Podcast Summary: Tutor Conference 2026

Daniel Fox, interviews several marketing tutors from the Cambridge Marketing College during the Tutor Conference at Madingley Hall. The conversation covers the tutors' diverse backgrounds, their passion for marketing, the evolution of the field from traditional to digital methods, and the significant impact of emerging trends, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI). The tutors share their perspectives on the broad, strategic definition of marketing, offering advice for new marketers, and discuss the future of the industry.

 

Key points

  • Keith Rowland emphasised the critical distinction between true marketing strategy and the common misconception that marketing is solely marketing communications or digital marketing.
  • Terry Nicklin highlighted the fundamental shift from traditional, hard-copy marketing to digital marketing, but warned against the danger of equating marketing with just promotion due to the ease and prevalence of digital tools.
  • Dawn Grossart spoke about the importance of understanding consumer behaviour and using technology, like AI, to create better, more connected, and beneficial experiences while retaining a crucial human element.
  • Neil Wilkins urged marketers to embrace AI rather than fear it, viewing it as a tool that will create new hybrid roles and free up professionals for more valuable, strategic work.
  • Karl Meyer stressed that marketing is fundamentally a communication process that requires a deep understanding of the customer's language, context, and needs to build effective conversations.

 

Podcast Transcript

Transcripts are auto-generated.

Daniel Fox, Cambridge Marketing Podcast Producer (00:04):
Hello and welcome to a slightly different Cambridge Marketing podcast from a slightly different location. I'm Daniel. You normally don't hear me. It's me doing the editing and the producing normally, but today I am here on top of gravel, surrounded by birdsong and with a sprinkler for company, at a beautiful 16th-century Tudor Manor house, with landscaped gardens by the world-famous Lancelot Capability Brown. Here it is, the very essence of Englishness. Now this place was once home to Edward VII whilst he studied at Cambridge University. Prince Albert has also stayed here, and rumour has it, it's still home to Lady Ursula, Madingley Hall's resident ghost. However, today Madingley Hall is hosting the Cambridge Marketing College's Tutor Conference. Let's hear from some of the tutors.

Keith Rowland, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (01:00):
I'm Keith Rowland. I tutor the Marketing Manager apprenticeship and the strategy and planning module for the diploma. What got me into marketing? Well, originally, I was in medical sales, and I was asked to move in and set up a marketing department, but it wasn't marketing as such. It was marketing communications, and I felt very misled. So I learned proper marketing. I went and did a CIM Postgraduate Diploma and got more involved with the CIM, and eventually, when I gave up my medical device career, I decided I was going to tutor it and pass that knowledge on to others. Well, I'm passionate about marketing, and I'm passionate about people understanding what marketing is, and what marketing is sometimes confused for. So these days a lot of people think of digital marketing, and they immediately think all marketing is digital marketing. Digital marketing is a very important part of marketing, but it's not the be-all and end-all.

(01:57):
And I'm interested in marketing strategy in particular.

Daniel Fox, Cambridge Marketing Podcast Producer (02:00):
What trends are you seeing at the moment that particularly interest you?

Keith Rowland, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (02:03):
Well, AI is the biggest trend of all, isn't it? I mean, everything's the most fundamental shift in our world, apart from in marketing. And of course, it's got massive impacts in marketing too.

Daniel Fox, Cambridge Marketing Podcast Producer (02:15):
Where can you see it going?

Keith Rowland, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (02:17):
I think it has no bounds. I think in marketing, obviously, it started out in writing copy and generating images, but now it can create programmes, computer programmes. It can amplify, it can hallucinate. It can do all sorts of things, and it's very useful in teaching for example.

Terry Nicklin, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (02:38):
So my name's Terry Nicklin, and I've been working for the college for a couple of decades now on CIM programmes and more laterally on apprenticeships.

Daniel Fox, Cambridge Marketing Podcast Producer (02:47):
Tell us, Terry, how you got into marketing yourself?

