Yes, I am opinionated, especially about marketing and a lot of what goes on in this blog seems to look down upon many practices within the industry. I call it how I see it, with both an agency-side and client-side perspective. I recommend any marketing student fresh out of college to get experience from both sides of the fence. It really helps with perception and anticipation of client needs. If you ever come across a marketer without an opinion, turn around and walk away quickly.
Here're my new year's wishes..
I wish that people would be more honest and open about how they interact with other people, both on a social and business level.
I wish that corporate nirvana wasn't so boring. I recently left a job where I was in total control of the direction and scope of market strategy for the company. I reported to the CEO, and occassionaly to the Sr VP of Sales and Marketing for sales related issues. I had one direct report. I created and managed marketing campaigns. I developed and launched two new marketing services. I revamped the sales lead generation system to be entirely paperless. I negotiated vendor prices for data acquisition projects. I did legal compliance for telemarketing data and email marketing, eventhough we had inhouse corporate counsel. I built a website to generate ad revenue for the companies partnered and doing business with ours. I did a lot of things. But, I got bored and frustrated that I couldn't do more. How could I do more? Well, for one I would have liked a set, quantifiable, spendable budget instead of having to pick and choose between projects that I thought would be good to enhance the brand image of the company instead of ones that would gain the CEO instant gratification on short-term benefits.
Yes. I have issues. Everyone has issues. I thrive on making the world better, making marketing a legitimate science, making health defying desserts, and ranting on about what can be done to make this a better place.
My holy grail of marketing is to learn and know everything there is to know about marketing in each of the four marketing segments (business, consumer, non-profit, and government) and become more aware of industry trends affected by marketing. The ultimate test of a marketer is not the job itself, but what you do with that knowledge. Anybody can work for a living. That's no sweat. Validation comes from the outside.. from writing journal articles that aren't meant as sales pitches for your own company, from teaching college courses, from revitalizing the way people think about marketing. The best thing of all is that learning is a continuous process and marketing is always evolving.
