Don Edward Schultz, professor emeritus in service, the first recipient of Northwestern University's Medill School's brand new Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award.
I founded Slack Barshinger as an integrated marketing communications agency around the time of the publication of the seminal book on IMC, Integrated Marketing Communications, by Professors Don Schultz, Bob Lauterborn and the late Stan Tannenbaum.
Heidi Schultz (l), Don's wife, collaborator and "best friend" and Debra Zahay, professor of interactive marketing at Northern Illinois University.
To say I was influenced by these men and their book would be a huge understatement. Their fresh and bold new take on marketing communications was very appealing to a young agency entrepreneur, and it has helped drive the growth and differentiation of my firm to this day.
So, when I heard that Don, who is universally acknowledged as the “father” of integrated marketing communications, would be the first recipient of Medill’s new Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award, I knew where I would be on Friday, April 9, 2010, the day the award was to be bestowed on him.
“It took us a nanosecond to figure out that the first recipient of this award should be Don Schultz,” said John Lavine, dean of the Medill School, in remarks that lauded Don for the difference he has made at Medill and to the marketing profession. “If a school has an ambassador, he is it.”
Heidi Schultz, yours truly, the great man himself and Kelley Fead, my wife, collaborator and future co-author (once we find time for a book).
Attending this celebration was like going back to the beginning of time—in this case the “Big Bang” birth of integrated marketing communications at Medill around 1989. Don had just joined the Medill faculty and immediately set IMC in motion by challenging what I’m told was the heavily siloed teaching of advertising, promotion and PR.
As John Lavine recounted, a meeting was being held to discuss the teaching of marketing communications and, having been invited to it by John, Don said his goal in attending was to be “monumentally mischievous,” adding that there were “some pins pulled on hand grenades in the room” that day.”
George Rafeedie, principal with BlueSilver, Inc., and a 1999 IMC program alum, and Roy Wollen, owner of Database Marketing Consulting.
The (still) revolutionary concept of integrated marketing communications was thus set in motion at an institution that has a history of other momentous and revolutionary times in its past, notably in the 1920s with Walter Dill Scott and, later, the arrival of George Gallup.
Over the years, IMC has evolved to become a strategic process and one that lives and dies on data and is also customer centric in its replacement of the four Ps with the four Cs.
A silhouetted IMC associate dean and IMC chair Tom Collinger takes the audience through a "just the numbers" review of Don's career.
In comments preceding Lavine, Medill Associate Dean and IMC Chair Tom Collinger shared a perfectly succinct description of Don submitted by a Medill IMC alum. “Don Schultz made me think better,” Tom quoted the alum. “I can’t think of a better legacy. That’s exactly what you have done, Don.”
In a “just the numbers” review of Don’s career, Collinger recounted:
• 33 years in academic service
• 20 years in industry
• 26 courses taught
• 25 books
• 46 academic articles
• 8 advisory boards
• 11 trade groups (including the Business Marketing Association)
• 513 presentations, speeches and training sessions (how precise!)
Don, next to Medill School Dean John Lavine, minutes after receiving the school's first Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award.
Hearing that more than 100 former students had contributed comments to the celebration about what Don meant to them and then being told they would be turned into a book, Don asked in true Schultz style, “Do I get credit for it?”
“No other school would have let me do what I’ve done here,” Don said, as he began his acceptance remarks, saying “I have no speech, no slides and no data. I have nothing but thanks to all of you.”
“This is a place where we create the future. It’s a place willing to take chances, to explore and try this and that. A place that attracts bright people who do extremely good work not only here but when they leave.”
Kelley and the always upbeat and charismatic Professor Jim Carey, one of my favorite people!
Don acknowledged the presence of David Protess, a professor of journalism and the director of the celebrated Medill Innocence Project, who will receive a second 2010 Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award later in the year, as “someone who has done so much for journalism.”
He also singled out Medill Professor Martin Block, with whom he worked at Michigan State University before both moved to Medill. Sounding a bit like Spock speaking of Kirk, Don described Marty as someone “who has been my friend and research associate for a long number of years.”
After introducing his three sons, whose presence was supposed to be a surprise but I’m told wasn’t, Don naturally saved and shared his final and warmest remarks for Heidi Schultz, “his closest collaborator, my best friend, my wife and co-author.” Maybe not a lot of tears, but not a dry eye in the house.
Don was my favorite teacher at Medill, back in the day when it was still called “Advertising”, not “IMC”!
The IMC program in general–and Professor Schultz specifically–made me a better thinker. He was an antagonist who pushed students to pay attention to the data and to put the consumer at the top of the organizational chart.
When, as eager students we tried to find the secret meaning in a business case, he quickly reminded us that, yes, sometimes there is an obvious solution.
Most importantly, he challenged his students and welcomed a reasonable debate. I’m delighted to see him recognized for his achievement and contribution to Medill.
Congratulations Don!!
Truly Don deserves this special distinction – and many more accolades!
To me Prof. Don Schultz will always be my inspirational, wise and perceptive teacher, mentor and guide. He made me think in clear, simple terms from a consumers’ view-point – in making any & every brand marketing decision. His teaching us this “integrated marketing” approach has been his special “gift” to us all, I’m sure my fellow students the world over will agree. That approach has helped us in all our diverse marketing/media initiatives we have undertaken in our professional lives. I very much cherish my days at NU – Medill, and Special Thanks to you Don !
Datta Nadkarni (MSA 1986)
Gary,
Thanks for writing this piece. I wish I’d been there.
I only learned about Medill because of Don. If I remember correctly, in 1989 and 1990, he was also a contributing columnist for Marketing News back then, arguing how Scanner Data could change the world of shopping and consumer insight through database-driven, integrated marketing concepts. I was a lowly account executive working on a grocery account – loading P.O.P. kits and proofing Price/Item ads. I just had to go where the action was taking place. Where people were figuring out how to change the marketing world. I wrote him a letter, applied, and enrolled. I didn’t even consider an alternative graduate program.
Don really had the faculty – Martin Block, Paul Wang, Ted Spiegel, Clarke Caywood, Tami Brezen, and our departed friends Stan Tannenbaum, Bob Stone, and Ron Kaatz – working together, teaching us to think, and to act, as integrated marketing leaders. His sway also enabled me to take extra courses with Bob Blattberg and Lou Stern at Kellogg (a big deal back then…)
I am grateful for the vision and leadership of these friends. And, I’m especially grateful to Don. I remember getting a call after graduation from a headhunter that told me Don insisted he had to talk with me, I was just the guy for a particular job. And it turned into an amazing adventure for me.
Congratulations to Don, and to all of us who have had the pleasure of his on-going counsel and encouragement.
Edward O’Meara
MS ’91