Business success often results from finding a gap in the market.
Pace University”™s Lubin School of Business believes its newest program will fill a gap in the business education market. Last week, the school announced its new master”™s degree program in social media and mobile marketing that will be co-branded with Media Storm, the second-largest independent media planning and buying agency in the U.S.
“Social media and mobile technology have fundamentally transformed our culture,” said Jon Cropper, the resident futurist at Media Storm. “In the last five or six years, the power structure has shifted. In the past, tastemakers decided what people wanted and pushed content to them, but now consumers create their own content with more relevance and intimacy than the content creators.”
Cropper said the gap that exists between business school education and modern marketing techniques is unique.
“Education hasn”™t kept up with social media,” Cropper said. “A textbook on social media is almost an oxymoron, because the landscape of social media is constantly changing, while a traditional textbook refreshes every three years.”
According Lubin School of Business Dean Neil Braun, that gap ”” between what students learned about social and mobile media and what they really need to know ”” has been noticed in business circles.
“It”™s a big topic of conversation,” Braun told the Business Journal. “Our model (for this program) is different. Pace has control of the curriculum and Media Storm provides integrated experiences for our students.”
Pace University spokesman Bill Caldwell said that eight students are already enrolled for the first class that will start next fall. The school expects that number to grow to around 30. Cropper sees the 18-month program as being beneficial to a diverse group of potential students ”” and they don”™t necessarily have to be the young and hip.
“I didn”™t grow up using email and I didn”™t have multimedia content in my pocket at all times,” Cropper said. “The person who would benefit would be a marketing or communications person who didn”™t grow up in this (modern social media) environment.”
Social media training is a large market that has only recently begun to be cultivated.
“There are 40,000 marketing agencies in the United States,” Cropper said. “When you think about that, there”™s a trend in the marketing realm ”” those places are searching for places to send people to” for training in social media marketing.
Driving the education experience in the new program will be those student interactions with media and marketing professionals at Media Storm. Media Storm will have 10 internships open to students in the program, provide 20 hours of guest lectures, and two courses in the program will integrate Media Storm projects and clients with the students”™ curriculum.
“Media Storm is very entrepreneurial,” Braun said. “Social media is going to continue to evolve, but the fundamentals of marketing are evolving as well.”
Among the unique experiential learning classes the program will offer is a chance for students to develop an app for the Apple Watch, which will hit the market in early 2015.
“It”™s utterly critical to think about how that new screen will affect people”™s lives,” said Cropper, who believes it will take priority over the mobile device in what he calls the “hierarchy of screens.”
“The best students will get to present their work to the senior leaders at MTV, Sundance TV, NFL Network and other Media Storm clients,” Cropper said.
For Braun, the new program is an experiment in experiential learning, a concept that Pace”™s Lubin School of Business is deeply invested in.
“To me it”™s a bit of a test,” Braun said. “If I can make this work out, there”™s a few other programs I”™d like to try as well.”
