For well over a year I’ve been hearing great things about a special program at Virginia Commonwealth University called “The VCU Brandcenter.” My friends Jim Stengel and David Knox both told me about their visits to the school and suggested that it would be a great place to recruit from. About a month ago I got connected with Ashley Sommardahl, the Assistant Director of the program, and I decided to take a day trip to Richmond, Virginia, to meet some students and faculty.

Overall, I have to say that I was really impressed by many aspects of the VCU Brandcenter. But first, the details: The school was founded as the “Adcenter” in 1996. It is a two-year graduate degree program with about 100 students in each class and is part of VCU but occupies its own space. The school moved into a new building in 2008, designed by world-renowned architect Clive Wilkinson, and it looks and feels like a cutting-edge advertising agency. It was built within the old brick carriage house of a nearby historic home, and is filled with open space, bright light, and plenty of room for individual and team work.

The Students

I got to speak to a group of about 70 first-year students at an informal pizza lunch in the afternoon. I gave a quick overview of our agency, and then introduced the concept of Purpose Brands, and then talked about how our company had discovered our Purpose: to create Marketing with Meaning for our clients and drive this as the next evolution of the marketing model. This allowed me to segue into sharing the Marketing with Meaning concept.

I have spoken with undergraduate and graduate programs at a handful of top universities, including NYU (where I got my MBA), Duke (my undergrad school), Harvard, and Miami University. What I found interesting about the Brandcenter students is that they seemed to be the most informed about the latest concepts and case studies in marketing and advertising. It was obvious that they’re knee-deep into the craft already, and concepts and examples that I usually have to explain were easily registered by this group.

The students asked me more questions than I usually hear, and they all seemed to be people who looked at the world a little differently. The fact that they chose a less-traveled master’s degree suggests that they want to carve a more unique path than the typical MBA. And companies such as Nike, Martha Stewart Living, and Mars are snapping them up.

The Faculty

When I walked into the second-floor faculty office environment, I was surprised to see students walking around and using the meeting rooms. Usually the faculty area at a university is closed off and cut into many offices with doors. At the Brandcenter, they have gone to the open office environment, and I saw students mingling freely and meeting with professors throughout the floor. I got to speak to a few of the professors, including the Director of the school, Rick Boyko, who came over after leading giant-agency Ogilvy as Chief Creative Officer and Co-President. I was specifically blown away by Rick’s passion for making the school great. His current focus (and very obvious passion) is on expanding opportunities for the school’s Creative Brand Management graduates, which is in direct competition with the MBA degree.

In talking with the group I was surprised to learn that they do not have formal research requirements as part of their jobs, and that most do not have a Ph.D. This flies in the face of university dogma, but the Brandcenter believes it is more important to bring in people who have real-world experience and can focus on teaching and developing students. Because these professors come in with connections and are encouraged to keep growing them, the students benefit from a broad range of industry speakers and recruiting opportunities. For example, Sir Ken Robinson stopped by to speak only a few days before, and the list of board members for the school is a Who’s Who of the ad-agency business.

Conclusion

A common theme in my discussions with students and faculty revolved around the VCU Brandcenter’s positioning against MBA programs. While the school is growing and graduates are getting placed at a high rate, the program bumps up against some major marketing firms that want the traditional MBA course credentials. After seeing the school, meeting the students, and comparing their classwork to my experience in the real world along with my own MBA education, I came away with the feeling that the Brandcenter is on to something special.

The major MBA programs and the students they graduate tend to follow a set process and formula. The classes are fairly standard, professors have been teaching and researching the same things for years, and the “real world” lies a step or two outside of the campus environment. This model produces marketing graduates who have great training in textbook theory and process, but I have feared for a long time that these lessons are much less useful in today’s rapidly changing economy.

Today, we need new hires who are innovative, creative, and keeping one foot in the cutting edge of the real world. We don’t need marketers who can follow old rules that no longer work; we need those who have a hunger to define the new rules. While some traditional recruiters at big companies will pass on Brandcenter graduates, I believe they are the kinds of students who we desperately need on both the agency and client side. We’ll do our part by trying to bring a couple over to Bridge Worldwide this summer for internships. I suggest you take a look, too.

My many thanks to Ashley for putting together a great visit for me!