Paweł Tkaczyk
1. Starting with professional work. What is the area of your professional specialization?
I specialize in brand strategy. For 20 years, I have been helping people build strong brands. I deeply believe that good marketing is a well-told story. That is why we most often write communication or promotion strategies for our clients.
2. What challenges do you encounter in your professional work?
Clients come to me when they want to build a strong brand for their company. The challenges I encounter in my work have two aspects. On the one hand, a company has a great product that it cannot talk about in a way that sparks the interest of potential clients. On the other hand, I work across many industries, and very often my professional challenge is to learn and understand the specifics of my client's business.
3. What key issues are covered by the subject taught by you in the MBA studies?
These are issues related to broadly understood communication. It is often the case that company managers, when building a marketing network, focus on their product or the service they provide, while forgetting the key question: Who are you helping, and with what? A good brand must be useful and requires defining the market – this is what we talk about during classes. We also analyze the state of the market and discuss how it might change in the near future. We focus on recognizing consumer needs. I talk about how to understand and research them, and how to adapt communication to those needs. During our meetings, I talk a lot about the value of metrics, research, and parameters. This usually happens when we discuss the role of a strategist – a person who takes a company from point A to point B, thereby developing its potential. Addressing students as managers, I ask them: How will they be able to tell that their brand has reached its destination?
4. What is most important to you when passing on knowledge related to the subject taught during your studies?
In sharing knowledge, I rely on practical cases from my industry. Working with MBA students, I am aware that in managerial positions they will be responsible for implementing the discussed activities, which is why I explain to them how to supervise and expect elements of building a strong brand from employees.
5. What topics are most frequently discussed with students during your classes? What interests students the most?
Discussions with students during my classes concern, among other things, needs and the resulting decisions we make in life. Another area of our frequent discussions is business assumptions and marketing activities – what is desirable and what will not yield tangible results from the perspective of a strategist, but also the consumer.
6. What skills do students acquire while studying the subject taught by you in the MBA program?
Students acquire the skills to manage well-executed advertising communication, and they are aware of the tasks it should fulfill in contact with a potential client. They know when communication is a good marketing message and when it is ineffective. Effective communication is one that achieves pre-determined goals. If we are not aware of what goal we want to achieve through a given message, we are unable to determine whether the communication met our expectations. Therefore, we start by defining the main goal. Next, we conduct an analysis to determine which part of the communication should fulfill specific tasks and how this can be achieved.
7. How can they use this knowledge in their professional work?
If they work in marketing, they can directly apply the discussed examples of actions when building their own brand or the brand of the company where they hold managerial positions. On the other hand, if their position is not so closely related to this industry, one of the most important things they take away is the ability to oversee marketing. They know the marketing realities and what to expect from a department based on this area, and they are aware of what effective communication between a brand and a customer should look like.
8. What do you find valuable in working with MBA students at PJAIT?
In answering this question, I might quote Seneca: "By teaching, we learn." I think this is precisely what is most valuable to me in working with participants of the IT-focused MBA studies at PJAIT. Our relationship is based on mutual development. I teach them specific skills, and they ask questions and discuss very important topics. Thanks to this work, I have contact with people who actually ask questions I would never have thought of before. This often helps me serve my clients better.
Paweł Tkaczyk – as he describes himself – makes a living by telling stories. He builds strong brands – working with Agora and the Allegro Group, among others. He advises startups and other enterprises – acting as a mentor, for example, during Startup Weekend or Startup Fest. He shares his knowledge – he writes a blog about brand building and has authored three books: "Zakamarki marki", "Grywalizacja", and "Narratologia". He conducts training in marketing, branding, and social media... He loves letters in almost every form – except for Comic Sans.
