This week on the Be Epic podcast Matt sits down with Craig Geiger, full time instructor and Director of the newly launched Master's of Science in Marketing degree at the Walton College. To begin the episode, Craig and Matt discuss Craig's rich history in the consumer packaged goods industry, working across customer insights, sales, marketing and category management for Walmart, Kellogg, Kraft Foods, Campbell Soup Company, and more. Craig's background has positioned him perfectly to lead the new master's degree program with a curriculum designed specifically for students who are interested in a career in brand management, retail marketing and marketing services. As they continue through the episode they discuss the types of courses that students in this program will be able to take to prepare them to enter the fast paced and rapidly changing industry. They finish the discussion with a focus on how leaders in the industry will be able to participate in this master's program through partnerships and projects promoting experiential learning and networking. They then end the discussion with Craig sharing advice for prospective students on how to get into this program and how they can prepare for success. Learn more about the Master's of Science in Marketing here: https://walton.uark.edu/graduate-programs/

We will be working with a number of different

industries including retail and medical healthcare as well as

consumer packaged goods, so that students have all these

different types of exposures to enable them frankly, to follow

their passion.

Excellence, professionalism, innovation and

collegiality. These are the values the Sam M. Walton College

of Business explores an education business and the lives

of people we meet every day, I'm Matt Waller, Dean of the Walton

College and welcome to the Be Epic podcast. I have with me

today, Craig Geiger, who has an incredible background and

category leadership, sales, category management, shopper

insights, and many other types of roles. He's worked with

companies like Kraft Foods, Borden Foods, Barilla,

Campbell's Soup, Walmart, Kellogg, and we're fortunate to

have him here in the Sam M. Walton College of Business.

Professor Geiger, thank you so much for joining me today. I

really appreciate it.

Thanks for having me, Matt, I'm thrilled to be

here.

Craig, you have a really rich background in

consumer products and retail in the area of sales, marketing,

category management. And we are so fortunate to have you

teaching our students here in the Walton College. But in

addition to that, you are also heading up our Masters of

Science in Marketing program. So I really appreciate your effort

to do that.

Well, thank you, Matt. And it's been a real

pleasure being here as a as a full time instructor, and now

leading this program.

Well I know you get amazing student evaluations, all

of your students feel like they come away from your class having

learned a great deal. And I know just as a side note, for the

listeners this past Summer, we had a couple of members of the

Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas System,

want to visit a class in business. And so we went to

Craig's class. And I went as well. And of course, I've been

in this business a long time so I've sat in a lot of classes,

and I was absolutely amazed at what he did in teaching.

Oh, well, thank you. That's a very gracious

comment. And it was really fun to have the board sit in. The

students certainly enjoyed it and I certainly did as well. So

thank you.

So can you provide an overview of the Master's of

Science in marketing program here at the Walton College, and

also what sets it apart from other similar programs?

I'll tell you, Matt and I we're really excited.

The Master of Science in Marketing program is a rigorous,

marketing focused curriculum, designed specifically for

students who are interested and frankly, passionate about a

career in brand management, retail marketing and marketing

services. Understanding and really and addressing consumer

needs in this dynamic world is exciting and challenging. Our

program will help really help enable students to meet these

challenges.

That is wonderful. What kind of focus might you

have in the program?

Well, right off the bat, it's interesting. We we

specifically designed this full time one year program to foster

consumer focused innovation, and decision making skills that are

essential for success in brand management, retail marketing,

you know, and this extraordinary area of Northwest Arkansas with

the global headquarters, obviously of the world's largest

retailer, Walmart. Tyson is here. And the incredible

consumer packaged goods suppliers and marketing agencies

located right here. They provide the perfect foundation for

exposure to to just outstanding marketing opportunities.

You know, it's interesting when I first moved

here in 1994, Walmart had just passed Kmart in size the year

before that, I can't remember exactly, but they netted about

28 billion. And they both started in 1962. Walmart had a

really different kind of a strategy in terms of developing

economies of scale and economies of scope and their growth. And I

won't go into that right now.

Well, it is interesting, too. I was working

in Dallas in a regional position with Kraft and there was this

retailer that I kept hearing about in a planning position in

a Regional Planning position, a retail that we kept hearing

about, Walmart. And so in those days, you would fly in to Tulsa,

and then make the drive over. And we saw the the potential

opportunity for sure. And we saw that crossroads with Kmart up in

Troy, Michigan versus Walmart here in Northwest Arkansas.

Well you know it is interesting because when I moved

here in 94 there were maybe 20 I don't remember the exact number,

20 cross functional teams here from suppliers and the biggest

one at that time was Procter and Gamble. And they had like 30

people on the team. Right now it's over 200. Exactly, it's,

and then that we've got over 1000 teams here. So it's quite

needed, this kind of skill set is needed. But what are the

skills and competencies that students will develop through

this Master of Science in Marketing?

