Newsletter #188: Why young people don’t want to be marketers; Why you need to engage art & design students earlier about AI; How to position AI in student comms
📝 From the Education Marketer desk
Why we need to engage art & design students earlier about AI. Read
How to position AI in student comms. Read
Why young people don’t want to be marketers.Read
📰 HE news
According to new research by ISE, 87% of employers expect AI adoption to “reshape” graduate roles and, from my reading, 100% have no idea what that actually means. 40% of employers don’t expect to replace entry-level roles with AI. 42% believe only a small number will be affected. This is not the language of companies with a plan for how AI can unlock abundance and the skills they need to make it happen. In one breath, employers say they want communication skills. In the next, they say writing skills will lessen in significance. Virtually every university is focused on making students “AI-ready”, but employers don’t know what they want students ready for. The real problem to solve is upstream. The institutions that win will partner with employers, discover the skills they need (bridge the knowledge gap) and evidence how students/grads use AI to unlock transformational results. Not just skills. Outcomes. Read
📊 Marketing and media news
Student demand for business-related careers is down significantly since last year. According to Pathways’ “Understanding Student Demand” report, interest in advertising, marketing & business fell 1.25 percentage points, second only to nursing, which fell almost 2.5pp. It’s easy to chalk it up to general fears about AI, but more likely, it’s changing student career preferences. Only 6% of Gen Z say it is their goal to reach a leadership position and UCAS data reveals the majority of young people strive for a supportive environment over pay. Meanwhile, demand for Art & Design careers is up 0.75pp, which makes sense. Firstly, the UK’s creative industries are its fastest-growing (there’s more opportunity). Secondly, with AI making the application of existing knowledge closer to free every day, the power to create becomes priceless. Art & design seems like a good bet. Read
OpenAI rolled out its ad platform globally. Previously, access was limited to select partnerships, but now all brands and agencies can run ads in prompts/answers. It’s a channel worth exploring. According to AdvanceHE, over 83% of prospective students have experience with ChatGPT. However, take caution. OpenAI’s response to Anthropic (its competitor) is starting to look a hell of a lot like Yahoo’s to Google in the late 90s. In that epic category battle, the incumbent (Yahoo) invested in video streaming, web hosting and a homepage cluttered with ads. Google just focused on search. OpenAI plans to spend 14 times as much as Anthropic before achieving profitability. What’s Anthropic doing? Focusing on being a thinking partner and the most ethical AI company. Compare that with OpenAI launching an ad platform to maintain its spending. The goal is to extract value from the user, not solve a problem for them. If you’re building with GPT, hedge your bets. People follow missionaries, not mercenaries. Read
🏫 What unis are doing
Manchester Metropolitan University gave three students disposable cameras to capture their lives at the institution. So far, the photos have been viewed over 263,000 times on social media and, of course, are distinctive from competing universities. Smart, smart move. Look
A Falmouth University lecturer shared how he took on a creative project in response to his (and others’) anxieties stemming from economic and technological change. Creativity is his means to help others “feel seaworthy”, find their way and create value. I see potential. Read
To celebrate Sir David Attenborough’s 100th Birthday, University of Leicester had its robot write a birthday message on its lawn. Apparently, the university has the higher ed monopoly on Attenboroughs, which, given that it’s named three buildings after them, we all should have realised sooner. Read
🧑🎓 What students are saying
The Student Room revealed that students are talking about Clearing more, but in a different way. There are fewer conversations that feature the word “Clearing” but more that include phrases like “can I get into X with these grades?” or “can I switch course or university?” If you have your ambassadors seeking/engaging in forum conversations, be sure they are qualifying threads with the right language. You could be missing potential students. Read
👾 Culture shock
$1m of Yu-Gi-Oh cards were found in a dumpster. Read
Claude Mythos AI did more work in a month than a team in a year. Read
