The blog is a place to express my concerns on issues driving teaching and research on integrated marketing communications (IMC) and public relations. Postings are an eclectic mix of published, quoted and original work. Topics include education, controversy, stakeholders, trends. Links and ideas are welcome.
For many decades the University of Wisconsin-Madison used distance learning methods as part of their out-reach to rural parts of the state and to reach busy professionals. Experience for several years as a Business School professor with a Medical School Administrative Medicine MBA style degree defined the value of a hybrid program.
Hybrid is defined as using a combination of distance technology learning and face-to-face teaching. The model used contact via available relevant technology (from slow scan video in the 1970s, digital voice and video conference calls in the 1980s, web-based text and video in the 90s and 3-D in the past decade). It also used stone and glass classroom bookends of class start-up and closing. Graduation was an option of in person or by distance.
While some classes may be taught purely at a distance; the very high cost and challenges of many professional degree classes would seem to demand a mix of more face-to-face networking through direct human interaction. I would suggest a mix of 80 percent distance with 20 percent interpersonal in a classroom.
While many universities and corporations use various forms of distance learning for certificates, degrees http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/imc/imconline.aspx and even simple meetings (see www.Gronstedtgroup.com), the discussion is still open on the success of pure and hybrid models. Even if a program used only distance learning technology; as a student or participant I would be very tempted to plan a face-to-face meeting during the program and before graduation.
Clarke L. Caywood, Ph.D. Professor, Northwestern University
The completely revised 2nd edition of The Handbook of Strategic Public Relations & Integrated Marketing Communications was published by McGraw-Hill in January 2012. There is an Amazon price reduction hardcover or Kindle. Click to order: http://amzn.to/rzVzKd
The Handbook encourages marketing and PR professionals to examine the full range of stakeholders. Chapters on sustainability, writing, speech writing, global ethics, 3D virtual worlds, storytelling, etc. should be of great value to the practitioner, management and student. With 55 chapters written by 70 industry leaders and academic authorities, the book is also designed for readers who are also looking for specific industry information (auto, finance, food, pharma, healthcare, restaurants, insurance, NGOs, energy, etc.). The auto chapter is co-written by the current CCO of Ford and the recent past CCO of GM.
The book is also developed as an inexpensive training book, textbook or professional development resource. It is supported by videos of the authors (linked with QR codes to scan), chapter questions, outlines and additional readings. It is comprehensive to serve the reader as a true handbook.
I thought I would share with you the titles and searches that have expired from a confidentially posted list. Many of them would rely on a headhunter (the company pays but a headhunter you know or knows you. I know that headhunters search for opinion leaders in our field who might have published in trade, professional magazines or journals. They may have also published in books like The Handbook of Strategic PR and Integrated Communications, McGraw-Hill late Fall new issue 2011!
Dec. 8, 2010 Banks Communications Consultant 5
Nov. 12 , 2010 Insurance Communications Consultant (3)
Nov. 12 , 2010 Electronics Temp Director, Internal Communications
June 23, 2010 Insurance Director, Enterprise Communications
May 12, 2010 Candy Crisis Communication Manager
May 12, 2010 Candy Corp.Affairs Director North America Segment
May 12, 2010 Candy Corporate Affairs Internal Comms Manager
Jan. 15, 2010 Defense Director I,PR International Communications
Jan. 6, 2010 Retail Director of Digital Communications
Dec. 22, 2009 Retail Director PR and International Communications
Nov. 16, 2009 University Open Rank Faculty Position
Oct. 6, 2009 University Dean
Aug. 27, 2009 Paper Products Director of Corporate Communications
Office hours: Wednesdays or by appointment and before and after class c-caywood@northwestern.edu
3-101 McCormick Tribune Center
847 491-5011 Office phone. Or 847 4915011
Rachael Mersey Office hours: Wednesdays or by appointment and before and after class rdmersey@northwestern.edu
3-114 McCormick Tribune Center
Phone: 847-491-2196
II. Course Description, Goals and Objectives
From a very senior communications executive of a top branded company: “Let me offer up Walker’s Law: The greater the amount of communication, the less valuable bad communications and the more valuable good communications. Here’s how I got there. Today, many of us communicate essentially from the moment we wake up until we turn out the lights at night, sixteen hours or more. (If you include passive one-way communication, like radio and TV, that number goes even higher.) This is far more than our grandparents or their grandparents communicated. With sixteen hours of communications a day, only the good stuff cuts through the clutter and gets noticed.
