Putting the "C" back in IMC - Communication Ideas for the Curriculum at Northwestern

Putting the “C” Back in Graduate IMC:  The Need for a Communication-Based Theoretical Approach to Teaching Integrated Communications  in the IMC Department.

Clarke L. Caywood, Ph.D.  June 25, 2010

The informal title of this report is “Putting the ‘C’ Back in IMC”.  The more formal title states that there is a need to consider a focus on communications theory, policy, strategies and, of course, tactics as a cornerstone of what is taught in the Medill Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) graduate level curriculum. 

The report was primarily motivated by recent testing of all IMC graduate students on their knowledge and skills in communications.  The same test has been used by over 200 corporations to determine the success or failure of business career promotion and advancement. Demand for the test and the instruction that accompanies it has recently increased. 

In the IMC Department, the same issues exist.  The very recent curriculum changes required that all IMC students (not just PR specialists or those choosing an elective in PR) be required to take an editing, writing, storytelling and communications strategy class. The change-over was dramatic from a class involving fewer than 25 students to required core class of 90 in the full-time program and 35 in the part-time program.

As part of this review, there is a perception that the single current course labeled “communications” may need to be revised with more “theory” and rhetorical standards instead of the tested remedial skills that are emphasized with exercises and knowledge transfer using new digital research competencies.  The report includes some relevant history of the journey of communications education in IMC.

Trade Mark Decision Relies on Study by Gronstedt and Caywood for Ruling

The case is a mark infringement case
Hearing: Mailed:
December 16, 2009 June 11, 2010
Bucher
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
________
Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
________
National Pork Board and National Pork Producers Council
v.
Supreme Lobster and Seafood Company
________
Opposition No. 91166701
against Serial No. 76574162

One quote of many praising the research.

The preponderance of this
evidence convinces us that this slogan, THE OTHER WHITE
MEAT, has become part of the fabric of popular culture in
the United States. We find especially compelling the
evidence from the Northwestern Study of 2000 showing that
only four other consumer slogans in the United States had a
greater degree of recognition than THE OTHER WHITE MEAT.
[Ex. 338] This finding supports a conclusion that
opposers’ mark is extremely well recognized by a broad
spectrum of consumers, and that this degree of recognition
among the general consuming public of this famous mark also
supports the conclusion that dilution by blurring is likely
upon the introduction of applicant’s slogan into the
marketplace.


Northwestern Study of 2000
As noted above, applicant objects strongly to
opposers’ submission of a study conducted in the year 2000
by outside academics at the School of Integrated Marketing
& Communications at Northwestern University (the
“Northwestern Study”). Applicant argues that this study
should be excluded inasmuch as the working papers for the
survey were inadvertently disposed of during an office move
well before this litigation arose, because the methodology
for the survey was flawed, and because the time frame of
the survey allegedly renders it irrelevant and
prejudicial. We disagree.

A brief on the case will be forthcoming along with a 2010 replication of the research.

Watch out! Pedestrian and Passenger Train Safety - Communication Challenge

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.

1. employers who equip their highly educated and distracted professional with iPhone, Blackberries and laptops must help
2. families must be motivated to have designated safety directors (as we did with green issues and stop smoking issues in families).
3. Cell phone manufacturers and service providers need to accept (as liquor sellers) their contribution to the distraction and death of users beyond the auto
4. We need to link up with other more know programs in auto safety and instruction,
5. 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.]

Extraordinary Quotes on the Importance of Communications in the Work World

The following are insights from experts on the need for communications in the education and training of young professionals.

From a graduate business professor teaching MBAs in marketing:

Strategically, I believe you still have the old dilemma that you addressed early in your career at Medill. Can P.R. ever be true to itself if it is part of marketing? This debate was resolved twenty years ago—P.R. is part of marketing. My view and nearly every time there is a major P.R. issue or marketing driving dissemination of information there have been problems for P.R. Marketing ultimately is responsible to the company. No matter how much we talk about customer voice being represented by marketing, in the final analysis the company is paying marketing and it “HEARS THE VOICE” it wants to hear.

However, P.R. although paid by a client has the greater mission of correctly disseminating information as it is known.

“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.” (from a very senior executive in our business).

