Sally Green - 0:05
Welcome back. We are now carrying on talking to Lynne McBain about the student experience of becoming a marketeer. So learning how to be a marketeer, not panicking about learning how to becoming a marketeer and Lynne McBain is making us very secure that learning forever is the right thing to do. So we very much hope that you enjoy the second half of this.

Lynn McBain - 0:28
I mean, the other good thing that we have as well is that we have a first-year module, for example, it's based around marketing research, and we use a live client for the brief and for the last couple of years, we've used the same client, big blue chip organisation, they keep coming back every year because the first years do such a good job providing a solution to the market research problem that they give them that they really benefit from it and in effect, they get in free marketing research.

Sally Green -0:56
I was gonna say they're getting free stuff.

Lynn McBain - 0:59
But you know and they are only first years, I say only first years that sounds a bit disparaging but you know they're quite sort of early in their educational journey.

Sally Green - 1:08
And market research isn't easy. It really isn't easy. You don't just, oh here's, I'll just find the answer on Google.

Lynn McBain - 1:15
Yeah, yeah absolutely. So you know that's great.

Sam Birkett - 1:18
That's really good, it's really good to hear actually. I mean it's interesting because you say that you've got these people who I imagine the placement year must be so valuable in so many ways to them. It's interesting as well because I'm just thinking back to people I've worked with, so marketers by the time you employ them or you work with them, but hardly any people I've worked with, I guess they've done a marketing-specific qualification or undergrad. You know, people have done English and geography or something completely different, and then they come along. Clearly, the course must be popular and there are more undergraduate marketing courses out there these days and more than they used to be or I don't know that is that my just my perception it could be.

Lynn McBain - 1:57
Yeah no I think you're right Sam I think that there are more out there certainly the market's very competitive for students, you know when you're marketing yourself as a university but yes and I think the students are quite discerning these days as well bearing in mind that they're paying so much to gain a degree. Putting themselves potentially in a lot of debt after they graduate So it's not right that it's being commercialised in terms of education, because you are not paying for a degree, you are paying for the educational journey. You're paying for the support in the higher education institution, but it has changed the students perspective of their own place, if you like, or their own agency in a higher education institution. So that's another tension I think that we will battle with.

Sally Green -2:53
Yeah, that is interesting. What's interesting is that I used to, my corporate life was publishing and I'm sure this has changed, but maybe not for all old crusties like me who are now, 'cause Sam and I are now getting to the level where if we were working corporate, we would be the marketing directors who are guiding things and all that kind of thing. When I was working in publishing, I used to really worry when I got an applicant who came to me, who'd done a publishing degree because I'd think, "I don't want you to know what you're doing because I want to mold you." I think things have changed. I don't want to say I was obviously the Victorian lunatic, but it's useful for people to have knowledge, but sometimes you don't want them to come knowing how to do things because every business is different and I wonder if there's the same with people like, you know, those marketing directors, you haven't ever done a marketing degree and don't know what it is, there is that tension of not sure I want you to come with all this inverted commas “knowledge”.

Lynn McBain - 3:55
Yeah, that's that's a good point Sally. I have however, had interesting conversations with students when they come back from placement and they said, you know, that module you taught us about marketing planning? I'm like, yeah, well, it really happens, you know, when a works. I said, Yeah, I know. That's why we teach you that. It’s really nice. It's quite gratifying. Because you think, Oh, yeah, they get it now they get it is, you know, the whole point of learning something, and we've all been there, because we all sit in, you know, our various sort of spot on with learning things. Why am I learning this? What's the point of it? You know, so I think signposting it to students is really important, but you can tell them and tell them and tell them that this is what they do in industry, but until they actually get out there and put it into practice, they might not believe it. It's a bit sad that they don't believe it.

Sally Green - 4:45
There is the other side of that coin that they might get into a place where they don't do planning because I've worked with businesses where there's a very limited planning approach to anything and they might find that actually they can bring benefit to businesses really quickly because they understand how to do a proper marketing plan.