The quickest way to the top in any organization is to be able to express your thoughts concisely and compellingly. Especially for those just starting out, it provides a way to set yourself apart and show your potential in a very tangible and noticeable way. I continually remind those on my team: “If this e-mail (or memo or presentation or elevator conversation) was the only thing a top executive had to judge you by, are you OK with that?” Often it is what they will be judged on. As a result I advise every professional, but particularly those starting out, to put communication at the top of the list of things to work on. Communication matters.”
Integrated Communications (Communication Skills and Persuasive Messages) is an IMC course designed to improve students’ skills in developing and delivering traditional and newer technological communications. The course emphasizes knowledge of the how communications can contribute to policy, and strategy. It also provides the rationale or explanation of why communications is needed or a particular tactic would be productive.
The course will improve your skills in writing for business, skills in oral presentation, interpersonal skills in business environments, and, when needed, persuasive messages. The course builds on the title of the degree and your personal orientation and commitment to communication. In the professionally competitive spirit on NU’s campus, we would like to say that our goal is to make you 20 percent better communicators than your peers enrolled in the Kellogg School of Management.
This course is designed to give you an overview of the role of communications for a wide range of stakeholders relevant to Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC). We will address the “C” in IMC as a policy and strategic advantage for marketing and management leaders. The strategic elements are unique to communications. They include an audience based 4 step process from the international work of IMC faculty and consultants.
It also contains rich theoretical concepts that have been tested time and again to provide the argument why a particular strategy or tactic would be useful for solving organizational problems. Several strategic research and data tracking methods for communications will be introduced for your use to help you defend your recommendations. Most managers will not have the specific knowledge you will possess from this class and the IMC curriculum – you must be prepared to prove the value of your suggestions. You will learn that in this class.
We seek to:
1.Write fundamental and more advanced types of IMC messages and know the basic elements of each type.
2.Write clear, brief and accurate pieces of communication that employ correct grammar, punctuation, spelling, usage and context.
3.Edit our own writing for basic errors and correct them by using proper editing symbols.
4.Write and edit fast enough to be able to complete assignments under deadline pressure in a corporation, in the field, on the way to the meeting or on the podium.
5.Use Associated Press (AP) style as followed by businesses and other organizations.
6.Apply judgments to sets of facts and then synthesize those facts into openings that are concise and writing that is organized and coherent.
7.Know when to attribute information in order to avoid editorializing, and know how to handle attribution smoothly and quotations properly.
8.Gather facts and transfer them accurately.
9.The strategic process used by hundreds of businesses trained by the faculty gives the tactical methods above a means to be measured and rewarded. To evaluate the tactical activities above we will learn about general communications audits, digital database audits, readability studies and competitive message analysis software.
IV. Assignments / Projects
You will have many manageable assignments in this course. Assignments are due on the dates in the outline, but many of the assignments can be completed in the weekly lab with a writing teacher and coach supporting you. For all assignments, emphasis is on quality of writing and presentation. The intent is to constantly improve your skills.
The course imitates the standards of professional communicators and marketing communicators and researchers in corporations, agencies and consulting firms. This is not just a class but a simulation of your ability to produce communications clearly, accurately and quickly. Like the writing examinations corporations, consulting firms and agencies are administering to job applicants; we expect you to be able to write and speak intelligently about your field with grammatical and rhetorical precision.
Class participation
You should always be prepared to contribute to class discussions, demonstrating preparation by asking questions and by integrating the vocabulary and concepts from the readings into class comments. You will complete a self-evaluation for attendance and class participation at the mid-point with the help of Searle Teaching Center and at the end of the quarter. Your effective class comments may address questions raised by others, integrate material from this and other courses, draw on real-world experiences and observations, or pose new questions to the class. We encourage your thoughtful contribution from your reading, experience and inspired class discussion.
