A couple of days ago, I was talking with a student of the Universidad de
Almería (he was studying "Grado de Marketing e Investigación de
Mercados"). I realized how things haven't changed in 10 years.
 |
| Marketing is not a science |
When I studied Management at Seville, I remember the Marketing we had,
was traditional. Stupid gurus pretending that marketing was a
scientific subject, with "parking problems", worthless SWOTs (we never saw a
numeric swot, just the traditional ones) and all kind of stupid
"mathematical problems" far away from reality.
And of course, nothing regarding social media marketing. But, it was ok,
because, back then, social marketing didn't exist in Spain. The thing is, right
now, things have changed, and you would expect that Universities have adapted
their lessons to more actual topics and concerns...
Well, they haven't. At least not in Almeria, and I suspect neither in
the rest of the Country.
Why am I saying that? Well, let's get back to the talk I had with the
student.
We started to talk, and I told him about the Spain Commerce Awards 2014
and how easy you can win them if you do a decent Social Marketing plan. He
answered me:
"I don't know, I
had never heard of them, so probably they are not very important."
I tried to convince them that "never hear about something" doesn't mean it it's not important. It was starting to be a person-to-wall conversation.
I was curious and I wanted to know more about him and what he had been taught,
so I asked what else he was doing in the internship.
He told me he had been asked to do the marketing plan. And he started to
talk me about it. It was like listening someone reciting an old book from the
nineties...
I know, he was only a student in an internship, but the feeling was a
total lack of proactivity. And the worst thing was how comfortable he was,
writing page after page of a very prudish traditional marketing plan. Lot of meaningless
words. A huge theoretical ode without practical actions. The kind of work that
gives you an A in the University, but a fail in the professional market.
It the real world, what
do you think a company is going to ask you? A 200 pages marketing plan?
I kept the best part to the end: he was going to do a "commercial mailing" (spam spam spam!).
I will never understand spam; it feels like an invasion of your privacy,
even if it arrives to your company account, it has a wrong impact. It's the
worst technique ever. Spammers should be banished to a desert island infested
of mosquitoes.
Universities are not teaching Social Marketing, but for God sake, they are really
teaching spam techniques. The student told me how his text book explains
the impact, rates, the words you can't use; never to type numbers, amount of
words and pictures, and so many tools to send them without being punished for
spamming.
Come one, how can you talk about number of sent mails you need to have
one view, and number of views you need to have one purchase? How mean is that?!
Why disturbing so many people?
Why in the heck is the university teaching that?
It's a petty, and it should make us very sad... and angry. Utterly
angry:
First, because nothing has
changed when Universities talk about they have updated to the new era. Reality
is they haven't.
Secondly; they are creating dinosaurs;
marketing fundamentalists that believe a customer is a stupid person and the
best way to sell is to lie.
Even though, what's bother me the most isn’t' the Almeria University (it
always had been a third division university and it will always be). What I can’t stop asking to myself what's wrong with the new generation, why the massive
lack of proactivity and critique?
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