Well, specifically, our program, our

Master of Science in Marketing students will get a

comprehensive understanding of brand management, you know, we

looked at at the marketing analytics side, and we also

looked at brand management and because of this unique area that

we've discussed, you know, we felt that a real grounding and

foundational education in brand management especially, would be

something that would be in resonate and be really relevant

for students. So that's the first part, but but they're

gonna gain skills that organizations are specifically

seeking in competitive analysis, brand positioning, brand

strategy, market trends, analysis, and then you have

business and project management. And then there's the softer

skills of leadership, presentation and communication

skills that are so essential for marketers today, they'll get all

of that in our program.

That's so valuable. And I see your point of a brand

with the long tail of products that are available. And so many

times we buy brands online, that we've not heard of, and

sometimes we're quite disappointed. And so the value

of having a recognized brand where you know, you can count on

it, it's going to deliver the value you're looking for, is

it's probably more important now than it's ever been, I would

think.

you said it's so well, the long tail, you think

about the virtual shelf, if you will, well, at a time, you know,

when I grew up in the industry, as a brand manager, it was

pretty simple to to develop your brand, understand your consumer

needs with traditional market research, and meet consumers

where they were at watching television. And and mostly that

was it. And your your long tail really was in the store, when it

come when it came to many brands. Now it's the virtual

tail. And it's really long. And you have all these different

areas in which we can reach consumers 24/7. And that's a

real exciting challenge today for for marketers, brand

managers today. And that's why we're so excited about the

program, because we will absolutely be providing those

kinds of opportunities for our students.

Well you know one thing I've always been amazed

with with Walmart is their ability to change. I remember so

clearly when they were rolling out the Super Centers and even

Sam's Club. You know they started with the Super Centers

and they built them too big. They call them hypermarts. There

was one in Denver and one in Kansas City, may may be some

other places, but they're like 300,000 square feet, and Walmart

pivoted. They've made lots of pivots. And now we're seeing

that with omni channel in a way that no one would have expected,

it's hard to take the largest company on Earth and change, you

know, speaking of change, how will the curriculum and this

program stay up to date? It seems like things are changing

at a breakneck pace.

Well, I will say, first of all, I was so fortunate

in my career to work in global customer insights and analytics

at Walmart. I had been a consumer packaged goods person

on a career track for many years, and I had the opportunity

to go into Walmart. And I will tell you, when you talk about

leading edge exposure, that that's taking place at Walmart

today. I'm, I'm frankly, a little bit jealous of students

coming out of the Walton College today and the opportunities they

have, because of all of these changes that we're seeing. So

how we're keeping them up to date, we're working really

closely Matt with industry leaders from our retail advisory

board. There's over 20 companies represented there, our corporate

sponsors, and also our connections to ensure that our

course materials, topics, and projects are absolutely leading

edge. We also conduct regular faculty meetings with our team

to specifically review the latest trends in marketing, and

ensure that you know, the coverage is there at our course

curriculum. For example, we have a specific course in social

media marketing that covers this growing trend. I mean, there was

a time when social media marketing was really kind of an

afterthought. And now it's it's a primary focus for many

marketing organizations. With the Internet of Things,

marketers today have even more information about consumers and

their habits than ever before, and that data is growing

exponentially. But you know, what I find really interesting,

you know, how do marketers how do they balance that information

flow, where we know an awful lot about our consumers today, so

that we can meet their needs even more personally. And yet,

at what point are you invading privacy issues? You know, and

those are the kinds of challenges that marketers have

to deal with on a regular basis. Well, we'll, we'll address those

and help our students to be ready for those as as marketing

leaders.

Well, you know, there's so many challenges in

industry right now, to your point. And what we're talking

about the rate of change is high. But and getting back to

the Walmart, pivoting idea, Walmart combined their dot com

and physical store merchants into one person.

Exactly right.

And that sounds easy to say. But to create the

organizational structure, and to get the right people in those

places, is not easy. And then the other thing Walmart did was

combined their store app, and their dot com app again, sounds

easy,

but challenging

very, very challenging. They did both of

those things. And what's interesting to me, Craig is, a

lot of these suppliers to Walmart have not caught up, you

know, they have they have salespeople that are focused on

the physical store. And then same with category management

and the others focused on the

E commerce,

e commerce. And so you know, and then the other

thing is, I've noticed a lot of the merchants at Walmart that

are doing the combined merchandising of E commerce omni

channel, really, they're digital natives. You know, and you look

at a lot of the suppliers, especially at the top ranks.

They're, they're not aware of a lot of what's going on.