High-quality participation involves knowing when to speak and when to listen. Comments that are repetitive, disrespectful, or lacking sufficient foundation are discouraged. Students will have the opportunity to post relevant news articles via Twitter and to elaborate on their relevance in the class
Mid-term Subject Examination
There will be a one 90 minute mid-term exam in class. The exam will consist of several short essay questions about the readings and lectures. You will be given the reading before the exam and will be expected to apply the content from class to answer the questions. Some suggested topics will be part of the review session before the day of the examination.
Final Subject Examination
There will be a 110 minute final exam in class. The final exam will also consist of several short essay questions about the readings and lectures. You will be given the readings before the exam and will be expected to apply the content from class to answer the questions. Some suggested topics will be part of the review session before the day of the examination.
Final Editing Examination
You will also take a final editing examination in your final laboratory session. The exam will be your “post” editing exam to demonstrate your graded improvement from the class entry “pre” editing examination.
Peer and Personal Evaluation
Also, please note that you will be asked to complete a peer evaluation of each of your lab partners. In addition to quantitatively evaluating the contribution of each team member (including yourself), you will offer developmental feedback for each teammate as well. You and your peers will evaluate your own contributions to the progress and success of the class. The expectation is that you will share in the success of the class with your participation.
V. Evaluation
Grading:
There are four cases, 6 editing assignments, 2 oral assignments, two examinations on content (reading, lectures, panels, and cases), discussion, Twitter site usage, peer evaluation, pre and post editing examinations
All work in the course contributes to your final grade. This includes in-class assignments and lab homework, quizzes and examinations. In keeping with the proud Medill tradition, you must rewrite any assignment with a √- or a grade of C+ or below. Your grade on a rewrite will combine with the original grade for an average grade on the assignment. There is the tradition of a “Medill F” where you misspell the names of the people, company or product/service in the IMC work.
VI. Honesty, Plagiarism, and Cheating
This course follows the Northwestern University code of student conduct as described in the NU student handbook and the Medill code of ethics. Questions of academic dishonesty, cheating, plagiarism, and other violations, their terms and conditions are all listed in the Student Handbook. The Student Handbook outlines the contract between the student, the instructor, and the University. Please read this and familiarize yourself with the terms and conditions.
The headline from Medill is: You cannot cheat in any way. It can cost you your graduate degree.
VII. Labs
Please attend your assigned lab. There isn’t space for extra students in the lab rooms. Unless you arrange to shift to another lab with another student and notify the instructor in advance, the instructor may give you a zero on your work that day.
VIII. Course Outline
The 10 Week 19 lecture/discussion classes would include the following topics:
1.Stakeholder Targeting and Mapping (1) (supported with video) Readings and theory related to: Eckhouse: Rhetoric and Competitive Advantage. Organization and Competitive Messages
·Mainstreaming: TV's ability to pull people to a common understanding of an issue.
What is freedom of speech for corporations? Politically oriented corporate messaging? How can we have a common understanding in a diverse nation? If it works in China should we use it in the U.S. and vice versa?”
·Technological determinism: Media communication and the technology it uses help shape the society in which we live.
What is the real effect of a wildly popular magazine in this age such as People Style Watch? What is our perception of our society? Is it the medium or the message again? How does any important issue, product or service become successful in a high tech age?
2.Applied Rhetorical Communications Theory in IMC and Journalism 1 Read Competitive Communications Eckhouse Classical Argument and Modern Business and articles on specified communication theory
·Uses and gratifications: People use media to fill personal and social needs.
Can the newer cable media go too far with Fox and MSNBC? Is this the new propaganda age?
·Agenda melding: People join groups by "melding" agendas.
What about Chinese on-line buying clubs for building commercial communities? Can we integrate business and society with common green agenda?
·Dissonance: When confronted by new information, people experience mental discomfort and they work to limit or reduce that discomfort.
3.Applied Communications Theory in IMC and Journalism 2 (see video for review) Eckhouse: Refutation Argument as Inquiry, Strategic Disposition,
·Parasocial relationships: People establish social relationships with media personalities.
