Marketing Communications Today Blog

An online program can be daunting since there are few in-person interactions with classmates and instructors, but for Julia Lienhard and Serafina Maerten, fall 2022 graduates from the Data Marketing Communications program, embracing the online learning environment didn’t mean going through the program alone.

The two graduates shared the Introduction to Data Marketing Communications course together, and after the very first assignment, Serafina messaged Julia on Instagram to introduce herself with the hope of gaining a friend in the program.

“I did one project on my own and thought there was no one to talk to about this. I was kind of lonely, and I thrive better with a team, so I found her on Instagram and we became friends,” said Serafina. “What really helped me get through this program was having a friend. It’s why I messaged her in the first place.”

“Picture it!” Golden-Con 2023, just around the corner, with “Thank You For Being A Friend!” playing everywhere at the Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk hotel. The convention brings Golden Girls fanatics together to pay homage to Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia from March 31 through April 2, 2023. Although the show ran years ago for seven seasons from 1985 through 1992, the classic TV sitcom continues to attract a loyal, cult-like following.

Of course, I may be biased. The four ladies hold a special place in my heart as my mother and I enjoyed watching reruns together through my formative years. Nuggets of life and marketing insights can be pulled from the scenarios featured in the half-hour episodes. Key takeaways include, but are not limited to the following:

Tackle the tough topics. From Season 2 when Dorothy’s friend Jean comes to town and develops a crush on Rose, to Sophia being forced to cope with her friend’s decision to end her life in Season 5, the four ladies featured in the Golden Girls never hide from a hard discussion or intense moment. Marketers are well served to be fearless enough to tackle the tough topics just like the writers of this show.

Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day. This is a global day dedicated to the recognition of the achievements of women and call to action advancement for gender equality within all industries and spaces. The first IWD event was a public gathering of over one million people in 1911. However, the digital age has transformed the celebration into this day to cross oceans and empower women to come together, empower others and share their stories digitally.

Today, some of the industry-leading women who are alumni from the WVU Marketing Communications Graduate Programs share their stories about being a strong woman in the industry and the wisdom they wish to pass down to rising leaders.

How did you get your start in the marketing communications field?

In 2020, everyone’s world was turned upside down with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. For Whitney Humphrey, she faced even more personal and professional upheaval along with everything else that was changing.

A 2022 graduate with an M.S. in Integrated Marketing Communications, Whitney took a leap following the life-altering changes from the Covid-19 pandemic. In early 2020, Whitney’s grandmother was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer which affected her entire family deeply.

“She and I were very close,” she said. “When I was growing up, she was always there for me — always at my school events, at my dance recitals, my wedding and held my children. We lived next door to her, so she was always a constant presence in my life.”

So . . . somewhere on your career path, you’ve done something else other than be employed. People call these gaps or lapses – both of which sound very negative on the surface but really shouldn’t be.

The fact of the matter is that many people have not been employed 100% of the time. Life happens and sometimes these gaps are within our control, and other times not so much.

Either way, that’s okay.

A week has passed since the Big Game. Leftovers were consumed. Celebrations have ended. $7 million-dollar 30-second spots forgotten. Seriously, which commercials stand out now? With the channel shared among all these ads, let’s see why some have better recall and drive more conversions than others by considering the source and message of the communication model.

According to USA Today’s Ad Meter Panel, it seems that the source variable of the persuasion matrix scored highest with panelists. The top five commercials all featured celebrities or dogs, arguably ranking very high on likeability (unless you only like cats), with the top spot going to The Farmer’s Dog. This commercial used an emotional appeal in its message to tug on the heart strings of anyone who loves their pet.

I introduced myself to classmates in my first graduate class with a video highlighting my ability to juggle. My attempt to infuse humor into this required introduction assignment contained more foreshadowing than I ever thought possible. The year 2022 marked huge milestones for my family including:

my return to school at WVU

selling two homes

For the past few weeks, everyone has been talking about ChatGPT and the reality of artificial intelligence as capable of passing the Turing Test . If you think the innovation was an overnight success, take a history dive and see how many communication rounds have helped OpenAI, the corporation that launched ChaptGPT and DALL-E , warm audiences.

The genius of introducing radical concepts into the market is patience. Things do not happen overnight. Awareness is far more challenging when the market isn’t primed for what you have to offer. What you want to talk about remains a foreign concept for mainstream audiences. It becomes a validation process industry wide to gradually boil down radical ideas into something relevant, accessible and meaningful to the masses.

Each technical advancement and public release is a stepping stone toward broader acceptance. The transparency provides exposure and promotes familiarity with a radical technology. (Keep in mind this is a high-level view. It does not account for OpenAI’s proven track record, or extensive relationships within the tech industry.)

As a 35-year-old full-time employee, part-time grad student, wife, daughter, sister and WVU MarCom Ambassador who also has ADHD, balancing life is important. I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until college. I’ve learned over the years that some of the organizational habits I created for myself from as early as fifth grade are practical non-medicated techniques to “treat” or work with my ADHD. When I was first diagnosed, I was happy to have medication to “fix” me. Oh, how I would learn!

In fact, the organizational habits I’d created for myself and become accustomed to - carrying an hourly/daily planner everywhere, for example - were beneficial not only when I was a college student but also when I entered the workforce and coordinated with multiple teams, offices, departments, etc. I also found that while treating my ADHD with medication was helpful, it was not a cure and certainly not the be-all and end-all in managing my ADHD and balancing the multiple areas of my life. Some of these things were coursework, work (I worked what was considered full-time at my job during college, which was anywhere from 35 to 40 hours a week), internships, volunteering and family time.

Continuing to utilize a planner after my diagnosis, along with medication, helped me fine-tune my organizational, planning and strategic planning skills. I didn’t take my first project management course until spring 2021, but by that point, it was essentially learning “industry terms” to the concepts I’d been utilizing since I was in middle school. I’d even implemented project management software at a few jobs before that course because I’d already learned and seen the benefits.

by Zack Duncan, Founder and President of Root and Branch

Starting on July 1, 2023, Universal Analytics properties will no longer process new hits. At that point, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) will be the only tracking option for those of us who use Google Analytics.

This is not great news for many of us who were familiar with Universal Analytics. But the team at Google didn’t ask us, did they? Rude! In this blog we’ll get you prepared for what GA4 will mean. And the good news is that there are some distinct advantages to the new GA4.