Grad School Adventures: Content is Key in Building your Personal Brand:

“Content is King”- Bill Gates, 1999

How many times have we heard this?

In today’s fast moving society, we always hear content is king, but what exactly does that mean?

Seth Godin, a Marketing Guru, (look up his TEDtalks), said that “Content Marketing is the only marketing we have left.”

In Marketing, Content has to do with the what, why, and how of your product or service you are selling. It is a way to promote and market your product online to “differentiate”, another key marketing term. You can read all kinds of articles and blogs on content in terms of business.

But what about the Content that YOU share. With our digital community we are always using social networks to like, share, post, discuss, promote, rave, rant, etc. But how is it affecting your brand positively or negatively? Do you share the same content across platforms, or do you differentiate based on platforms?

I believe that we as Marketing and Business professionals should read, watch, and post content weekly. We are in the ‘Content’ business, we are the passionate and excited people that love “innovation” and new products. So why not talk about it? It is extremely important to read what is going on in not only business, but sports, current events, etc. to truly understanding what is happening in the markets all around the world. There is no longer a concept of Marketing to the Masses, people want the “experience” and we have to give it to them.

Start by challenging yourself to read 3-5 articles daily and share 1 piece of content a week. If you just read a great article about a new campaign that excites you tweet it.  Did you just watch a great TEDtalk? Share it. Did you earn an award for a great presentation or portfolio? Is it on your LinkedIn? It should be. Competition is the world is HIGH for new graduates, how do you differentiate yourself from the competition to potential employers if you have little to no experience? You can create a portfolio of content, when they look you up on social media, they should see that you are talking about relevant topics. They should see your work, this gives them a glimpse of your skills and long term potential.

As you continue to become more confident in sharing content, take the next step and write about it. Share your voice with the world, whether you decide to start a blog, use Facebook, or publish a post on LinkedIn, try it. Start connecting and talking with the world. If you truly want to work in this industry you have to be competent across markets and understand what is happening.

Challenge yourself to be bold and daring, start reading, sharing, and posting!

Grad School Adventures: "The Value of IM4 Partners"

The Value of IM4 Partners:

To me our partnership opportunities are one of the most exciting and important opportunities available to us at MIP, and is a reason it really sets itself apart.

The 1^st edition of the IM4 or Master’s of International Multichannel Marketing Management kicked off in September of 2015. Since starting it has been a flurry of activity, experiences, case studies, lectures, and workshops. This program offers us the students a wonderful insight to real time experiences and examples by working with and hearing from large companies. Our official IM 4 partners are IBM, Nielsen, Universal McCann, and OTB. To date we have had the chance to hear from and workshop with most of them with more workshops scheduled!

Early in the semester IBM came in and delivered an insightful presentation on BI/Big Data and how this concept is constantly evolving. There is so MUCH data, what do we do with? We have to learn and be experts on the multiple tools that help us synthesize the data and we are working as Marketing Manager students to fine tune our intuition. For we have to be experts in the field to be able to make decisions based of the data and not let the data make all the decisions for us. It is very important in today’s data driven and evolving society to be able to understand the data and make decision not only on data but on our intuition and understanding of the market. There is a great TED talk by Sebastian Wernicke “How to use data to make a hit TV show”. Sebastian a Data Scientist used an example of Amazon and Netflix and how they used to data to make decisions.

Nielsen also came in and did an excellent workshop on Pricing. We had the opportunity to learn about price sensitivity and price elasticity and how pricing effects the market, competition, and how it can affect your brand image. We then got to work in teams using one of Nielsen’s pricing tools to have to create scenarios to work towards a desired outcome. This allowed us to change prices, product lines, etc to see how they affected overall pricing and sales. This was an excellent workshop and really brought together our lessons on pricing in the market and gave us that hands on experience you rarely find in other classrooms while getting to utilize and network with Nielsen representatives who are very well established and respected in their fields.

Recently we had the pleasure of welcoming Riccardo Belinni, Executive VP Diesel and Diesel Black Gold and Chief Marketing Officer at Diesel as well as the Global Head of Media Giada Gheno to give us an inspiring and bold presentation of Diesel Strategic Brand Strategy from where they started to where they are now with the #DieselReboot campaign as they look to continue being the market rebels with bold, exciting, and strong inspiring marketing campaigns. One of the areas that I thought was very cool was how they run all their digital strategy through one office in English to ensure that their message across platforms is consistent and strong! As a lover of Brand Management and Digital Strategy I really enjoyed hearing about their current campaign and what is to come next from Diesel!