You know, it's so interesting, you said that we

had these discussions many times at Kellogg's, and you could look

at what Walmart is doing. It's a great example. What are they

doing today, but what's the real behind the scenes efforts that

are going on? As an example, you know, there was a time when the

back rooms may have been full of inventory. And so Greg, Foran

back in those days, came back and said, you know, we need to

clean up the back rooms, you know, we have trailers ready to

be unloaded, and so on. But the real story was, they were

getting ready for three years down the road to enable the

Supercenters to serve as better locations for pickup. Well, in

the supplier community, all you maybe thought of or saw was, we

need to have some supply chain effort against inventory

control. But there was a deeper meaning there, there was a

deeper activity, there was a much further out perspective

that we have to be ready for. And in that case, it was we're

getting ready to do this order online pick up in store. And we

have to enable that through this effort. So you always have to be

looking at what is the today, but also what is the what's the

real trend that's going on, and marketers are absolutely at the

center of all that, to understand how that's going to

create opportunities and challenges for their brands.

It makes me think that, you know, when I was first

reading about the master's of science of marketing that you've

been leading, and when I was looking at some of the

curriculum and everything I thought, you know, who really

needs to take this are fairly senior marketing salespeople at

CPG companies.

Interesting.

I think they would benefit a lot. And it would be

neat to have cohorts where you had students just out of

undergrad, along with some real senior people. You know I think

the learning could go be bi directional, and that kind of

cohort.

Do you know, it's interesting, you said that I

teach a class right now in our MBA program. And it's I'm really

fortunate because it is a combined Executive MBA, MBA

cohort for that class in retail strategy. And, you know, we find

exactly what you're saying that when you have this just out of

undergraduate and a group of students, along with students,

or I'm sorry, students, yes, that have been in the industry

for a number of years. That combination of learning and

sharing is really, really helpful to both sides.

It may be more helpful today than it was even

10 years ago.

I would say there's absolutely no doubt that

that's what I found teaching that course, and I love it. And

I think we would I would love to see that happen in the Master of

Science and marketing. In the meantime, what we're hoping is

to get as many industry leaders as possible as guests in a

couple of different areas, not only lecturing, but also serving

as case development, group project leaders and that, that

will create that opportunity that you're talking about as

well for that exchange of ideas that will probably help some of

those senior people at some of our suppliers.

You know, the other aspect, we've been talking about

pivoting and making sure things stay up to date, and so forth.

But one thing that has really changed, I remember back in

2012, I don't remember which issue it was, of the Harvard

Business Review it was in the fall, but the focus of the issue

was on big data, data science, business analytics, these kinds

of things. There were a series of articles in there. And you

know, we're talking now, you know, this was over 10 years

ago. But I remember reading it and thinking, I've always been

kind of more on the data driven side. And I was really thrilled

to hear this was happening. I didn't know if it will really

happen. But it did. And it's more important than ever, for

people to be able to use data driven decision making and

analytics. How is our curriculum going to address that?

Well, you know, while our curriculum is brand

management, and retail focused, our program courses in

marketing, analytics, consumer and market research, digital

marketing, and retailing strategy, all are all going to

require Matt the students to utilize their analytical tools

and skills to understand trends, develop insights, but more

importantly, develop deliver fact based recommendations,

through the simulations and business cases that we'll bring

to the classroom. Today, as you know, data is everywhere. And

the ability to mine it, analyze it, gain insight, tell a story

that has meaning that's activated, at at whatever

whatever part of the business you're in. That's what marketers

do today. And and that's what we'll bring to the classroom. So

through some of those through some of those courses,

We've talked about pivoting, the rate of change of

knowledge in marketing, the importance of data being data

driven. But the other thing that's important, in learning

today, is really experiential learning what kind of projects

and, you know, partnerships will you have to help students in

that regard?

Well, that's, that's, that's also something

we're pretty excited about, you know, as we do in many of our

undergraduate classes, as you know, we're working closely with

organizations on live marketing challenges in the areas of

marketing strategy. So helping organizations locally as well as

much on a much broader scale, to develop their strategy, develop

their brand awareness, develop their social media and digital

marketing campaigns, deliver eventually delivering marketing

plan recommendations. These are going to be hands on real world

projects that project teams will work on through the program. And

we're pretty excited about that. But this is really going to

enable the students to build their business analysis,

creative problem solving, project management presentation

skills. Additionally, the students are going to engage

with organizational leadership that we feel strongly will lead

to internships and career opportunities. So we're pretty

excited about that element of the program.

Students in the program may have a wide variety

of career goals and interests within marketing. How does this

program accommodate them?