Lynn McBain - 5:02
Yeah, that's true and I think some businesses do like that and also we do get a number of businesses approach us saying, "Have you got any marketing students who want to get some work experience?" We haven't got any money to pay them. So for example, we've got a final year student at the moment. She's just got herself a small job with a small events company who is run by people who are a lot older and don't understand social media and digital and that type of thing. So they've come to us and said, "Would one of your students like to come and basically tell us how to do this?" So she's started working with them and it's good for her because that means she's got skills on her CV and it's good for them because it shows them new things to learn about. So yes, I saw her yesterday and said, "How's it going?" She said, "Yeah, yeah, it's really good." She said, "They want more out of me than I can actually give." Bearing in mind, she's a final-year student. So what we've done, we've started looking for other students who can work alongside her. So they're getting a little team together to help this organisation. So, you know, so that's another nice thing that can...

Sally Green -6:03
That is and it might be forever. They might I think of actually, we can always have free marketing from Brookes University.

Sam Birkett - 6:12
It is interesting that point because as I was writing down some of my thoughts about this was exactly the general marketer as I say again. So I've been in a situation where I've been you know the only marketer in the organisation or either as a freelancer or actually employed or a small team and I suppose there's that difference isn't it? So you get the people who go want to go to agency, the corporate ones who go in and then they're going to be into a digital team say or copywriting PR team whatever it might be but then the people I suppose who I say wind up or perhaps try to get into and focus on smaller businesses and that's great, a huge opportunity isn't it obviously to come in and as you say like educate internally about what we can do have that sort of carte blanche I can now you know mold this in my own image and actually have a marketing strategy and and take it in their own direction but I'm guessing that person would then be more of the you know, the generalist marketer still, who's someone who actually, as we said before, can understand the analytics and the creative side can commission people to do work for them. That's something I find very exciting. I was wondering if that's still something, I mean, clearly like your student who's doing this, but is that something you find people quite excited about and interested in with, you know, particularly the entrepreneurial side, I suppose, when you're thinking about working with small businesses?

Lynn McBain - 7:21
Yeah, I think that there is a lot out there that students could potentially get involved with, certainly. And we do tell them that it's not all about the big blue chips and FMCG, fast moving consumer goods and the bulk of the GDP from this country comes from SMEs, let's face it and this isn't about me, but my own journey into marketing was not straightforward at all. My degree was in microbiology. I started off as a medical sales rep, and then I sort of fell into marketing because somebody within an organisation that I'd moved out of the pharmaceutical industry into a small manufacturing company said to me, "Do you want to do the marketing? We're not quite sure what it's about, but we can pay for your Chartered Institute of Marketing qualifications at night school." So it was night school in those days. I am that old and so I was like, "Oh, okay, what's marketing all about?" I don't really sort of, you know, as a salesperson, I was sort of

Sally Green - 8:19
I don't know, catalogs.

Lynn McBain - 8:21
Yeah, we've been briefed by them at conferences and things on new products, but I was like, not quite sure what they do. Then they just like do advertising and stuff. So classic impression of marketers and so went and did my CIM and then sort of grew my marketing career from there. So I was that person, Sam, working in an SME, the only person doing the marketing, but I had a blast. I had a tiny budget, really tiny, but it was such a challenge to make it stretch and we did some amazing things and I then bounced onto another company with a little bit of a bigger budget, it was still an SME and, you know, did better things with that. We won awards and stuff and so yeah, just really, really enjoyed learning about all of it, really, and how you could sort of work with various parts of the organisation and how a customer-centric attitude is really important.

Sally Green -9:19
You made a really good point just then that that's why they need to do their business and maths bit, they need to do the budgety bit. They may not like it but they are only going to succeed particularly in SMEs and for entrepreneurs actually if they've absolutely got a firm hand on the finance bit.

Lynn McBain - 9:36
And also understanding all the different stakeholder groups in and around an organisation, not only internally, but externally, so that you know where you can leverage that goodwill and you know how important it is to communicate in different ways with those stakeholder groups, because they've all got vested interests in you for different reasons and I think trying to teach that is actually really impossible. I think you actually have to be in it to get it.

Sally Green - 10:05
I absolutely agree and how to manage them, how to manage those stakeholders is genuinely impossible. The students have to be brave enough to make a mistake. So they've got to be courageous enough to fail.

