Marketers to Singapore’s universities: Your teachers are out of touch with the real world
Singapore might be the most powerful media and marketing hub in Asia Pacific, but graduates produced by the city’s universities are not of the calibre needed by an industry undergoing radical change, the boss of a top ad agency said at Mumbrella Question Time last week.
L-r: Oliver Chong, Chloe Sasson, David Tang, Sonya Madeira, Jeffrey Seah and Robin Hicks
David Tang, vice chairman of DDB Asia and CEO of DDB Singapore, said during the panel discussion that, at the root of the problem, “Marketing is not taken seriously [as a career choice] in Singapore”.
Tang fielded a question from a university delegate on assignment from the government on the topic of developing the next generation of creative leaders, in reference to Singapore’s recently announced SkillsFuture programme.
“Why aren’t universities sitting at the same table with agencies and having the right dialogue?” he asked.
“Frankly, the guys running the curriculum are out of touch with practitioners in this industry,” Tang responded.
“If the government thinks that it can understand the changes the industry is going through by sending in a squad to talk with us for one or two days, they’re kidding themselves.”
“The level of change the industry is going through is tremendous. I’ve never seen this sort of crazy change – it scares me – and it’s not getting any easier to understand.”
Universities needed to adopt a more “pragmatic model” to learn from practitioners to better equip young people coming into the business, Tang suggested.
The industry was “lucking out” with whatever talent the current curriculum was producing, he said.
Jeffrey Seah, Southeast Asia CEO of media agency Starcom MediaVest Group, suggested that up to 40 per cent of the syllabus needed to be updated every year to keep up with the pace of change in the marketing industry.
He also noted that the staff attrition rate in the business had risen to 30 per cent among junior staff, who were no longer prepared to stay on one account as previous generations had.
Sonya Madeira, the founder and MD of PR agency Rice Communications, said that teachers needed to “refresh” what was being covered at universities.
“We can guest lecture till the cow’s come home. But my suggestion is that teachers come back into the work force, do a six-month sabbatical, and then go back to teaching,” she said.
Oliver Chong, head of brand marketing and communications at StarHub, said that an initial six-month period for his company’s young marketers was critical for them to get a real-world understanding of marketing.
“We need them to go into agencies and different marketing departments and appreciate the real work behind the brand, and what goes on on a daily basis,” he said.
Google has had problems across the board in finding new recruits, shared Chloe Sasson, the internet giant’s agency business lead, WPP, for Southeast Asia, who moved to Singapore from Sydney 12 months ago.
“I think every role is hard to fill – and not just in this industry,” she said.
Young would-be recruits in Singapore were lacking in the basics of marketing, Sasson said.
“They may have the technical skills, but not the fundamentals of marketing and how to tell a good story,” she said, with the caveat that Singapore’s small population and transient talent pool made hiring even more difficult.
Tang and Chong miss the point. They would be better served to look for new talent who have studied more robust and timeless disciplines like literature, art, economics, engineering. Marketing can be learned by going to a market and watching what happens. It’s all there. All the so called change is mere window dressing. Principles remain rooted in human nature.
ReplyI agree with you completely.
ReplyPutting the onus on universities to churn out talent just for agencies betrays the self importance of our industry.
Universities prepare graduates to enter a range of industries, not just agencies .
Likewise, universities prepare mass comm graduates for all media platforms, not just Straits Times.
The secret to succeeding in an agency boils down to having good mentors.
It is my good fortune that I had mentors who incidentally never went to university who taught me more and better than any of my uni lecturers.
There’s was a time when Ogilvy was hailed as The Singapore university of advertising’, churning out future ad leaders.
Maybe the opportunity is for DDB to fill this void.
Good points above. I’m lucky enough to work with stellar Singaporean grads, from SMU, NUS and the poly’s, who are world-class and in demand from our offices across the world.
They studied software engineering, economics, technology, business, creative and fine arts – fundamental elements of marketing.
Perhaps we need an industry and agency culture that is attractive to graduates from outside Marketing courses?
Specifics of the job can be effectively covered by internships, good onboarding and training programs, mentoring and specialist skill-building e.g MOOCs, General Assembly or the Google Squared program…
ReplyTotally agree with tang’s comments, which are in fact, the same ones I made in my book “Selling the Circus”. The majority of educational institutions treat marketing, PR and journalism as profit centres and are therefore more concerned with selling dreams than actually preparing students for real-world assignments. I actually went further by suggesting the PR industry will remain stuck in the last century as long as it is dominated (Professors and agency principals) by ex-journalists. And, as for “journalism” then we would all (media, audiences and principles) be much better served if it were restricted to post-graduate status.
