An "incoming class" of marketers will enter the workforce in 2025. Today, they're 10 years old and in fifth grade. How (and when) will today's fifth graders develop an interest in a marketing career? 

And how can we show children today that marketing may be the right choice of work in their future?

As a kid, I used to ask my parents about family members. "Mom, what does Uncle Joe do for a living?" Mom knew that Uncle Joe ran a business but didn't know the particulars, so she'd answer, "Oh, he's a businessman." She may as well have said, “Oh, he does marketing,” a term equally nebulous (for me) back then.

What About Marketing?

Recently, I taught a lesson on personal branding to a class of high school students. I asked the class to define the term "marketing."

No one raised their hand. So, I waited for fifteen seconds.

Still no one.

That's a problem.

Kids today want to be scientists, teachers, lawyers, accountants, and doctors—but no one wants to be a marketer. Some students may want to be marketers, and they just don't know it. How do we raise the level of awareness for our profession?

We start by introducing marketing in elementary school. 

Model the Marketer

I recently attended an end-of-year concert at my daughter's school. As a fifth grader, she and her classmates selected an instrument to play for the year.

The school invited the entire fourth grade to attend the concert. The conductor asked each section's musicians to raise their instruments. "Those are violins," the conductor said. "Listen to the violins and ask yourself whether you'd like to select that instrument next year." He did that for the various instruments.

Let's do this same sort of modeling for the marketing profession.

Moreover, my daughter's fifth grade class did a classroom exercise in advertising. Students worked in groups of five to design a printed advertisement. They worked on the project for a week and capped it off by presenting the finished project to the class.

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Why We Need to Teach Children About Marketing

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Dennis Shiao

Dennis Shiao is director of content marketing at DNN. Dennis is a contributing author to the book 42 Rules of Product Marketing and is editor of the DNN blog.

LinkedIn: Dennis Shiao

Twitter: @dshiao