Lynn McBain - 10:18
Absolutely and we've all been there.

Sally Green - 10:20
Oh, yeah. And you do learn. I know it's a cliche and students will sit back and go, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah." But you do learn from failing. You really do and everyone who says, "No, I've always been perfect," is simply lying.

Lynn McBain - 10:32
Yeah, yeah, and going back to teaching as well, we are very, very keen on working with students and their feedback. So we build in lots of what we call formative feedback sessions during the semester for a module. And we ask the students to engage with that feedback and, you know, not just to ignore it, just to say, Okay, why do you think you got this feedback? What did you learn from it? What are you going to do differently now moving forwards? And it's all about that moving forward learning from experience, from the feedback, from your tutors, from your peers as well. So we just encourage peer review, peer assessment and I think if you can get that mindset at university, or even a school, right, and take that into industry with you, fantastic. So it becomes an automatic reflexive type of approach.

Sally Green - 11:27
Yeah, and to have that doing at university because it doesn't happen at work. It may claim it does, but it just doesn't. You have to do it yourself at work and it's really hard to do for yourself. Self-criticism is blooming tricky.

Sam Birkett - 11:40
And I suppose really you'd hope that would feed into line managers if you've got a good line manager and then you're line managing other people as well. So the best companies where you're already getting that support and constructive criticism and feedback is so important, isn't it? And as you say, if people have got an idea of that already, then that's great. There was one thing I really wanted to get onto, which was AI. If I'm talking about AI and I'm talking about technology again, I don't think there's a definitive answer for this. But it was just really, I was interested in, particularly right now, we're seeing people saying… making these big claims about AI not taking over marketing, but it's going to be a huge change and there's all sorts taking place now and Sally and I have been touching on this last few weeks, actually, and I think delving into it more and more ourselves. So I'm very interested in discussing this in more depth with all sorts of people. But are you seeing any sense of students now coming to the workplace considering that AI can obviously complement and help us? But do you think there's this sense that people are either worried or concerned about technology eroding the role of the marketer? Is there a sense of, I suppose, technology, this type of technology, AI in particular, do you think people are, how are they viewing that at the moment and what the power of what that could do for marketers in particular?

Lynn McBain - 12:48
Okay, I think it's early days yet, Sam. I think it will change the role of a marketer. I don't think it will ever replace marketers because you cannot replace human beings. We do make them aware of things like chatbots, for example, is a good example of AI, and how a chatbot can become more intelligent as it understands the questions that's being asked of it, etc, etc. But it cannot replace a face-to-face frontline customer service person because of the nuances and the emotions involved and all of those things. Not at the moment anyway. So technology might develop. So that's one thing and I think in terms of things like creatives, and I know that agencies now can access AI and they can put in a sentence of an image that they want constructed by AI and then outcomes and bear riding a bike down the main street of London or something like that. I don't know. So that saves a lot of money because you don't actually have to get a bear riding a bike down the main street of London. So, you know, so I think it has a place and I think as academics, we need to be aware of that place and how that place might change as AI develops, but I don't think it will ever replace marketers.

Sally Green - 14:06
I don't either because I think the value of authenticity, which is, and a tone of voice and as you say, it's the human characteristics. I mean, you know, funnily enough, that advertising has got meerkats in it. The money can compare, money compare thing, she's got meerkats and they've just brought in a new advertising, which has got a wombat in it and the wombat's a bit gormless and hopeless and they have a new strapline that says, don't wombat it, meerkat it. So, you know, don't make mistakes, do it right with us. The reason that works is because that wombat is so human and he so gets it wrong. and that you so get why he's getting it wrong. So you can't, otherwise everything's kind of perfect and marvelous and that's not fun at all.

Lynn McBain - 14:46
Yeah, yeah. I think as well AI can probably alienate customers. So we all know the limitations of it. I mean, if you go onto your bank, for example, and all of a sudden the chat's like, oh, can I help you? How can I help? And you're like, no, you can't answer my specific problem. I'm sorry. Because the AI is only as good as the programming that is inside it and the intelligence that allows it to understand what the issue is and so I think it can frustrate customers more than answer their queries or help. So hinder rather than help and I think, yeah, it has got a place and probably with the more mundane, repetitive things and let's let it have that. The relationship building. I mean, if you think about business-to-business and account managers, you know, salespeople in business-to-business environments, they're in charge of lots of money inside a huge account and you cannot replace that human interaction, you know, that we will always need people to do that job.

