Let’s talk marketing with Associate Professor Con Stavros

The field of marketing is constantly changing and developing, and staying up-to-date and aware of the latest innovations is essential. Associate Professor Con Stavros speaks of this ever-changing landscape and the need for marketers to understand how that impacts on business.

Watch Associate Professor Stavros speak in depth about the program, its benefits and why you'd study an RMIT University online intensive postgraduate program in marketing. 

Call one of our Student Enrolment Advisors on 1300 701 171 to learn more about our online Master of Marketing program.

Transcription

Hi, my name is Con Stavros. I’m an Associate Professor in Marketing here at RMIT University. I'm also the Program Director of our postgraduate marketing programs – that’s our Graduate Certificate in Marketing and our Master of Marketing as well – and I also have the pleasure of teaching one of the important courses in those programs, and that is the course in Marketing Communication Strategy.

I have a strong interest in marketing communication, which is essentially how brands communicate with their customers and also learn about the important information they need to build successful strong brands over a long period of time.

What makes marketing so exciting?

I think marketing is an incredibly dynamic and exciting area to be involved in. It really is at the intersection of art and science, and for a lot of people – particularly potential students – that's very, very appealing. You get to learn the riggers of some models and some theories, but putting it into practice is not a guarantee of success. You really do need to blend some creativity, some artistry, some careful thinking and planning behind it to really be able to succeed, so it's a fascinating and exciting area to be involved in.

Marketing is also particularly interesting because it really is quite a broad discipline. If you're interested in research or sales or branding or creativity or advertising or brand management, there's a whole range of choices out there for you that you can develop further skills in – so it really opens up a lot of different doors for you and pulls together a lot of really important skills.

And, of course, in this century, marketing is incredibly important. There's incredible competition in every category and only the best brands will be able to survive. We’ve seen some phenomenal growth of new brands in recent years that have been able to establish themselves with innovation and great technology – and the call for marketers to be able to understand what's happening and understand the rapid pace, and the collision of technology with traditional marketing, is incredibly exciting and interesting – so a world of opportunity for students who are able to excel in it and certainly, many interesting challenges. And for most marketers, no two days are the same, which is always appealing of course. 

We've got a program that has a fantastic level of staff behind it. And for students, I think the important thing is to understand that the staff are incredibly passionate about marketing, they're incredibly passionate about teaching and being able to engage students.

A foray into the online marketplace is particularly exciting for us, we want to be able to share the knowledge and the depth of innovation that we've been able to put together over recent years – and RMIT is fully excited and committed, and I'm delighted to be a part of it as well.

Why are RMIT graduates sought after?

I think employees these days are realising that marketing is more than something they can stumble their way from one task to the next. There's an old adage about marketing that 'it's not rocket science' and when people generally say that, they're suggesting that most people can work their way through it. I don’t think that’s anywhere near true at all anymore.

It's a highly complicated discipline, and of course, just be able to follow the rules of marketing – and there are many of them these days – is no guarantee of success. It really is a competitive game; you're trying to beat your competitors to market and to the consumers, you're trying to continually innovate and you're trying to use knowledge and technology as best as you possibly can.

One of the great things that we're able to do here at RMIT is, not just teach you the rules of the game, the rules of marketing, but also show you the strategies about how to put them into place – and it takes a lot more than just understanding marketing to make it work. There's a whole level of skill on top of that, which is what we’re going to try and get across to you in this program.

Who should study this program?

Postgraduate marketing courses really attract a wide variety of students. In many cases, it's people with some established marketing skills looking to elevate them to a higher level, and really develop their careers. But we also find many people from a whole complementary range of areas coming in to try and get a broad understanding of business and particularly how marketing is able to work.

So, if you’ve ever been fascinated by how commerce and industry and business and brands work; if you've ever had an understanding of how a small brand can develop into a giant on a global stage, I think marketing is fascinating. In a modern environment where high-level qualifications are required, an RMIT program, of course, provides those and possibly for many students in an intensive format if they're studying online.

Why study with RMIT Online?

One of the challenges, and I think misconceptions, that is often related to online study is that you need to do it alone. You certainly won't be isolated when you're studying at RMIT – not only will you have access to great instructors and resources, but we've worked really hard to be able to create a community of fellow students that you'll be able to connect to, work with, share ideas and more importantly, network as well.

So that provides a positive environment, and an environment that allows you to not just learn from the RMIT instructors in the environment, but from your fellow students as well – and that's particularly important in postgraduate education. The RMIT Master of Marketing is one of the degrees that is now offered 100% online.

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