Mendoza’s marketing major puts a strong emphasis on digital skills

As consumers cut cable TV cords and increasing rely on digital platforms for entertainment, information, purchasing and a range of other services, another trend is rapidly taking shape: Digital media is accounting for an increasing share of total advertising.

A recent eMarketer report estimated that digital accounts for about 44 percent of $630 billion of investments. By 2020, the percentage is expected to near 50 percent.

In turn, this trend suggests another — an increasing demand for graduates with knowledge and skills in digital marketing.

The University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business is addressing this need by adding an experienced digital media marketing specialist to the Marketing Department faculty and augmenting its course offerings.

Timothy Bohling will join Mendoza in January 2019 as a teaching professor. He previously served as the chief marketing and communications officer at several leading firms, having held senior executive leadership positions domestically and abroad at IBM, HCL Technologies, Stratasys, and the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. 

Bohling’s research and teaching interests are centered both on scholarly rigor and practitioner relevance in areas of digital marketing, customer relationship management, decision modeling, customer lifetime value and innovation adoption. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Houston and his doctoral degree from Georgia State University.

In addition to teaching courses at the undergraduate and graduate level, Bohling will advise on the development of the marketing curricula. In the last year, Mendoza’s Marketing Department realigned its undergraduate coursework into four specialized tracks with emphasis throughout on data-based strategies.

The tracks include: marketing decision analytics, which focuses on marketing models and data analytics; brandscaping, which emphasizes marketing communications, creativity and brand strategy; consulting and market development, which includes consulting, sales and sales management; and digital marketing, which focuses on digital and social media marketing, as well as customer engagement.

Each track consists of three recommended elective courses for depth and a fourth elective from one of the other three tracks for breadth.

As part of the digital marketing track, the department will add two new courses — Digital Marketing and Managing Online and Mobile Customer Engagement — and revamp its Social Media Marketing course. Bohling will teach Digital Marketing in the spring 2019 semester at the undergraduate and graduate levels. 

For more information at the Marketing Department, marketing major or digital marketing track, email markdept@nd.edu, call (574) 631-6419 or visit Mendoza.nd.edu/marketing.