VCU news

By Leila Ugincius

Rachel Hargis, a junior in the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business, plans to join the Peace Corps after graduating. But as recently as last week, uncertainty followed her. Would this decision set her back in her career?

Then, a guest speaker in her marketing class allayed any misgivings she may have had about her choice.

There’s no such thing as a bad choice as long as you learn something from it, said Cara Robinson, vice president of global marketing, makeup and fragrance for Clinique. Associate professor Brian Brown, Ph.D., whose marketing class hosted Robinson on April 9, said inviting the business community to share these types of insights is crucial for students.

“The benefit of guest speakers is the real-world aspect that they can bring into the classroom,” Brown said. “I know that sounds a little cliche — ‘real world’ — and it’s a little bit overused, but it’s one thing for me to cover certain topics and content in the classroom via textbook. It’s a whole other matter to have someone that's actually doing it or has experienced the particular marketing concepts and strategic concepts to come into a classroom and describe it.”

But perhaps even more memorable than the marketing and business topics is the career and personal experiences guest speakers bring, Brown said.

For instance, Robinson spoke of the path she followed after receiving her bachelor’s degree — in Spanish. She spent a year teaching in Puerto Rico before returning to the states to pursue her MBA. But rather than regretting her time not spent in business, Robinson appreciates how living in Puerto Rico increased her understanding of other cultures — a huge asset in her work with global marketing.

“It was really awesome to hear how she went to Puerto Rico and how she took her skill set that she learned there and applied it to the real world and applied it to her job when she came back,” Hargis said. “So I think that it’s very encouraging that now that I want to go to the Peace Corps, when I come back I know that I’m going to be able to use what I learned there.”

Other students, such as senior Jarvia Hardley, found Robinson’s journey — earning a Spanish degree before her MBA in brand management — personally interesting as well.

“It’s not like, when you come to school you must do X, Y and Z,” he said. “You can kind of throw your way into things, which is what she did and she turned out to be very successful. So that’s very empowering especially to me. … Having guest speakers like today is really giving me a real-world perspective on the world of marketing.”

The benefits of guests from the business world talking with students run both ways.

Millennials are the lifeblood of our brand — and almost every brand out there — so we want to know what you think.

“Millennials are the lifeblood of our brand — and almost every brand out there — so we want to know what you think,” Robinson told the class.

Robinson described the cosmetic company’s fascinating beginning in the 1960s, when people thought you had to be born with great skin. After reading a Vogue interview with a dermatologist who practiced customized skin care, the Lauder family collaborated to create a brand- Clinique - built on this philosophy.

“When we launched, we had one soap, four clarifying lotions and one moisturizer,” Robinson said. “In almost 50 years or so, we now have maybe 12 different soaps. It took until the 2000s to come up with a liquid soap. That’s how sacred the system is.”

But while the system works, after half a century, the company faced a marketing problem — the younger generation considered Clinique a high-end product that their mothers and grandmothers used.

“What we wanted to do was evolve from being a product icon to a brand icon,” Robinson said. “We wanted people to have a connection, a relationship with Clinique the brand, not the individual products that Clinique has.

“Our mission was to humanize our iconic brand.”

That started with targeting younger consumers with a digital campaign, rather than print, and the hashtag #startbetter.

“A big struggle that brands have in all spaces, but in beauty in particular: We’re all promising the same thing,” she said. “We’re all developing lipsticks and moisturizers and hair products, so how do we distinguish ourselves? It’s not like detergent, or my lipstick is more red than another lipstick. So you have to find a different way to connect and it is on an emotional level.”

After watching a Clinique video featuring #startbetter, students reacted positively, noting the ad was about reinvention, positivity and optimism — about creating a feeling rather than focusing on a product. One called it empowering, while another said wearing the Clinique brand is not about doing it for other people but doing it for yourself; it’s about yourself and how you’re feeling, rather than about how you look.

More than just learning about the Clinique brand, hearing the connection that a professional marketer has with her campaign captivated students.

“I love the strategic aspect of [marketing] and I like planning things out and positioning and that sort of thing,” said sophomore John Kane. “This lecture was very, very informative. Just getting to hear the real connection that a professional marketer has with the campaign that they did, being able to see a campaign that they did and then having the reasoning behind each part explained.” 

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