Terry Nicklin, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (02:50):
Well, I was in R&D originally. Did a chemistry degree, and I felt that a more commercial role was right for me. I didn't feel naturally a salesy person. So I tried marketing and found it was super. I felt really at home there. I really enjoyed all aspects of marketing, from market research through to pricing, through to product launches and more latterly, of course, digital marketing and the variety and the opportunity, I think to really add value is the key aspect of marketing for me. I mean, if you think back to what Peter Drucker said, the great management guru, he said that the only two parts of an organisation which really add value is R&D and marketing. The rest are really costs. I mean, I'm paraphrasing slightly, but that was more or less what he meant. And for me, that has great attraction. I think marketing is a creative and innovative discipline.

Daniel Fox, Cambridge Marketing Podcast Producer (03:43):
I'm not saying you've been doing it for a long time because you said that earlier yourself. How has it changed since you started?

Terry Nicklin, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (03:48):
Well, the biggest change clearly is the move to digital marketing. When I started, it was all about brochures and maybe DVDs if you were really exotic, but it was mainly hard copy, sending press releases in the post to journalists, and this kind of stuff, and that's clearly changed fundamentally. I think for the better, digital marketing is faster, it's more efficient, it's more easily measurable. On the other hand, I think there is a downside or a danger insofar as marketing is too often taken to be the same thing as promotion or even branding. And I know there's a lot of online debate about that at the moment, but really no, but marketing is much broader than that. And I think the danger with digital tools is that there's so many and they're so interesting and so easy to get into, low cost and easier to measure, that we tend to forget that marketing isn't just promotion.

(04:40):
It's just not about selling stuff and getting more customers. So that's one of the things I try to emphasise to my apprentices and my taught delegates.

Daniel Fox, Cambridge Marketing Podcast Producer (04:50):
We have lots of young listeners and lots of listeners who haven't been doing it quite as long as you, Terry. A tip for anyone who's a little greener than perhaps you are in the marketing world. Tips for developing a career, maybe.

Terry Nicklin, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (05:03):
I think I would encourage people to take a broad view of the world of business and marketing. I think so often we can get sort of trapped into a niche, and we become more and more specialised. I think where possible, take us a broader possible view, listen to the news, listen to the quality news outlets, understand what's going on in the world. If you're a consumer marketer, look out also for what's happening in the world of business-to-business, because I think as consumers, we all get a lot of consumer marketing passively, whereas you may not understand maybe the nuances of business-to-business, and I think that is a huge opportunity career-wise. There's a lot of work to be done in business-to-business. And not for profit too. The world of organisations is broader than just the brands that we tend to think of on the grosser shelf kind of thing, but that's where marketing often gets a lot of attention.

Dawn Grossart, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (06:03):
I'm Dawn Grossart. I'm a tutor for level four marketing apprentices.

Daniel Fox, Cambridge Marketing Podcast Producer (06:07):
Dawn, you still love marketing?

Dawn Grossart, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (06:10):
I still love marketing, and I've had a whole career being interested in marketing, really, from being a teenager. Initially, I read a book called The Hidden Persuaders by a guy called Vance Packard. I think I was 14 or 15, and it just really intrigued me about consumer behaviour and how we can influence people ethically, of course. And so I studied a degree in consumer behaviour, and that led me into a career in marketing, and my interest throughout my career and still today is really about how we understand the marketplace and how we provide really relevant solutions to create a beneficial experience for people.

Daniel Fox, Cambridge Marketing Podcast Producer (06:57):
What excites you about the future of marketing?

Dawn Grossart, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (07:00):
Oh, that's a great question. Well, there's so much change happening at the moment in the world, especially with technology and the rapid advancement of AI in particular. I think what excites me is the opportunity to use that technology in creative ways to perhaps create different user interfaces, different relationship-building situations. The opportunity to have that business relationship with the customer is going to be very different, I think. There is a very important human element, and I think it's important that we maintain that in all of our business conduct. We can't lose the human element, but I think there is something very important about service, and engagement and connection and ultimately I think many people I speak to in this fragmented world that we tend to live in these days, often where people are working from home and maybe their social life might look different to how it did a few years ago, that connection is really important.

