IMC Talent Q: Nine attributes behind winning marcom
Last Tuesday, Northwestern University’s Medill IMC students and alumni, along with members from the Chicago marketing community, gathered for the IMC Talent Q symposium. Like the name suggests, the Talent Q had a keen focus on uncovering and understanding the talent that stands behind today’s winning marketing and communications programs. To understand the driving forces of success, the Talent Q team fielded an online survey (N= 430) and conducted in-depth interviews focusing on case studies. From this research, nine skills and attributes emerged as contributors to success in the world of marketing and communications. These elements of talent can be categorized into three groups that speak to scope, strategy, and style.
Scope: All about how marketers frame the world and their goals.
1. Accept marketing is about ideas, not channels: In the Talent Q survey respondents revealed the most “overhyped” skill is digital and social media, but respondents also indicated a top factor impacting the future was ever-increasing media options, including digital. The conflicting responses show that skills like digital and social media should not be viewed in isolation, but viewed as an element of a greater idea and/or strategy.
2. Put the audience first: The companies that are most successful in marketing and communications have a real understanding of the wants and needs of each their audiences—their external customer AND their internal employee audience.
Strategy: How marketers get to their desired goals.
3. Find the right balance of breadth vs. depth: Companies have varying needs for breadth versus depth for talent and the key is to find the right balance. Both attributes are equally valuable and must be determined at a company-level.
4. Embrace that big ideas can come from anywhere: Marketers must strive to find the right balance between old and new talent. A case study on the talent behind the Allstate “Mayhem” campaign by Leo Burnett revealed that a good idea can come from anywhere. The original campaign idea came a young, fresh creative mind and was elevated from “good to great” with the help of more knowledgeable, experienced marketers.
5. Own your “value-add”: The marketing landscape is evolving and the demand for talent is shifting from a generalist to a specialist model. As this shift occurs, it will be ever-more important for individuals to understand their strengths, focus on them, and leverage them to collaboratively build more effective communication programs.
Style: The tactics marketers use to get to desired goals.
6. Be passionate (enthusiastic and committed): 30 percent of companies state passion is an important attribute for an ideal hire. Passion is deemed important because people with this attribute push themselves harder and hold themselves to a higher standard.
7. Be nimble and resourceful: Problem-solving, resourcefulness (80 percent of respondents) and nimbleness (76 percent of respondents) were identified as important attributes in identifying talent today.
8. Communicate well, persuade effectively, and tell a story: Successful campaigns hinge on the marketer’s ability to effectively tell a story. As a result, 32.5 percent of companies state “ability to communicate well” is an important attribute for an ideal hire.
9. Be curious, creative and collaborative: The combination of curiosity, creativity and collaboration are essential attributes in creating winning marketing teams.
Did you miss the IMC Talent Q? Check out the webcast from the event.
Category: Advertising Strategy, Brand Strategy, Interactive Marketing, Medill IMC, Public Relations, Social Media
It was an absolutely great event and had several outstanding contents. I am revisiting the event through the webcast, but the video in the webcast (through MS Silverlight) stops every 10 seconds for buffering. Do you have any plan to migrate or dub the contents in other platforms like YouTube (NU Channel) or Vimeo so that someone like me can revisit the great presentations and panels more frequently?