Marketingmag.com.au chats to Chris Grannell – a marketing consultant and MBA student at Melbourne Business School. If you would
like to see a certain
marketer profiled, please email your suggestion to Kate Kendall, online
editor, on [email protected].

1. What do you do?

I work as a marketing consultant, but I am currently studying for an MBA at Melbourne Business School. Occasionally I write for a couple of marketing publications.

2. What was your first job?

My first job was in the summer holidays many years ago. Funnily enough it was in a job centre. I sat behind a counter and put people forward for jobs. The following summer I worked on the ad sales desk of a local newspaper, and from there the gradual slide into marketing began. I’m not sure where or when my first professional job occurred, but I hope somewhere in the intervening period.

3. What did you study?

If you mean undergraduate level, I did a degree in philosophy at London. I wrote a dissertation about the philosophy of gender which, judging from the liquid paper on the transcript I got back, seemed to polarise opinion among the markers. I’m tempted to say that the men and women had different views, but I can’t prove it. That degree taught me to think, to argue, and to write. Then I returned to uni in 2008 and did it all again. This time, an MBA in Melbourne. Contrary to popular belief, MBAs don’t teach you management, but hopefully they make you better at it.

4. Describe a typical day?

6am: woken by baby. The division of labour in our house states that I perform this part of the routine. Then we throw some breakfast down (literally – on the floor). My long-suffering other half then heads off for work, and I head to university (see previous question). Some days we go out for coffee instead (oh, the joys of a flexible studyload!). Most of the remainder of a typical day is spent in a combination of lectures, libraries and coffeeshops, punctuated by work-related phone calls. There’s then lunch, which is occasionally a long one. Where lectures allow, I collect the young person from childcare, but further study looms large over the remainder of the day more frequently than I’d like. I dream of evenings at home relaxing, and promise myself (and my wife) that they will return to our life soon.

5. What is on the agenda for 2009?

I’ll be linking up with some colleagues and former clients soon in another business once the study is well and truly out of the way. More details soon.

6. What brand do you love the most? Hate the most? Why?

Budvar Budweiser beer. Not only a great tasting beer (and I mean a beer that really tastes of something), but one with an authentic heritage, laden with rich narratives about goodies and baddies, communists, kings and new technologies. And it comes from one of my favourite countries. The battle it has fought with an American namesake just makes people love it even more.

I don’t hate brands. Life’s too short (and some of them might want to hire me one day!)

7. What do you believe has been the most significant moment in the history of marketing?

When Tim Berners Lee set up the world’s first website, called The Project. You can see a copy of a later version of this page here. Like so many great ideas (plumbing, spinning machines, tea bags), the enormity of this invention wasn’t really appreciated until many years later. But with the benefit of hindsight it is clear that the non-intermediated, two-way nature of the web has revolutionised marketing.

8. Where can people find you?

• Website: www.grannellmarketing.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrisgrannell
• Delicious: www.delicious.com/chrisgrannell