Sally Green - 15:50
Good. Hurrah.

Sam Birkett - 15:52
Yeah, that's good. I think that's positive thing. I mean, as you say, I mean, I sort of see it in the, you know, you think 10 years down the road, if there's the best positive way of looking at it is that, you know, AI and technology, or other automated technology can help complement, as you said, the work of marketers and perhaps replace if it saves us time doing things that we don't necessarily need to sit down and do as human beings as much, great, because then we can focus on creating even better campaigns and being even more closely aligned with our customers and audiences and so, yeah, sort of seeing it in that complementary way, which, yeah, hopefully lifts the game of everyone, really raises the game for everyone and that would be a really nice way to see it in the future and I mean, I always, I'm fascinated by this whole thing of, you know, like technology and regulation is kind of stepping, you know, technology improves, regulation catches up and as we see time and again, you know, with the use of analytics, the GDPR, et cetera, people want to have more and more authentic relationships, don't they, with other humans rather than, and with organisations and an organisation is what a collection of humans at the end of the day, who are behind a brand promise and that's why I'm always fascinated by this, this golden thread of, you know, never losing side of the human beings and anything you're doing is complimenting that. So as a grand strategy, I suppose, if I was marketing director in a company right now, that would be what I'd be looking to do. So it's, yeah, it's just interesting, really interesting to discuss this. There's all sorts of different people I'm talking to outside of marketing as well, who were looking at use of technology. So I haven't really asked the question, I'm just making a point really.

Lynn McBain - 17:22
But also to build on that, I think from the point of view of technology, as develops, it can also make it more difficult to access customers. If you think about the cookies and everything that's changed, regulations and GDPR and everything, the data protection regulations. So you've got that. So it's harder to reach your consumers, if you like, en masse. But then you also have things like addressable advertising coming on board where you can actually look at what somebody's media habits are and very precisely target the sorts of advertisements that they even see on their televisions. So, you know, obviously that's through cable. But, you know, it's really, so there's this juxtaposition, isn't there? As technology develops, it becomes more difficult to do marketing. But then as technology develops, it also becomes easier to do it, but in a different way. So that constant learning, I think is really important and I know there is a concept in business about learning companies. But I think if you are a learning individual within that side of company, even so when you leave education and you start your role and you're constantly immersing yourself in, you know, things that are being developed, I think that's really interesting, you know, like blockchains and NFTs and, you know, all those things, there's massive opportunity out there. But it's how do we use it? When do we use it? Why do we use it? You know, with what benefit for the customer ultimately? So…

Sally Green - 18:49
I think that's a really brilliant way for us to round this off because actually we've come around to the students going to learn things, but actually you never stop learning. They come in and they do their degree and they become a marketeer, but they never ever stop learning and you've just rounded that off just perfectly. Thank you very, very much for talking to us. Lynn, would you like to tell everybody who may be listening to us if anybody wants to talk to you or find you on LinkedIn or speak with you? Is there any way that people can find you?

Lynn McBain - 19:14
Yeah, sure. So my name's Lynn McBain, L-Y-N-N-M-C-B-A-I-N, and I'm a senior lecturer in marketing at Oxford Brookes Business School. You can find me on LinkedIn, Lynn McBain, and you can also email me if you want to on l.mcbain@brookes.ac.uk. Thank you very much.

Sally Green - 19:37
Thank you very much, Lynn. That's absolutely fabulous and all our listeners, thank you very much for joining us again and if you want to find anything more out about us, you find our podcasts on every single channel you want to find so you'll be able to listen to this again and again and again and do share it with any students or people at school who might be thinking about doing marketing as a career because this has been incredibly insightful. Thank you very much, Lynn.

Lynn McBain - 19:58
You're welcome. Thank you for asking.

Sam Birkett - 20:00
Thanks very much, Lynn. It's been great. Thank you.