How you could shape the future of marketing with your next decision

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This is a personal plea to any senior marketers among our readers that have some exceptional young talent in your departments.

You could make a huge difference to the future of marketing in the next few minutes.

If you’re looking for a more tangible reason to read on, what I’m about to suggest to you could considerably increase your department’s ability to impact on your organisation’s bottom line.

I urge you to click onto www.themarketingacademy.org.uk and find out why you should think about nominating your best young brand manager for a place on the 2011 Marketing Academy.

Quite simply, The Academy exists to find the very best young people in marketing, advertising and communications and then equip them to reach the heights of their potential and beyond.

From the pool of nominations, a minimum of 25 scholars will be selected by the Marketing Academy’s board and given a year of astonishing learning and development experiences.

The inaugural scheme, launched in 2010, is nearing its end and the difference it has made to the first batch of scholars and their organisations is quite beyond belief.

These young people were superb individuals even before they were accepted onto the Marketing Academy. I can say this with authority because, as a headline sponsor of the Academy (along with O2, Cadbury and as of this year Microsoft and ITV), I have had the pleasure of their effervescent company several times.

The Academy has recruited some of the highest profile people in business to act as mentors along with a list of world class coaches.

If you’d like some examples of the kind of people giving up their time for free, go and explore the Marketing Academy’s website or pick a couple of posts to read from the scholars’ own blog.

If your nominee is successful in applying to be a scholar, he or she will receive one-to-one sessions with these impressive influencers and leaders throughout the year. In addition, your brand manager will attend several Boot Camps where, over three days some of the world’s best marketing-led organisations will send their top minds to share best practice and thought leadership.

These people all contribute to The Academy for free. News International’s The Times recently joined Marketing Week in giving up free space to promote The Academy.

Last year we dedicated this cover feature along with a series of other write-ups to The Academy.

It is for good reason that so many individuals, organisations and publications are prepared to give what they can to further the Academy. The mentors, the coaches, the founders, the Academy’s board directors – we all back this scheme because we can see that the benefits to our industry make it a no-brainer.

The benefits to you and your brand of having somebody from your department win an Academy scholarship should be reasonably clear. There is a mass of evidence that the skills and learnings that each scholar has taken from The Academy have flowed back into their marketing teams and their businesses. If nothing else, see this as a way to save some training budget on that person that you feel compelled to invest so much in.

If you would like to know why I care so much, why I describe this as a personal plea, the answer is simple. I have a vested interest in this scheme reaching a new generation of marketers year upon year. Every scholar that we can expose to this world class programme should be inspired and motivated to help place the marketing function and all its ideals at the heart of business at the highest levels in years to come.

That’s a mission I believe in. I’m delighted to say that when I first met the 2010 scholars who are working their way to the end of the current Academy year, I felt certain that I was in the company of some future CEOs. To know they would rise to that level from a marketing background was reassuring to say the least. I would love to be able to say the same about the class of 2011.

If you are in a position to nominate then please do. If you would like your boss to nominate you for a scholarship, make sure they visit the Marketing Academy website today.

You have until March 1st to complete your nomination. Please don’t leave it until the last minute as it will take a bit of work to complete the process.

Click here to learn more about the Marketing Academy and to make your nomination now.

Mark Choueke

Editor, Marketing Week
Marketing Academy board director

First published on 11/2/2011

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