Q scores with Fox, Good Morning America and micro channel hosts. What is the ROI value of “fame”? Is trustworthiness and branding related?
·Framing: To make sense of events, we categorize them.
“Progressive is the new liberal”. Who uses the term? The President’s talking about stakeholders. Who defines the context of business and society?
·Knowledge gap: The more information in the social system, the more the higher SES groups will gain in knowledge compared to those in lower SES groups.
Food deserts, environmental racism, hourly wages from non-union shops - What is sustainable for whom? And, who decides?
4.Applied Communications Theory in IMC and Journalism 3 Eckhouse: Ethics in Argument – Classical Fallacies, Managing Ethos – Argument and Credibility
·Adoption: Adopters pass through five steps--awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, adoption.
Is the old model too linear as some IMC experts claim? Isn’t adoption even more important in a widely growing technological, entrepreneurial and innovative economy?
·Cultivation: People who are heavy viewers of TV tend to believe that the "real" world is more similar to the world seen on TV than do light viewers.
What are the marketing and policy ethical issues? What about product alignment with the gullible or less cynical viewers (children, elderly, undereducated)?
·Symbolic Interaction: People give meaning to symbols and then those symbols control peoples' behavior.
Why aren’t graphics and imagery more important in IMC? What has happened to semiotics in the classroom and research programs of IMC?
5.Reputation Case Study in Communications, Paul Argenti book. Case brief and discussion.
§Two-step flow: Certain members of society are active consumers of media and become opinion leaders who influence others.
Does this include bloggers, tweeters, those who are linked or use retweet or Bitly or Tinyurl?
6.Executive Panel on the Role of Communications in Leadership - Best Communication Practices in IMC. Senior managers of communications who participated in design of this class.
7.Authentic Storytelling Structure and Delivery 1 (supported with video/lab)
·Spiral of silence: Public opinion consists of those opinions you can express in public w.o socially isolating yourself.
Will we be allowed to blog about work? Can we be too transparent?
8.Storytelling Structure and Delivery 2 (Presentation of best examples from lab practice)
·Social learning theory: Children learn behaviors by watching them, including watching them on TV.
What balance should IMC put into the system? What greater damage can advertising do to marketing? Can advertising refocus its power? Doesn’t transparent PR gain in stature?
9.MARCOM Case Studies in Communications, Argenti, Brief and discussion
·Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM): Persuasive messages can be processed using either the central (recipient is motivated) or peripheral routes (recipient is not motivated).
Voting compares to which purchases? Is digital buying central? How do we process increasing numbers of messages, over increasing numbers of channels?
10. Midterm Examination on readings and lectures to-date
11. Advanced Writing and Editing 1 (supported with video/lab) Eckhouse: Managing Ethos: Conciseness; Word Choice, Syntax, Punctuation, Grammar.
AP Manual of Style and Dunsky Chapters 1-4
12. Advanced Writing and Editing 2 (corporate standards for employment)
AP Manual of Style and Dunsky Chapters 5 to conclusion
13. Communication Metrics 1, How communications is measured, Eckhouse: Electronic Ethos - Computer Revision,
14. Communication Metrics 2, Simple to sophisticated metrics Kellogg Advertising and Media, Caywood and Diermeier Chapters
15. Media Presentation Practice and Theory (supported with video/lab)
·Agenda setting: The media don't tell people what to think; they tell them what to think about.
Who is setting the industrial policy level agenda? What about extreme cable as product endorsers. Does it make sense?
16. Media Case Studies in Communications, Argenti
17. Global and Cross Cultural Communications
·Cross-cultural Theory and experiences
18. Global/Cross Cultural Case Studies in Communications, Argenti
19. Executive Panel on the Role of Global Communications in Leadership
20. Comprehensive Final Examination
Communication Coaching and Labs 10 sessions
Lab sessions for coaching and editing, rewriting would be held weekly for 1.5 hours in groups of around 18 students. The five sessions would meet from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in a dedicated writing lab.
