ORLANDO – The recruiting and training process on IBM’s marketing team doesn’t necessarily target those with a traditional marketing background, according to chief content officer George Hammer. In an interview with Beet.TV, Hammer explained how hiring creatives of all backgrounds can yield more meaningful results.
Hammer describes how the evolving roles of a marketer are making these positions both more attractive and more applicable to recruits with different backgrounds. Today’s prospective marketers don’t “just want to advertise things, they wanted to impact things, to build things,” says Hammer. “It’s more of a maker culture. So we’re in this stage now where marketing has to reach out to find new skills as well as train the existing talent that we have.”
As product, performance, and content all respectively evolve and overlap, finding those with a knack for critical thinking, regardless of what types of problems a person is used to encountering, can be applied to modern marketing.
“In the end, marketing is problem solving,” says Hammer. “There’s a lot of other people in professions out there solving problems – engineers, scientists, all these other people who are great at problem solving. There’s no reason why they can’t transfer those skills and become great marketers as well.”
On top of the creative challenge, Hammer proposes that bringing this talent to an in-house team is not only leading to content that is more meaningful to the consumer, but creates an environment in which influence can be found from all areas within the company. For that reason, working for a brand can keep this perspective fresh while working for a consistent mission.
“Great creative talent wants to work on great creative work,” says Hammer. “And a brand is a great place to do that.”
This video is was produced in Orlando at the CMO Growth Council. The series is sponsored by iSpot.tv. For more videos from the event, please visit this page.
