even getting to the finish line (never mind crossing first). But in this race
the spectators are participants. They help shape the outcome.
Characters
drawn here are intended to be fictional. Any similarities to real persons,
places and events are unintentional.
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