Commentary
New Program Aims To Train The Next Generation Of Digital Marketing And Media Leaders
- by Tobi Elkin , Staff Writer @tobielkin, August 18, 2016
The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Education Foundation, through its iDiverse initiative, has teamed up with Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) to offer a digital training course to prepare students for entry-level jobs in the digital media and marketing industry. The IAB said the program comes on the heels of its inaugural iDiverse pilot course, which kicked off this week at San Mateo County Community College District in Silicon Valley.
The Education Foundation and BMCC will work with nonprofit partners, including Year Up and Per Scholas, to recruit applicants for the East Coast course at the BMCC division of Adult Continuing Education. Students chosen to participate in the program will have their tuition covered by iDiverse, whose corporate partners in the digital media and marketing industry will later interview them for potential jobs and internships.
The Education Foundation and iDiverse will advise BMCC on developing a course syllabus. Students who pass the semester-long, non-credit course, expected to launch in early 2017, will qualify to take the IAB Entry-Level Digital Advertising Certification Exam, a critical industry credential.
In addition, the Education Foundation and iDiverse have released a new tool: the iDiverse Non-Profit Directory, an online index of more than 500 national and local nonprofits representing diverse constituencies. The iDiverse online directory offers digital media companies the opportunity to connect with nonprofits like The Mission Continues, Girls Who Code, and Upwardly Global, and tap into their mentoring, volunteering, and training programs. AOL helped underwrite the directory’s development costs.
“There is a growing demand from digital media and marketing companies to increase their commitment to diversity by working alongside nonprofit organizations,” stated Michael Theodore, Senior Vice President, Learning and Development, IAB, and General Manager, IAB Education Foundation. “This directory will be a fundamental tool in garnering the types of vital partnerships that will lead to a more inclusive labor pool.”
The IAB Education Foundation and its partners have made the right moves in launching these initiatives. Dedicated training and education are necessary to get a new generation excited about jobs in the digital marketing and media sector.
Not everything can be learned on the job. This education is absolutely necessary to train new leaders.
Tobi Elkin is the Editor of MediaPost's Real-Time Daily and the RTBlog. You can reach Tobi at telkin@mediapost.com.
I can only hope that the curriculum starts with business goals, communications objectives and a solid grounding in foundational media principles such as impressions, GRPs, reach and frequency or we will have a new generation of digital practitioners who are brilliant practioners but not media strategists. (I can hear the flaming now).
Agreed, Dorothy, and even before that I would start with an explanation of how branding advertising differs from direct response, how the various parties at the client and agency are organized and how they interact, how ad campaigns are developed and measured, the pros and cons of ROI analysis, etc. Unfortunately I think that we are whistling Dixie in our hopes for a balanced curriculum that positions media functions in a proper context and gives "legacy media" a fair shake. Maybe I'm wrong on this---indeed, I hope so.
IAB -- Please listen to both Dorothy Higgins and Ed Papazian!