The greatest value of the METU Executive MBA Digital Marketing program is not included in the curriculum

When I applied for the METU Executive MBA Digital Marketing economist program, I was not looking for a new profession.

I worked as an economic executive and managing director for nearly 20 years. Leading marketing teams was also part of my responsibilities, so I encountered strategic decisions, budgets, agency presentations, and the expectations that a leader rightfully has towards their own marketing area on a daily basis.

However, I had one rule that I always adhered to: you cannot lead an area that you feel you do not understand better than those you need to lead. This does not mean that a leader must perform every task better than their own specialists. It does mean, however, that they must understand the world in which they make decisions and be able to see the connections.

Meanwhile, I repeatedly encountered the same sentence from entrepreneurs, company leaders, and owners, who often said with complete conviction that marketers do nothing and are just deceiving everyone.

For a long time, I thought this was a simple prejudice, but now I see that it is a much more complex phenomenon and the profession also has a responsibility in it.

In my opinion, one of the biggest problems in modern marketing is not that there are too few good professionals; rather, it is that many want to appear as experts while very few actually want to understand how a business operates.

Yet, the problems of most companies rarely depend on whether another Canva creative was made or whether that day's post went out. Much more often, what is missing is the system, the priority, the measurement, and the strategic thinking that determines the direction in which the digital presence should lead the business.

That is why I applied for this training.

I did not want another diploma to hang on the wall, and I did not believe that anyone could teach me marketing in just a few semesters.

I have seen so many businesses from the inside that I knew success or failure rarely depends on a single campaign. I was looking for the answer to why one company can grow from the same tools and similar opportunities while another has been stagnant for years. Then it turned out that the greatest value of the training really does not appear in the curriculum.

 

I thought I would learn tools

Looking at the subjects, I thought I would learn tools. Google Ads, Meta, web analytics, search marketing, media planning, AI, web design. Exactly the systems and platforms that define digital marketing today.

I did receive these.

However, after a few weeks, I noticed that I was increasingly less interested in how to build a campaign and more in whether a business really needs that campaign. A well-structured advertisement cannot solve a bad business model, and the best creative cannot save a business that lacks a system behind its operations.

Most marketing problems are actually not marketing problems, and this realization cannot be learned from a textbook.

It had a special value for me that I could learn from professionals who were running their own businesses during the week, working at agencies, or making corporate decisions. Just to mention a few of the defining instructors of the training: Melinda Klausz, Tamás Szeles, Róbert Vági, Szilárd Béres, Marianna Bojér, or Edit Ditte Szabó, who not only taught subjects but also brought their own professional experiences into the classes.

We did not analyze theoretical examples and did not pull out old case studies. We discussed problems that were waiting for them in the office the next working day.

I noticed that I look at my own projects differently now. When I plan a website or campaign today, my first question is no longer what kind of creative should be made for it. Much more so, it is what exact business problem we want to solve.

There was one area that particularly piqued my interest: artificial intelligence.

Not because I saw a new marketing tool in it, but because I increasingly felt that it would fundamentally transform the operations of businesses in the coming years. Perhaps it is no coincidence that during the training, this became the topic that prompted the most further thinking.

A METU Executive MBA Digital Marketing Economist training parallel to its completion, I was already studying at the University of Pécs Faculty of Business and Economics' Artificial Intelligence Marketing Specialist training, where I obtained an AI specialist qualification in 2026.

Looking back, I feel that the curiosity that was strengthened in me during this training ultimately led me towards a new professional direction.

 

Throughout my career, I was looking for the answer in the wrong place.

There is a realization that I will definitely carry with me from this year and a half.

Previously, I also viewed marketing as a separate area of the company. There is marketing, there is sales, there is finance and operations, everyone does their own tasks, and in the end, somehow it all comes together.

Looking back, I realized that I made the same mistake as many company leaders. I saw marketing as a cost line. A department. An external agency. Something that should deliver results in the end.

Today, I think it is the other way around.

During the training, I truly understood that marketing starts much earlier than where most people look for it. Not in the ad manager, not in the creatives, and not even in the first social media post.

