Research funds: The DGTM allows its mission to live on at Brand Academy

On the 23rd of July 2019, Peter Gravier and Michael Grübbeling, board of the German Society for Technology in Marketing (DGTM), handed over a cheque with research funds to the Brand Academy.

The funding will go to the Brand Management and Brand Innovation study programmes. In an interview, the experts reveal how research and education can contribute to technology and marketing linking further in practice.

Mr. Gravier, Mr. Grübbeling, we would like to thank you very much. What was the impulse to consider the Brand Academy with a grant of funds?
Michael Grübbeling: With the dissolution of our association, we have committed ourselves to allocating the remaining credit in line with our task. The aim of the DGTM was to help companies with the digital transformation. It is important to us that what we have achieved with consulting is continued at Brand Academy in research and education.
Peter Gravier: The Brand Management and Brand Innovation courses are particularly suitable for this. There is still a lot to discover and shape in these areas, which we would like to support with our contribution.

The DGTM has been committed to promoting the development of new occupational fields. What positions will our graduates apply for in the future in the marketing sector?
M. G.: One profession we would like to see in the future is the Chief Marketing Technology Officer. This new profession is a hybrid of Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Technology Officer. The industry needs someone who understands brand thinking but has IT skills.
P. G.: What has taken too long in the economy so far is interaction between the two sides. They speak different languages. We need managers who have no objections to either sphere and who develop unique selling propositions from interesting intersections.

How can teaching and research at the BA contribute to advancing the integration of technology and marketing?
P. G.: The focus should be on three areas. Much groundwork has already been done in the basics of marketing and technology. But as long as both are in motion, we have to concentrate on a third pillar: Process competence.
M. G.: So far, learning process competence has shaped the first years of professional life. How do I identify relevant knowledge and test processes efficiently? This know-how should already be transmitted at universites.

Which developments in the field of technology in marketing should be watched currently?
P. G.: The potential of the end devices with which we surround ourselves is far from exhausted. Thanks to face recognition, we can read facial expressions and respond to emotional states with targeted messages. The extent to which this will develop into a trend in Europe depends heavily on data protection issues.
M. G.: This is also an ethical question. How far one wants to go with technological know-how should be discussed at universities. This debate is absent so far.

What advice do you have for our students to be successful in the digital marketing world?
M. G.: In a world in which everything changes constantly, you can only enter unknown territory safely if you know who you are and what you can do.
P. G.: Students should look for projects on whose success something depends. This increases the attention and the learning effect a lot. Leave your comfort zone and challenge your professors! Right now two generations with completely different life experiences meet in the lecture hall and can profit from each other very much.

We would like to thank Peter Gravier and Michael Grübbeling for giving the research funds to the Brand Academy to continue the DGTM’s mission of promoting the integration of technology and marketing.