This story was brought to you by the AdNews jobs board and is Part 2 of Tomorrow's hot jobs. See here for Part 1.
In December 2013, QS, the global organisation that connects students, tertiary educators and businesses – predicted five new marketing roles.
Nearly two years later, creative technologists, mobile marketing managers, community management executives and content archivists exist. If you search LinkedIn, you’ll even find an example of the fifth “future role in marketing”, the transcultural anthropologist (and marketing Jedi), Jennifer de Robles.
You’ve probably heard the term, marketing Jedi, tossed about in conversations. Don’t waste a lot of time searching for marketing Jedi jobs online. A transcultural anthropologist is, apparently, a genuine next gen job. It’s, “the future of targeted marketing,” according to QS. “The transcultural anthropologist looks at pockets of global culture, identifying hybrid and very specific markets relevant to the company.”
So, weird shit happens in the industry that tries to stay one jump ahead of what people want to buy so it can tell them where, when and why they want to buy it. And don’t think you won’t ever fit in, because your perfect job may be about to be born.
Last week, creative collective pioneer, Jonathan Kneebone of The Glue Society, forecast the four hot jobs of the future. This week, we’re sharing the skills you might want to move to the top of your bio to trigger the start of your first, or next, career growth spurt.
Ikon chief investment officer Bryan Magee
The people who will best placed to lead and shape our industry are those who understand data, technology, content and channels and how the smart application of all can fuel amazing ideas. They will also be able to make the complicated simple, something that we as industry struggle with.
If you do not have digital in your skill set then you’d better get skilled up now as it doesn’t matter if you work in media, creative, marketing or production - if you cannot talk comfortably about the online world you will have a limited shelf-life. You need an appreciation of how all media and communications work together.
It’s also absolutely fine/necessary to have specialists, but the days of working in silos are gone. If you are just getting into the industry, then I’d pick a role in digital planning & buying, data, technology or content but make sure that as you progress you get across as many of the other areas as you can. If you have been in the industry for a while and feel like you need to up-skill, then I’d be thinking about how you can improve your knowledge in areas such as programmatic, content and data.
Head of Ogilvy Ventures Anthony Johnston
The next job roles that will be sought after are around skill sets that can commercialise good ideas and generate new revenues, outside the normal marketing campaign cycle of one-off ideas.
For example; Commercial Manager, Chief Commercial Officer, Revenue Director, New Product Manager. These roles are growing on both agency and client side businesses.
These roles are responsible for generating or building on ideas and generating new, ongoing revenues. This ventures space is seeing huge growth in the US and EU on both agency and client sides, through startups, partnerships, corporate ventures and products that generate revenues through owning IP.
This requires a creative, commercial thinker who can think laterally, take ideas from a concept to reality, execute, see opportunities and importantly understand where there is revenue to be made.
ESPN Digital head of marketing John Webb
As a marketer for the world’s leading sports media brand, ESPN, I don’t think the hot jobs in 3 to 5 years even exist yet. They are different now than they were in 2010 and they will be different again in 2020.
The most obvious is Chief Data Officer. A boring suggestion!! Important but boring!! I think media brands like ours will need phenomenal CXOs (Chief Experience Officers or Customer Experience Officers). The competition for eyes and thumbs is ever increasing and I think humans like to feel and spend time in environments that are familiar and personalised – it will be key to provide the same experience across every screen and platform they engage on and deliver a consistent experience with a user first mentality.
In 20 years who really knows, but I truly believe that work places won’t look the same and personalisation will not even be talked about - it will just be. Maybe it will be the Serendipitous Moment Maker who delivers content to users that they, themselves, are actually not even interested in – imagine that.
For Part One of Tomorrow's hot jobs, click here.
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