Writing and Editing 6 assignments from IMC field: The assignments would depend on your background education, experience and testing with your peers. It would continue to include advertising, public relations, direct marketing and general business assignments. All work would be evaluated on progress in performance.
Oral Communications Delivery 4 assignments: Each student will prepare two 2-3 minute presentations that will be videoed and critiqued. Some will be presented to the entire student body.
Comments from a presentation on railroad safety for passengers and pedestrians. NU program June 22, 2010. Recent increase in crossing gate deaths in Lake Forest IL and 5000 deaths reported by the Federal RR Administration gave momentum to the program with about 60 attendees sponsored by the Transportation Center at Northwestern University. Three E's were on the agenda: enforcement, engineering and education/communication. On communications some notes:
Point 1: How many of you are under age 35? (about 15 percent of the hands went up). The rest of us are not the target of education and communications for the most part. The learning behavior of over 60% of the population is unlike our experience. If you grew up where teachers, coaches, police officers and members of Congress were your friend. You are in the older 40%. You may know "stop drop and roll" and "look listen and live". You saws PSAs, watched network TV, read ink on paper news. We did not try to simultaneously task everything all the time. Today we have new channels, new media new messaging customized to the new ways people learn and behave.
Point 2: Risk communications teaches us that if only 5% of the 5000 deaths reported by the Federal RR Administration has occurred in a single accident; the press, the Congress, the industry would have reacted much more directly and quickly to this still significant problem. When the crashes are isolated and are statistically more dangerous the public and media do not respond. We need new means to capture the attention to the importance of this issue with its higher risk to passengers and pedestrians.
Point 3: Federal grants do not ask for policy or significant communications about research on this or related topics: an academic article is not significant communications for a policy issue. We need more demands for education and communications.
Point 4. Stay on message: "How do we convince people to recognize the fatal consequences of being distracted around railroads" is accurate but not memorable or pithy enough to be repeated easily.
Point 5: Who is credible. Research can tell us this. It is not the President (or any recent President of the U.S.) or corporate leaders, government leaders. It may be NGOs or cartoon characters - seriously.
Point 6. We need to motivate and coordinate other institutions with billions of dollars of resources and investment in the risk of losing their employees.
employers who equip their highly educated and distracted professional with iPhone, Blackberries and laptops must help
families must be motivated to have designated safety directors (as we did with green issues and stop smoking issues in families).
Cell phone manufacturers and service providers need to accept (as liquor sellers) their contribution to the distraction and death of users beyond the auto
We need to link up with other more know programs in auto safety and instruction,
We need to organize all the RR, communities along the tracks and those with employees who depend on RR commuting
Let's go to the groups for your ideas.
[The talk was followed by a modified nominal group brainstorming session producing 60 ideas from 10 people in 45 minutes.]
The 2nd “C” – Credibility
How can the values of the Medill School of Journalism, the values of professional journalism and the new gyrations of the professional employment market be aligned for the 21st century beginning in 2010?
The values of journalism as stated by Medill are most visibly found in 2009 at http://ugadm.northwestern.edu/freshman/academics/medill.htm
In its teaching, Medill has always emphasized three fundamentals to media reporting: accuracy, fairness, and balance. "There is a right way, an ethical way, to present the news," says Boye. "More than anything else we want Medill graduates to have a strong appreciation that this is what good journalism is all about."
From the Poynter Institute’s tolerant publishing of G. Stuart Adam’s Notes Towards a Definition of Journalism Understanding an old craft
as an art form: “Whatever else this journalism may be … it is the product of reporting — the gathering and presentation of slices and bits of human experience and thought selected from what N. K. Llewellyn once called the “aperceptive mass of behavior.” So journalism involves, and is defined to some extent by, reporting. But it also involves criticism, or editorializing, or the conferral of judgments on the shape of things. Each of the items in the foregoing inventory — some more consciously than others — involved a judgment or an assessment of the significance or value or worth of the actions of its subjects.” http://www.poynter.org/media/product/20030123_141216_24094.pdf
After meandering about in his essay for 27 pages Adam’s finally writes: “In other words, I am trying to define journalism in terms of what it is rather than by the medium through which it is circulated. Now I am prepared to commit myself.”