It starts where a business decides what its goal is, what value it represents, and what problem it wants to solve.

And perhaps this was the point where I realized that in marketing, it is rarely the ready answers that move us forward.

Much more valuable are the good questions that we dare to ask.

 

What I did not expect at all

However, there was something I did not expect at all.

People and the community.

To be honest, I thought that mainly marketers would be sitting around me in a digital marketing training. Instead, I found myself in an extremely diverse environment, where students came from different professions, different life situations, and different leadership levels.

It quickly became clear that there is rarely a single good answer to the same problem. An entrepreneur looks at the same situation differently than a corporate leader or an agency professional, and sometimes it is precisely the one who has not dealt with marketing at all before who asks the best question.

To my delight, no one wanted to train uniform marketers in the course. Instead, we were encouraged to see digital marketing as part of the whole of a business.

Perhaps this is not a coincidence either. Behind the training are people who have not only been teaching this profession for many years but also shaping it.

For example, there is Marianna Csarnai, the professional leader, who has been part of the training from the beginning and has done a lot to ensure that this does not become just a series of simple subjects, but a real professional community.

„Entering the room, there was anticipation, sparkling, tearful eyes, emotion. The moment when I could hand out the diplomas was wonderful, I loved it very much.” Marianna Csarnai

I felt the same in the attitude of the instructors. They did not expect ready answers from us, but rather that we think, debate, and dare to look at a problem from a different perspective. Many times I felt like I was part of a real business workshop, not a traditional university lecture.

However, the best conversations often did not happen in the lecture hall, but between classes, over coffee, or during a joint workshop. It was during these times that it became clear how many good solutions could exist for the same problem.

By the end, I noticed that I learned at least as much from these conversations and from how these people think as from the material itself.

You cannot earn credit for these conversations, yet I probably took home the most from them.

This thought is perhaps well summarized from the instructors' side by Edit Ditte Szabó, the instructor of the Online Virus and Guerrilla Marketing subject:

„Perhaps that is why I feel that I did not receive the most important questions in the classes. I had to ask them myself, and sometimes honestly admit that even after many years of leadership experience, I am not sure I see the world the same way as before.”.

 

I do not recommend it to everyone

If someone asks me whether I recommend this training, I cannot answer with a simple yes.

I do not believe it is for everyone.

It is not for those who want another diploma to hang on the wall and not for those who expect ready-made recipes on how to do marketing. Those who seek certain answers will likely be disappointed.

I think it truly offers a lot to those who are already working, leading, entrepreneuring, or taking responsibility for others' work and feel that the digital world is not a separate area but a defining part of their business.

For those who are not afraid to occasionally question their own answers and are curious about how a Google ad, an AI tool, or a marketing campaign connects with the operation of a business as a whole.

If someone is already working as a marketer, the question may rightly arise: why should they spend so much time and money on another training?

My answer is that I did not receive new tools, but rather a system, a perspective that helped connect marketing with leadership, finance, and the operation of the business.

For me, this year and a half did not give me a new profession; rather, it stripped away some old beliefs that I had long thought were unquestionable.

I believe that this is exactly the task of an Executive MBA program. Not to provide ready answers, but to create an environment where different professional experiences meet and a new way of thinking develops.

The training reinforced my belief that marketing is not magic, not a trick, and definitely not the area I have often heard that marketers do nothing and are just deceiving.

Now I think that when a business says this, it is actually not talking about marketing. It is much more about the lack of a common language between leaders and marketers. Perhaps that is why this year and a half was so valuable to me: it helped me understand both sides.

 

What I took home

When I applied, I thought I wanted to understand marketing better, then I realized that I actually wanted to understand the operation of businesses better.

When I think back to the training, the first thing that comes to mind is not a new tool or a new platform, but rather a different way of thinking.

I thought that a good leader must know the answer to every important area, but today I think differently; a good leader does not need to know the answer to everything.

They need to know what to ask, and I believe the same is true for a good marketer.

If someone asks me today whether it was worth going back to school for a year and a half, I can say that I left the last class with completely different questions than those I arrived with on the first day.

And I think that is exactly why I would apply again in the same way.