ReplyLOL….that’s pure rubbish!
The truth is that what you learn in the academic world needs to be bolstered by what you learn in the real one. And no agency today takes the time to mentor new entrants…in any discipline whatsoever. They just get thrown in to the deep end and issued orders. Their only education is that of swivelling their necks to look at whichever idiot is holding forth in a meeting…then everyone disperses and they are left with a sense of bewilderment.
Top ad executives need to make time to teach youngsters…and in the world they have created for themselves and their people, there is none.
And juniors need to learn how to learn…because they have no idea how that works either. Am I going to step up and teach them…hell, no! I’ll leave that to all the big talkers on that dais.
ReplyA narrow-minded view there. Guest lectures aren’t meant to teach skills. They’re meant to pique interest, and get students interested in the industry. After all, most of them, at 21, have no idea what they want to do for the rest of their lives. What makes you think teaching them skills of the industry would make them interested in marketing?
I’d rather undergraduates be taught theory, knowledge, and critical thinking. On-the-job skills can be learnt, well, while on the job. It’s more important that kids get a proper ‘university education’ before embarking into the workforce. After all, universities are meant to be ‘beacons’ of knowledge. Not practical skills.
I wasn’t there at the Q&A session. But from this article, I feel that the marketing industry is out of touch with the education industry. And not the other way round.
ReplyInteresting. Each response comes from a slightly different angle but, it seems, all are agreed that marketing/media skills should be taught after other essentials of life/academy i.e. post-graduate. And, for those genuinely seeking to make a career, on-the-job training/experience is essential. All in all, not votes of confidence in the colleges (dare I say universities?) currently charging ridiculous fees to perpetrate dreams.
ReplyThe angle that the practitioners has taken is a narrow one. University education has a much wider role than just filling up a job. The length and breath of an education is much wider than just “teaching” the students to do a job.
ReplyTo take the extreme cases of the likes of Microsoft & other IT and Marketing successes, they weren’t even university graduates for crying out loud. So does that mean we close down Yale, Harvard & the likes. Of course not!
Herein lies the different in perspective. Vocation versus Knowledge. The choice is individualistic in nature.
Hmm.. Interesting how the comments are about how you should not be expected to learn when you paid to learn and you should expect to learn when you are paid to do, not learn.
Replymy perspective as a current student, from poly and deliberating whether or not to even enter university:
yes, we do learn the fundamentals, frameworks, essential terms and what not. it’s easy to succeed academically in poly, especially while studying something that is theory-based like business. just have good study habits and tactics to memorise the information. pretty much if you don’t have a good GPA chances are that you didn’t prioritise studying and other activities such as CCA take centerstage of your life.
however, the real world is different from schools. i believe that there’s a limited amount that you can learn theoretically, and you will soon realise how dynamic everything is. no hard rules and fixed theories to apply to. seriously whenever we do internships, very few companies will spend time and resources to mentor us and for those who do, i’m grateful. they just expect us to contribute what we know. or otherwise, we are just being viewed as a hindrance to daily ops and delegated tasks such as data entry for the whole internship period. i even had friends who told me that 50% of their time spent during internship was sleeping in the recreation room of the company. in that case, it wouldn’t justify us doing an internship as a student – because i want to learn, i want to contribute something, i want to make a mark, but minimal opportunity and guidance to do so.
essentially we are just employees, albeit with minimal to no job experience & industry knowledge, just getting thrown aside to do nothing, or to the deep end. i’m not asking to be spoon-fed per se, but rather – if there’s anything to improve on, i would appreciate resources to go read up on or listen to during my own free time.
i agree with Winson’s comments above as well.. i mean if I wanted theoretical knowledge only, might as well just purchase or borrow the textbooks on my own or just Google.
ReplyMr Tang, what’s your take on gearing up for your boys on the road to Cannes? Surely you don’t need a degree in Marketing to sell us your theory.
ReplyThere’s one outlier to this largely true observation. Kaplan College
As the training partner for the Asian Sponsorship Association (and an Exco member) – tasked with driving non-traditional uptake in Asia – we know the industry needs to change, shifting the balance from an over-dependance of traditional media spend (when consumers just aren’t consuming in that way nowadays)
We wanted to go upstream so that we teach people before they get brainwashed by traditional media. So we put our training programme out there and Kaplan were the one shining light who have picked up the need to have non-traditional knowledge blended into their traditional ‘Marketing’ courses. The Sponsorship & Promotions module is rolling out this May. Bravo Kaplan. Hopefully more will follow
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