He writes: “There are minimally five elements or principles of design in any piece
of journalism that, although journalism may share some of these with
other forms of expression and although the elements may be unequally
represented in individual pieces, together mark and define it. In my
view, journalism comprises distinctive elements or principles (1) of
news, (2) of reporting or evidence-gathering, (3) of language, (4) of narration, and (5) of meaning.” (p. 23).
The readers of the report are fully familiar with Adam’s often used descriptors of journalism through other Medill School 2020 planning terms. Our language is similar but richer choice of words such as storytelling, audience, engaging, news, research, writing, technology, reporting, relevant, differentiated and more..
Dean Lavine stated in 2006 on the Medill 2020 plan:
The realities of today’s media environment require an education that incorporates elements of both traditions, Lavine says. In a world of abundant choice for consumers and fierce competition for their time, journalists need to learn how to reach their audience with compelling stories and presentation, while marketers and communications students must understand how to think and write with the clarity of journalists, according to Lavine. http://www.northwestern.edu/magazine/fall2006/cover/cover/sidebar1.html
Wisely there never was a debate among reasonable, thinking adults about the need for change (only the process). Since 2006 for the journalism program and bluntly since 1989 for the IMC program the changes have been explored, tested, researched, authored, rejected, accepted and refined. As 2020 approaches, the challenge will be to build a viable alternative educational delivery system (a degree combining the content and credible values of journalism for many organizations) that may take as long as IMC has taken to be accepted – toward the year 2020.
For example, a team of communicators at Boeing Corporation operates as the internal communications staff. The team is lead by a former newspaper reporter and editor and staffed with traditional Medill journalism graduates. Their avowed goal is to “transparently communicate to the employees of Boeing” (confirm quote from October 18 2009 meeting).
The example of Boeing is prescient of the future of the need for a journalism based but more broadly targeted educational program in what could be logically, academically and professionally called: “organizational service journalism,” or organizational journalisms” While initial expressions of concern over this preliminary label seemed premature since the report had not been edited or submitted. The report offers in the appendix a combination and permutation of 2925 other phrases constructed from 27 possible degree title words selected from this study. The final choice should be the faculties
The values of the press including “freedom of expression” (Emerson, Fuchs 1992) do not apply only to the traditional news press. It may be time, again, to label the various estates related to the 4th estate of the press and journalism to clarify the richer list of “estates” available to the modern graduate... The discussion above from Adam and Lavine, established that journalism in this discussion is a not simply an organization but a highly professional intellectual process. From this discussion it is fair to suggest that the elements of journalism may be found and logically practiced in any number of institutions or estates.
Given the complex role of so many institutions from the historical 1st-4th Estates it might be reasonable to note the shifts of power and communications to the 1st through the 9th Estates. Therefore, the loss of credibility and the need to restore it for the new estates and old ones. The incumbent expectation of the provision of content may indeed make the new estates “more important than them all."
From the corporate and other organizational concept of transparency in financial, social and other reporting to the shifting search of employees, voters, investors and general public to non-traditional journalism sources for news and news like content, we have a caldron perfect for a more diverse and richly segmented communications “soup”.
William Baker calculates a very high level of unemployment among traditional news journalists: “There's no doubt that news in America is in trouble. Of the 60,000 print journalists employed throughout the nation in 2001, at least 10,000 have lost their jobs, and last year alone newspaper circulation dropped by a precipitous 7 percent. Internet, network and cable news employ a dwindling population of reporters, not nearly enough to cover a country of 300 million people, much less keep up with events around the world. It is no longer safe to assume, as the authors of the Constitution did, that free-flowing news and information will always be available to America's voters.” http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091012/baker
Baker’s government take-over (NPR, PBS) or foundation solution in The Nation may be just one of the “too big (or important) to fail” solutions to changing journalism’s future:
“Saving journalism might seem like an entirely new problem, but it's really just another version of one that Americans have solved many times before: how do we keep a vital public institution safe from the ups and downs of the economy? Private philanthropy and government support are the two best answers we have to this question.” http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091012/baker
The balance of this report has a modest suggestion of a more balanced, likely and institution building approach to advancing journalism as a provider of credible content.