It's actually one of the things we've sought, as

we've gone through the admissions committee. And we

talked to each and every student, obviously, through

interviews and so on to understand what elements of

marketing are they truly interested in, at least at this

stage of their life. And it's pretty interesting, we've got a

real diverse group of students coming from a number of

different areas of interest. But our program, our courses have

been carefully selected through a rigorous review of marketing

curricula nationally. And, and we're looking at the latest

trends that are evolving in the world of marketing. So if

somebody's interested in digital marketing or social media, or

marketing research, to understand consumer insights,

we're focused and committed to providing those kinds of course

opportunities. And we're working with a number of different

industries, not just consumer packaged goods, but we will be

working with a number of different industries including

retail, and medical, healthcare, as well as consumer packaged

goods so that students have all these different types of

exposures to be able to do enable them frankly, to follow

their passion.

Can you talk a little bit about the faculty in

the program?

We are so excited about our faculty, our

professors bring. Frankly, it's a it's a balance between deep

research and academic experience and decades of industry

marketing experience with major consumer packaged goods

companies. So we have a real balance of professors of

practice, and professors of academia that bring not only the

latest learning, but also the experiential piece. And so we're

pretty excited about our faculty.

You know, one thing that one real strength of the

Walton College that some students take advantage of, and

some don't, is the ability to network, you know, we're right

here in the middle of retail, consumer products and supply

chain heaven. I mean, right, it's everyone's here, the

leaders in the world are here. And they're in our buildings all

the time being guest lecturers or being executive in residence

or even teaching. And I have a lot of pride in that in our

college. It's a difference maker from and how will students in

the master's program have an opportunity to network?

Well, I'll tell you even before that you made

such a good point about the opportunities every day. And

it's kind of funny, I, when I go into my classrooms, I'll say,

hey, have you noticed Company X, that set up their booth here in

the Walton College? Did you walk up, introduce yourself? Did you

did you give them you know a little bit about you? Hi, I'm so

and so. I'm a junior here. I'm majoring in supply chain

management, I have real, a real interest in your organization.

And I would just like to make a connection today, May I drop my

resume with you? Because I'm looking for could be an

internship, or maybe some information about potential

career paths. And, and I find it's so often that I don't think

our students take enough advantage of it.

I agree.

Because it's here, just as you said. So that's the

first part. But specifically for our program, the Master of

Science in Marketing, students are going to have multiple

networking opportunities and resources. Let me just kind of

give you a few ideas here. The the networking events that you

have networking events that you talked about in the Walton

College, the graduate school. Secondly, career fairs, the

Walton College Career Fairs are outstanding. Third, our guest

lecturers in the Master of Science in Marketing classes,

will create networking opportunities for sure. As I

mentioned earlier, the group projects and working with our

client partners. And finally, we have, we will be scheduling

special networking events, specifically for the Master of

Science in Marketing students. So there's a number of different

elements for the students take advantage of, and I'm certainly

going to be encouraging them to do so.

You know, Craig, one of the roles I've played

over the past eight years, as Dean is working with our

accrediting body, the gold standard for accreditation,

the AACSB,

Exactly AACSB. And I do about two business schools

a year, pure and aspirant business schools, have for eight

years. And you can imagine I learn a lot. When I do that you

spent days studying their curriculum, their faculty, their

programs, et cetera, et cetera. And then you go, you spend three

days with them. And I've seen lots of master's programs in

marketing. And I've also been on benchmarking efforts up until I

became department chair of supply chain management in 2011.

So starting in 1994, I've been on every MBA redesign committee

up until that point, and I always lead the benchmarking

efforts. So now, after being here for 29 years, and being in

academics, over 30 years, I have seen lots of programs. I believe

you and the team have created the best Master of Science in

Marketing program that I have witnessed. So first of all, I

want to say congratulations, and thank you.

Thank you, Dean Waller.

So having said that, what advice would you give

to prospective students, you know, wanting to get into this

program, and how they, how can they prepare for success in the

program?

Well, very simply, there is not a better time, a

better place, or better program than the University of Arkansas

Master of Science in Marketing program. If you're a student

with a passion for a career in marketing, the world of

marketing is moving so fast. It has so many exciting

opportunities for creative problem solving leaders who love

to understand and meet the needs of consumers. This is the place

to be and you know and prepare for success in our program,

students should demonstrate intellectual curiosity, a

sincere desire to serve consumers. They should have a

strong interest in brand management and working

effectively in teams. And one more important thing, you know,

they want to have a lot of fun working in this dynamic,

challenging world of marketing, because this will be fun.

Well, Craig, first of all, thank you for teaching

for us, you do a over the top fantastic job. Thank you for

leading this master program. I am so excited about this, what a

huge value add to our community and to and to the state and to

to the students. Most of all, so I appreciate your work.

Thank you, Dean Waller and thank you for having

me today.

On behalf of the Sam M. Walton College of

Business, I want to thank everyone for spending time with

us for another engaging conversation. You can subscribe

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