Among his many famous quotes, Albert Einstein once said, “The only source of knowledge is experience.” As I enter the final semester/class in the Integrated Marketing Communication graduate program at the University of Kansas, I find myself agreeing more and more with those words from arguably the most intelligent person to ever exist.
Why do I say that? Well, here is a life example that defends that statement. There was a particular instance during a class lecture where an instructor provided a case study for relationship marketing in which a video was used. The purpose was to show students the impact video has on an audience while serving as a powerful marketing tool for the organization. In this case, the video was about four minutes long and obviously shot, edited and produced professionally. Furthermore, it was done for a local Kansas City hospital – highlighting a life saved by a new heart procedure performed on a patient. After the video ended, the professor discussed it’s marketing details using the word “we” over and over again in sentences such as, “we got this done in about four months” and “we got a lot of pats on the back for this one.”
As someone that had to learn videography on the job, while managing several different areas of marketing – by myself no less – I couldn’t resist asking, “who all was ‘we’ and who all had a role in getting this video done?” Turns out, the video was outsourced, with every aspect done by an agency. “We” or the hospital’s marketing department, where the professor was the manager at the time, really didn’t have much of an impact other than helping with the questions, establishing the video budget and setting up the interviews for the filming. Yes the video was impressive and a fantastic marketing tool for the hospital, but I found myself thinking of Al’s quote on experience as the case study didn’t mean much to me.
Textbooks talking about using social media and case studies using expensive video examples are all well and good, but what do they really teach? More often than not, we as marketers are thrown in the deep end and forced to learn on the job. I have had to read a user guide on how to operate a camera while on a plane flying to do a video on a major project for the firm where I was employed at the time. I have written interview questions and scripts, and learned to use a new editing software, all on my own. I, like the majority of my today’s marketers, don’t have a “we.” Many of us have had to deal with department and budget cuts that eliminated the “we” and added more and more responsibilities to individuals.
Learning how to do aspects of marketing, such as the video used during that class or utilizing blogging/social media, and how to do so in innovative ways, is much more important than stating the obvious that they are important in this day in age. So much has changed since Einstein’s day, but his words on attaining knowledge remain the same.