Old dogs can't learn new tricks.

Ah, the first day of school. New textbooks, fresh notebooks, and sharpened pencils. I love the first day of school.

Well... I loved the first day of school until I got yelled at in my Marketing class today. Twice. Let me paint you a little picture. My professor is 62 years old, but he looks like he's 100. He has been teaching his course since 1960 and I don't think his marketing principles have changed since then. He tried to get on board with this new thing, "internet marketing," but his company failed. His has been working on his book, "Persuasive Advertising" for 15 years and it hasn't taken into account any of the market or demographic changes that have occurred in that time period. My Marketing class - Principles of Advertising - was one of the ones I was really looking forward to. I understand marketing. I am good at marketing. I thought I would have no problems with it... and I didn't. Well, I didn't have any problems until I suggested to my professor that his core beliefs on advertising were deeply misguided.

My suggestion - his principles of advertising are wrong - came after he asked us to analyze an old ad for Bose speakers. It was an entire page of text, a wall of words that forced your brain into a mind-numbing stupor. Three columns wide, it touted the reputation of Bose's speakers and there was a little picture of a radio in the middle of it. Everyone in the class thought it was horrible. Our assignment was to rate how effective it was, and our class didn't think too highly of it. On average, we scored it a 2 on a scale of 1 - 5 (1 being the worst.) He then proceeded to explain to us that it fulfilled nearly every one of his 250 principles of advertising, all of which we will be covering this semester, and it was one of the best ads ever created. Our jaws dropped. We kept waiting for him to say "just kidding!" but that moment never came. There was just a stony silence.

One daring classmate said he thought there was too much information on it. Our professor answered that having a lot of text in an ad was one of his unbreakable principles of advertising. The consumer can never have too much information. Words are good. Images are bad. The more you write, the better the ad. I agree that having information in an advertisement is good, but I disagree that having a ton of text is the best thing you can put in an ad. If nobody stops to read the text then it won't matter what you write there. Unfortunately, I only got the chance to voice half of what I had to say:

Idiot Professor: "Having a long copy, or a bunch of text, is one of our principles this semester. It's unbreakable. It is the most important thing you can include in an advertisement."
Me: "I disagree, because..."
Idiot Professor: (rudely interrupts as I'm about to explain) "You disagree? Well Ms. Schneider, if you have studies to support your opinions, then I would love to see them. This is not a class based on opinions. This is a class based on studies. Don't even listen to my opinions. Your analysis should be solely based on whether or not advertisements comply with our 250 principles."

I wanted to point out to him that in a study setting the participants would be forced to actually read the ad. My opinion was not that the text wasn't persuasive, but that nobody would take the time to read it if they were flipping through a magazine. I also wanted to tell him that while he said we shouldn't listen to his opinion, he wrote the 250 principles. If we can only base our analysis of advertisements on these principles, and he wrote them, then we basically just have to do what he wants. Whatever happened to lively classroom discussion? What happened to friendly debates? Most professors welcome the opinions of their students. Apparently this is not part of the teaching philosophy of Professor J. Scott Armstrong. We don't even know his first name. He's just a letter. "J." I want to give him the benefit of the doubt - he's old, the field has changed, he is behind the times... but this is Wharton. He should be ahead of the times, not behind them.

My dad wants me to stick with the class, even though "J" took the time to yell at me a second time during class (this time he told me my idea for his book cover was "juvenile." You should have seen his idea for his book cover. It perfectly followed his 250 principles... and looked like shit.) Dad thinks this is a good learning opportunity for the real world - some of my future managers may have their heads shoved up their asses too. I should keep the class, hold my temper, and do what "J" wants.

I dropped the class.


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