Proposals for Program Research
Initial paper was shared with a dozen members of the leading elite organizations in public relations - Arthur W. Page Society (www.awpagesociety.com). The select group represents professional PR who led the communications function in corporations with $3,000,000 in sales and the top official of leading PR agencies. Members are selected for life-time appointments.
Several of the reviewers are also current or former adjunct professors in the Medill School of Journalism (IMC Department). The proposal was also read by selected members of the Medill faculty’s journalism educators (full-time) as well as full-time members of the IMC Department. Several graduate students in Journalism and IMC were asked for their opinion.
Global Brands from China
10/1/2009 - Part of TCBN's Global Brands Series
Professor Caywood teaches integrated marketing communications at the Medill School at Northwestern University. He is also a speaker at the Global Brands Summit 2009. He has taught Chinese foreign students in his classroom and traveled to China to speak to business professionals abroad. The Global Brand Summit takes place this year in Chicago on October 20-21, 2009, and in addition to Professor Caywood, will feature many notable speakers, including marketing expert Philip Kotler and Sina.com's Cao Guo Wei.
Interview Transcript
TCBN: Hello and welcome to The China Business Network, I’m Michael McCune and joining me today is Professor Clarke Caywood. Professor Caywood teaches integrated marketing communications at the Medill School at Northwestern University. He is also founder of the US-China Brand Group and chair of the newly established IMCA or Integrated Marketing Communications Association.
The association is organizing the 2009 Global Brand Summit with a special emphasis on the expansion of US and China businesses into each other’s markets.
Professor Caywood, thank you for joining us today.
CAYWOOD: I’m glad to be with you.
TCBN: Now I understand that early in your career you were pretty focused on public policy and politics. When did you have a change of tact that China became more of a professional involvement for yourself?
CAYWOOD: Well as an academic the opportunity to work with the Chinese universities has just grown phenomenally over the last decade really because of – it is almost hard to stop curiosity about American business because of the changes in Chinese policies.
But my first jobs were working for political leaders in Wisconsin. I will say that given the temperament in some parts of the country, they these were men and women who were never indicted nor nearly indicted. They were all very good people. And I helped them run trade missions to China as well as Japan, South America, and other locations when the idea was to see what Wisconsin could offer to the world in terms of trade, and what the world could offer back in exchange.
So that also piques your curiosity when you realize that the economic world does not just revolve around the Midwest or any kind of narrow band of geography.
TCBN: Well you mentioned the academic exchanges. The opportunities have proliferated over the years. There have been a lot of not just academic exchanges, but student groups coming from China to Medill if I am not mistaken.
CAYWOOD: We’ve had a tremendous growth in this area. Maybe due to myself, I suspect a little bit because I travel all over China to speak to college groups as well as executive groups. And another colleague of mine, Don Schultz, who speaks in China extensively as well.
Our message that we both share in terms of IMC, and in my case doing a fair amount of work on crisis management, seems to resonate very well with Chinese guests.
But, as you know, Chinese, the best Chinese students, have been coming to America for 40 years, 35 years, at the very least. Because when I was professor at Northwestern as well as a student (excuse me, at Wisconsin, I apologize) we had many engineering students, science students, directly from China, mainland China-as well as Taiwan.
So this is a long tradition, but at our program recently here in Illinois at Northwestern, we’ve had almost half of our students, in some years more than half of our students, are PRC or Taiwanese.
TCBN: You know, it is interesting that you mentioned what the main focus of early students was, particularly in the hard sciences, and trying to build skill sets either for pursuing opportunities here or back in China. People would have normally thought perhaps in China that marketing was more art than science, but in today’s more sophisticated integrated world, there is a skill set that needs to be learned in order to really get the most out of marketing programs. Do you see this appreciated by the student coming from China?
CAYWOOD: I think that is a great insight. One of the advantages we’ve found with our Chinese students is the discipline of learning to work with statistics and mathematics.
