What Seth Godin Says Universities Are Getting Wrong About Marketing

What Seth Godin Says Universities Are Getting Wrong About Marketing

Getty Images for Watermark Conference for Women

I recently spoke with Seth Godin, the bestselling author of 21 books and a member of the Marketing Hall of Fame, about how universities prepare future marketers. He didn’t hesitate to say that higher education has lost touch with what marketing really means. Having spent more than twenty years teaching leadership, HR, and marketing in higher education, I have seen most marketing courses still revolve around the same four Ps that have been taught for decades: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Those ideas might have made sense long ago, but in an era shaped by AI, social media, and constant digital change, they barely scratch the surface of what marketing professionals need to understand today. Seth told me that universities have done a “uniquely horrible job of teaching marketing.” His frustration was not directed at faculty but at an outdated system that rewards lectures on frameworks instead of encouraging students to build curiosity, test ideas, and connect with people through genuine storytelling. As he put it, marketing education should not be about memorizing theory; it should be about learning how to make meaningful change happen.

Why Marketing Education Misses The Human Element

When I asked Seth what higher education should be doing differently, he broke it down into three areas that most universities never address. The first, he said, should be a course that everyone takes, whether they plan to major in marketing or not. That course would teach people what it feels like to be marketed to. Understanding how persuasion, propaganda, and storytelling influence decisions is essential to becoming a thoughtful consumer. As Seth said, “Being smart about how that is done is basic citizen knowledge.”

The second track would focus on what it is like to work inside a marketing department at a large company. That requires students to learn the language, tools, and metrics used by professionals in the field. They need to understand how big organizations operate, how campaigns are tested, and how customer data drives decision-making.

The third track, the one Seth said he cares about most, focuses on how humans tell true stories that create change. Marketing, at its best, is about emotional connection and trust. You can’t learn that from a PowerPoint slide. You learn it by doing. When Seth taught this version of marketing, he had students go sell something on eBay for more than they paid for it or try to sell a twenty-dollar bill for ten dollars at a train station just to understand what makes people stop and listen. He wanted students to take action and reflect on what worked and what didn’t.

How Marketing Education Can Adapt To AI

As someone who has researched curiosity for years, I found Seth’s perspective on AI especially relevant to how we teach marketing. He said AI represents the biggest shift since electricity and has become the final stage in what he called “deskilling,” the process of transferring expertise from people to systems. Just as Nike can train someone to work on an assembly line in minutes, AI now performs many of the tasks that used to require specialized human skill. Writers, designers, and marketers are all feeling that shift.

Seth’s solution is upskilling. Instead of using AI to do our jobs, he suggested that we use it to handle repetitive tasks so that we can focus on creativity, empathy, and innovation. The marketers who thrive in the future will know how to ask better questions and interpret what data means for real people.

This same logic applies to higher education. If universities only teach students how to use AI tools, they will graduate professionals who can follow instructions but not professionals who can think. The next generation of marketers must learn how to blend human judgment with technological efficiency. They need to understand how to turn insights into stories that inspire action.

Marketing Education Should Focus On What Students Actually Need To Learn

Seth told me that marketing education should focus on what happens when people tell each other stories that make change happen. He believes that students should practice seeing systems, asking “why” five times until they reach the heart of a problem, and then identifying whether that problem can be solved or is simply part of the situation. When he said that, it reminded me of how often curiosity is missing from business education. Students are taught to analyze but rarely encouraged to explore.

Why Fear Keeps Marketing Education Stuck

When I told Seth about my research on curiosity and how fear often keeps people from questioning what they know, he immediately connected that to education. He said almost everything that limits curiosity or creativity comes down to fear. In his view, people often hide behind the idea that they are too busy or too uncertain to try something new. The truth, he said, is that they are afraid of being wrong or standing out.

That fear occurs in marketing courses and even corporate education. Students want to know the “right” answer instead of being rewarded for exploring several possibilities. Faculty feel pressure to cover standardized material because it’s what accreditation expects. Yet if students are not learning to adapt, they are being prepared for a world that no longer exists.

Seth’s advice was to start small. He said the key to innovation is not a giant leap but a small act of courage. When he teaches creativity, he tells people to try something unfamiliar, even something as simple as playing a different word game tomorrow instead of the one they always play. The same principle applies to marketing education. Professors can add one new assignment where students test an idea in real life. Departments can invite marketers who are using AI responsibly to share what they’re learning. These small experiments gradually build a culture that values curiosity over compliance.

What The Future Of Marketing Education Could Be

If universities want their marketing programs to remain relevant, they need to move away from formulaic teaching and toward learning that mirrors how real marketing works. The next generation of marketers will not be hired because they can recite the four Ps. They will be hired because they know how to translate human behavior into meaningful messages.

Marketing students should learn how to interpret data without losing empathy, how to write copy that feels authentic, and how to create stories that people remember. They should understand algorithms but also the psychology that drives what people click and share. Seth reminded me that we are all swimming in an algorithmic world, much like fish unaware of the water around them.

Changing Marketing Education

When I think about my conversation with Seth, he made it clear that marketing is a human function. The job of marketing is to tell a story that changes someone’s mind, and that takes empathy, which is ignited by curiosity. Universities need to reconsider just teaching a set of static rules because that will lead to students who are unprepared and lack curiosity and creativity. Marketing education can become more dynamic than ever, but only if it prepares students to build their storytelling skills rather than simply memorizing the four Ps.