(08:02):
So how can we use marketing understanding to help build a really connected world that helps and supports people as much as possible?

Neil Wilkins, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (08:12):
Yeah. So I'm Neil Wilkins, college fellow and tutor, and I've been with the college now for some 25 years, which is quite a feat, really. I teach generally the emerging technologies, so everything from digital marketing through to AI, both at a tactical but also strategic level.

Daniel Fox, Cambridge Marketing Podcast Producer (08:34):
Let's talk about AI. There will be some marketers, I guess, who are a little bit concerned about where it might take us. What would you say to someone with that mindset?

Neil Wilkins, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (08:42):
I'd say don't fear it. Embrace it. It is inevitably changing everything from the roles that we do to the plans that we have to the business opportunities that are out there. So for me, it is about being curious. It's about really embracing the change as inevitable. Don't fight it, don't fear it, and upskill.

Daniel Fox, Cambridge Marketing Podcast Producer (09:01):
Where do you think it will take us over the next five years?

Neil Wilkins, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (09:04):
I think it's going to really morph into what I'm describing as kind of hybrid roles. So I think we won't be doing AI work in isolation. We won't be doing marketing in isolation. It will be a real blend, and we'll find ourselves surrounding ourselves with little AI assistants and agents to help us do the adminy kind of things to free us up in our time for more valuable work.

Daniel Fox, Cambridge Marketing Podcast Producer (09:26):
A top tip for anyone who's listening and is a learner or new to marketing, what would you say to them? One hot bit of advice?

Neil Wilkins, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (09:33):
Hot bit of advice is find some trusted sources of information. I mean, we are in a time of absolute change, literally by the minute, not just by the day or the week. So have some good sources of information that you trust, and really just listen, and play and explore. Be curious.

Daniel Fox, Cambridge Marketing Podcast Producer (09:50):
I can't let you say that without asking you for some sources that you trust.

Neil Wilkins, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (09:54):
The AI Daily Brief is probably my favourite one. It's a very short, snappy little podcast, which is my go- to whenever I'm in the car. It's five or 10 minutes, so it's not long form for podcasts at all. And I tend to find I get my snippets of information. Then if there's anything of interest, I can go deeper.

Karl Meyer, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (10:11):
Hi, I'm Karl. I teach within the CMC, digital marketing. In my other career, I do product marketing management for an IT company. And the thing I really love about particularly product marketing is the ability to use it to translate complex technology into ways that users can understand it, and actually talking the language of the users. And that's really important because marketing is essentially a communication process. It's talking from the company to the customer, and unless you understand what the customer is wanting, how the customer speaks, how the customer thinks, you can't really just have a good conversation with them. And that's a key part of marketing is to be able to build those conversations between sellers and buyers.

Daniel Fox, Cambridge Marketing Podcast Producer (10:59):
Having heard what you've just said, one or two tips for any learners who are listening at the moment and learning with us.

Karl Meyer, Cambridge Marketing College Tutor (11:07):
In terms of learners listening with us, the key things are to read the questions when it comes to actually looking at the assignments. That's absolutely vital. The other thing is to make sure you're working in the context of the organisation. The textbooks and the tutors can give you the raw facts about the particular technologies, services and so forth. You need to use your skills to build the context for your organisation and for your particular type of customer, so you can understand how these tools can work within your organisation. Unless you put that context in, you won't have successful marketing.

Daniel Fox, Cambridge Marketing Podcast Producer (11:51):
Thank you for listening to this special edition of the Cambridge Marketing Podcast live from our Tutor Conference 2026, and thanks to all of our wonderful tutors for their time and insight too. Now, if you're a new listener, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast channel. We're available on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, on Stitcher, on Pocketcast, you name it, we're there. Whilst you're here, skip back through recent episodes to be immersed in the world of high-performing video marketing, dynamic pricing, and also a fascinating episode on Warhammer's marketing secrets. They are just some of our recent episodes, but for now, from me, Daniel, at Madingley Hall, thank you for listening.