The IM4 program has been an awesome experience over the last 5 months and looking forward to working with Universal McCann in the coming weeks. The class has really enjoyed these experiences and are making the most of every opportunity. It is partnerships like these and the constant variation in visiting professors from different areas of expertise and backgrounds that make this program rich with experiences and networking opportunities.

Grad School Adventures: "Learn By Doing"

Week 11:

Lesson of the Week: “Learn By Doing”

*1/3 of what we learn is from University, the other 2/3 are from doing, from living, from making mistakes, and from having success. Our professor who was delivering a lesson on Self Marketing started off with this perspective. We can learn a lot from books, and we should always be learning, but we learn more from doing that reading. 

Over the last week we had some good discussions around Change Management, Drivers, and the Okay Corral Theory. We also competed in week long Business Game Simulator where we competed over 6 quarters to run an airline and make decisions regarding pricing, flight offerings, promotions, and marketing communication. Then after making decisions we prepared a presentation to our “shareholders” to show our results and how we can sustain and grow our business in the following years. The topics discussed and the simulator made for an intense and competitive week on campus.

Change Management: this is an important topic in todays business place as companies are aligning themselves to be more global, or to be online, etc. Many mergers and acquisitions are taking place and the market is ever-changing and companies need to change with it. When going through Change Management whether it is on a full scale company level or at the team level it is important understand your team. You can impose strategy, procedures, and process, but you can not impose culture. Culture must be changed through transition and acceptance of culture shift and be done over time. 

There are 5 drivers of people:

1. Hurry Up!- These are people like me, we move fast, all the time. Sometimes too fast. These are the people who say yes to a plan without checking their calendar because there is “no time” to check it, only to find out they have prior commitments.
2. Make the Effort!- These are the people who make unnecessary efforts to get from A to B. They are the ones who have a test a month out, and through the process of studying go way out of their way and are the ones who are still studying until 5 am the day of the test to be unnecessarily tired to take the test. They tend to overcomplicate things.
3. Be Strong!- These are the people who ignore all messages to stay where you are and move forward. They tend to have to “be strong” and do things even when they are emotionally and/or physically to exhausted to do so. This tends to have a negative effect as they tend to lose sensitivity to their internal warning systems.
4. Be Perfect!- This one speaks for themselves, the ones who have to always be right, and be perfect at no expense.
5. Try to Please!- These are the people who will always say yes, and will please everyone, even when they do not have the time or capability to do so because they are too afraid to disappoint.

All of these drivers are activated by stress. A good manager will understand their team and try and balance work based on drivers as not to over-stress and activate drivers.

The other main focus was on the Okay Corral Theory:

Now this is on the basis of 4 mental states.

Quadrant 1- I am okay, you are okay

Quadrant 2- I am okay, you are not okay

Quadrant 3- I am not okay, you are okay

Quadrant 4- No one is okay

This was a very unique and intriguing experience. As someone who has worked in B2B Sales and Marketing I was able to think back to meeting many people that fit into these different categories, as well as thinking about how I was able to partner with people in the different quadrants and with different drivers to obtain objectives and goals. I know there are many different theories and styles in regards to these topics but this is one we had an in depth lesson on that provided some great insight to evaluating myself and knowing what I am good at. It also provided a chance for me to look at how to best identity and partner with individuals that fall into different categories.

Business Game:

This was a wonderful experience! I was teamed out with classmates from France, Germany, Italy, and China. We decided that our airline was going to offer the most flights destinations and provide high quality service.

There were 4 Segments: 

• Long Haul/Intercontinental
• Short Haul
• Charter
• Service Offerings (Hotel, Car Rental, etc)

Within these 4 segments were 4 target groups:

• Business Travelers (least price sensitive and not price elastic)
• Tourist (very price elastic)
• Incentive Travelers (very price sensitive)
• Groups (price sensitive and elastic)

We focused heavily on Short Haul Business and Tourist as this was the most profitable segment with our 2nd are of focus on Long Haul as it offered the Highest Margins.

Our strategy was extremely successful, we made an early mistake on pricing but ended up winning by earning over $900,000,000 in profit!

It was a fantastic competition as we were able to “learn by doing” in a simulation of real life scenarios and decisions to be made. Experiences like this definitely help prepare us for the marketplace. 

