Dr Rob Aitken
Department of Marketing
Dr Rob Aitken brings the savvy eye of a media expert to his current work as a Marketing lecturer at the University of Otago. Having worked previously in the commercial media industry, and as a Media and Cultural Studies lecturer in the UK, Aitken says he has found shifting disciplines to be a relatively natural move.
"Media Studies and Marketing are quite similar in that both deal with how people respond to certain forms of communication. That being said, there are some areas of Marketing which take a sort of quasi-scientific approach and want to reduce successful Marketing down to a formula - I don't really think that's right at all!"
Rejecting a "Marketing-by-numbers" approach, Aitken instead stresses the need for creativity and new ideas. And he believes this starts with how Marketing is taught to students.
"Some students just want to be given the answers," explains Aitken, "but I want to challenge them to find answers for themselves. Students are great consumers, so they're in a perfect position to reflect on different Marketing theories and ask 'How does this relate to me, does this fit my experience?'"
This year he is leading a new 100-level core business paper on Marketing and Consumption, which will give first-year students a chance for active engagement with marketing issues.
"We should be trying to encourage a critical and reflective approach right from the start, so students are thinking about learning and learning how to think. After all, that's what a university education is all about."