And while this is kind of a well known weakness of the American educational model (although we all as individuals in our own families try to correct this as much as we can) we’ve done some good work in the United States with trying to get young woman in America more mathematically inclined and so forth over the last ten or twenty years, but clearly these young men and women who come here have scored exceptionally well in this area.
And our form of marketing, an integrated marketing communication form, requires a very deep understanding of databases. We track a lot of data about the customer as well as other experts, opinion leaders, the media, and journalists such as yourself, trying to find what thought leaders are saying about a product or a service or a brand of a company.
So that led us to develop more refined kinds of courses that make the students know something that their bosses don’t know, and of course that is reason enough to hire them because bosses want the newest knowledge and I think that’s what we’re providing.
TCBN: And with this conference that you’ve come to put on, really you’re not as much focused on students it seems, as well as looking more broadly at the professional awareness that needs to be facilitated with regard to integrated marketing communications. Can you tell me, what was the genesis of this conference?
CAYWOOD: Yes. Absolutely. Well you know, I am always selling my students. That is my reason for being and my career. But it’s clear to us from travelling all over, and from a seminar series that we did about three years ago with myself, a colleague from Kellogg, and a former of governor of Wisconsin. We all went to China as a team and we presented a branding seminar across several cities in China and my colleague from Kellogg spoke on his specialty which is more product brand at the microlevel, my work has been at the corporate brand, the reputation of the company, the holding company, so we call that corporate brand, and the governor spoke about national branding or province branding.
This is prior to the Olympics, and so we had a great audience for this message. They seemed to realize increasingly, the Chinese business leaders, that they could build all three aspects of their brand, including how can they build a reputation - being a brand that is respected in China and can be respectable all over the world.
So that led us to look at branding more closely and this conference will specialize on all three levels of that branding, where we’ll talk about all three levels of branding, and we think the timing is right to help grow out of this economic doldrums were in.
TCBN: So when you look at the attendees at this conference coming up and you think about what skill sets there trying to buttress, or knowledge there trying to augment, when coming here are they all coming from almost the same angle, because we all have the same channels just maybe with different maturation and usage, or are there really sort of skill sets that pose challenges for one group as opposed to the other.
CAYWOOD: Well I think they’ll all know what these are. These are men and women who are operating at very high levels, for example one of our keynote speakers is the chairman, or CEO, of Sina.com So we’re talking about very sophisticated business men and women who are leaders in finance as well as manufacturing.
But the Chinese will teach us something about how to build longer-term relationships, and how to manage those, and perhaps not to be quite so paranoid about the quarter-to-quarter performance that our stock market insists on. I think that American businessmen can learn a lot and to their advantage.
But I believe the Chinese are coming also to hear our business leaders. We have Phil Kotler who is the premiere marketing professor in the world. There is something called the Kotler Award which is a major Chinese marketing award in China. Phil is a colleague here at Northwestern and his name is just known everywhere.
So I know they are attracted by Phil’s knowledge. We’re bringing people from many of the top agencies and top corporations. So that is a good exchange,
And for some reasons I doubt it, and sometimes I think maybe we need to keep growing rapidly too. American education is considered superior to other educational models in the rest world. And so they are quite often interested in what the new thinking is here in the States. So as long as we still have that advantage we’ll celebrate it and we’ll make sure we put extra effort into improving our knowledge on important topics.
TCBN: Well we certainly look forward to the outcomes of the conference, and I look forward to attending myself. And I understand that both Phil, who you just mentioned is one of the featured speakers along with Cao Guo Wei, the CEO of Sina Coproation - and a long list of esteemed professionals from both sides of the ocean. So it seems like you’ve pulled together fertile ground for good conversation and insight.
CAYWOOD: I’m as anxious to attend this conference as I hope my guests and invitees are because I know I’ll gain a great deal from it, and it will give me many examples that I can use when I travel back to China and when I teach class. I know business men and women here in the United States and in China that will attend will find great examples of best practices and will build new business relationships and friendships.
TCBN: I’ve been speaking today with Professor Clarke Caywood from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Integrated Marketing Communications.
As the Chair of the IMCA, he is chairing the 2009 Global Brand Summit which will take place in Chicago October 20-21 of this year.