As always I hope that there is a takeaway or two in here for everyone. If you have any questions or would like to discuss some of these issue more in depth feel free to write a comment or shoot me a note at robbynap87@gmail.com. You can also follow me on Twitter @RobbyNap and connect with me on LinkedIn at https://it.linkedin.com/in/robert-napoli-a5839119

Ciao Ciao!

Grad School Adventures: Week 10: "Practice Makes Perfect"

Week 10: November 23-28th

Lesson of the Week: “Practice makes perfect”

Now this is nothing new to anyone but for me it came into play this last week. Over the weekend Christine and I hosted some of our friends over for an American Thanksgiving dinner, which was deliciously prepared by yours truly…. lol jk actually it was wonderfully and deliciously prepared by Christine!

My job was to go to the store (bum bum bum) which is daunting as the Italian supermarkets are ALWAYS busy. Doesn't matter a day or time, always busy. And not entirely sure why but whenever I stop somewhere in a store in Italy, to stand out of the way, to check my phone, to cross something off a list, always and I mean always people have to come look at whatever I am standing next too. There could be no one around and when I move boom people. Coincidence?!

So Friday afternoon I embarked on my journey for a pretty long list as Christine has had one heck of a busy week at school, I managed to do well, only not finding 6 items. 

After coming home and sorting through our groceries, Christine and I planned out our attack for Saturday morning to get the remaining items, this time as I embarked on my journey, I was once again met with the challenge of not finding what I was looking for after searching all over. So what was the next logical thing to do, ask for assistance. Now this alway makes me nervous, (yes me, who loves to, and will talk to about anyone) because I get what I need to say in Italian ready, run through my lines to ensure dictation etc, and then I get to ask and freeze, and instead of use Italian, I fumble through in English and trying to talk with my hands. 

But I have been practicing, and on Saturday I was able to ask for what I needed and got it! After that when I went to one of our favorite local Egyptian Kebab places to grab a quick lunch in the midst of cooking a feast, I asked for and ordered everything in Italian only!!!  I have been trying really hard to learn Italian and been taking a class 2x a week that in graciously offered by our school. But as much as I know when doing worksheets and writing, talking is the hardest. Slowly though I am learning and practicing. And this goes to the point that practice makes perfect.If I don't try, I don't learn.

On the school front, classes have continued to pick and we have been diving into some good topics! The other day we were having a discussion around Innovation the skills of innovators. The key takeaways or top 5 skills of an innovator are:

• Questioning- be curious always, learn
• Observing- pay attention to the world around you and what people are doing and using, and how
• Networking- Network, Network, Network! And not just within your field, you need to network with others outside your field to gain valuable knowledge, insight, and ideas
• Experimenting- try and do not be afraid to fail
• Associating

We also had a lesson with the Director of Brand Fashion and Luxury give us an excellent presentation around Brand and the effect of Pricing on a brands equity. This is a big point of emphasis for company want to be positioned as a premium product and high priced, high fashion line. To counteract this and to not diminish your brand equity, companies must diversify their product and brand portfolio. We also discussed the ‘Brand Iceberg’, there is the external brand that everyone sees and knows, i.e. the logo, slogan, etc, and then there is the internal branding. This visual representation, I believe, is spot on! Living in Milano, a city known for being at the center of the fashion world, it was great to see and use examples in class of companies like Armani, Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, and others. It made for an interesting and intriguing lesson as the fashion industry is an industry I would be very interested in working in. 

I am excited as next week we will be competing in a Business Game Simulator. The goal is to run an airline and make decisions regarding Marketing, Pricing, Flight Options, Communications, and Network. This will be a great hands on experience putting to use our experience in strategy and positioning as well as getting to work in a multi cultural environment. This simulator will allows to make real world decisions and compete with our classmates! Next post I will make sure to let you know how it goes!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving back in the States!

As always I hope that there is a takeaway or two in here for everyone. If you have any questions or would like to discuss some of these issue more in depth feel free to write a comment or shoot me a note at robbynap87@gmail.com. You can also follow me on Twitter @RobbyNap and connect with me on LinkedIn at https://it.linkedin.com/in/robert-napoli-a5839119

Ciao Ciao!

Below is the spread from our American Thanksgiving in Milano! We shared with our friends from Egypt, Turkey, Colombia, Taiwan, and the Philippines!