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Denominator (cutting staff, managers, operating costs)

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Talk to the University of Los Andes - Santiago April 8 2010

Profesores, estudiantes, y otros inviados: Gracias por la invitacion a la Universidad de los Andes.
In the words of Pablo Neruda “desde el sonoro pedernal andino” hasta “el mar: fuego y frio: movimiento:” Chile is a magnificent country. It is almost impossible to imagine a country that has more dramatic vistas than you all enjoy here. I am looking forward to my own sightseeing. Chile has had a wonderful impact on my family. Your medical school and neuroscience scholars sponsored a conference last November in Santiago. My elder son who had just received his doctorate in neuroscience attended with a group of colleagues from the University of California San Francisco. He was so attracted to Chile that he spent three weeks hiking and touring. He hiked in the Torres del Paine which I understand is a challenge. He alerted me to the beauty and sophistication of Santiago and Chile.

I bring the greetings of our new President Morty Shapiro who has taken on the mantle of Northwestern’s leadership in the past 10 months. He is often called a student’s president. His dedication is to the teaching, research and service goals that are relevant to serving the objectives of our students.

With 30,000 students applying for only 2000 freshman places each year we have a saying. The old rule is that the faculty were not smart enough to be admitted to the graduate school. The graduate students were not smart enough to be admitted to the undergraduate school. Logically, the smartest people on campus are the 18 year old new students each year at Northwestern. Is that true here?

I want to summarize and talk about three ideas in the time available and with the important help of my translator.

By the way, my wife is fluent in Spanish but was unable to be here this trip.

1. First, The Wisconsin Idea of institutional and individual progressivism from one hundred years ago has a timely message for universities today.
2. Second, we can discuss the serious threats to all institutions such as government, business, religion, not-for-profits, NGOs and universities.
3. Third, I want to describe a new century post-theoretical role for the academic profession and professional practice of communications.


I am excited to be here to share these ideas with you. I will to ask for your feedback from a modern Chilean and world point of view.

Post Budget Speech Analysis "...pretty soon it adds up to real money"

Governor Quinn delivered this speech to the General Assembly, Senate and public at the 5th grade reading level Last year his first address after stepping into the role of governor was at 7th grade level. He seems to be more aware than ever that the public needs to have the message delivered very, very clearly since they increasingly do not trust the words and actions of politicians.

Naturally, he used several old ploys from the old guard playbook: He called the tax increase the state was not going to level a "1 percent surcharge" (it is not a 1% increase but an increase from 3 to 4 percent which makes it an increase of 33% over last year. First, it is not a surcharge, it is a tax. Just as the national Congress and other states have tried to called taxes "revenue enhancements", "investments" (in the country), "user fees" (where nearly everyone is a user), "privatization" (the selling of our parking meters, bridges, toll ways). One of my favorites is from my own university where the slight lowering of tuition increases that had been around 6% for over a decade was called a "reduced increase". Surcharge also implies a temporary action. Is there a sunset law attachment?

A year ago in the midst of a major economic crisis the governor was being "optimistic". He did not act as if the state was in crisis. This year is says he is "realistic". He is certainly slow to change. If the leadership of the state had acted over the past decade to plan and manage more carefully; we might not be facing a 11-13 billion dollar debt. At this point it is unlikely that we can simply grow our way out of the debt with an healthy economy (which we don't have).

It is painfully humorous to note that last November a member of the State's leadership asked the state's legislative research team what zero-based budgeting might be. I guess the legislators don't have access to Wikipedia. From my work as a budget staffer for the Department of Justice in Wisconsin and with a former governor, I have been a fan of ZBB. Former President Jimmy Carter (then an outsider) pitched his outside status as a governor of Georgia who had succesfully implemented ZBB to help his state. If you know what you are doing in state leadership you know that trying a ZBB on all the agencies at one time can be an almost impossible task. It has worked well in stages. However, we may not have the luxury of waiting.

Mr. Bradley proposes the "butcher cleaver model" of budgeting. He asks for a 10% cut across the board. This is bad public policy. Some departments might be eliminated, some might need more revenue, some might be merged to save overhead (universities like Northwestern need to do this - next blog topic). With ZBB you do not assume that any existing program should continue. For years tricky budgeters (including me) have put in small requests that grow as "continuing items" rather than "new items". This is how budgets and programs that are "nice to have" grow and attract sponsors and friends.

I don't think we can use the ideas of Bradley or Quinn to manage the 55.1 billion dollar budget even if they pretend that they can only control 27.4 percent of it. By the way, gaming expansion is not the answer either. Pretty soon, as U.S. Senator Ev Dirksen said (there is some debate) " "A billion here, A billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money". (QuotationsPage.com)