Marketing, business, and the law. While these concepts may all seem far apart in terms of how they relate to one another, MSL Adjunct Professor Ejede Okogbo will tell you this is far from the truth, especially if you’re trying to take a product to market. 

Okogbo is currently the senior director of marketing analytics at Rescue, a marketing agency based in San Diego. He is a 2016 graduate of the MSL program and a 2018 MBA graduate of the Haas School of Business in Berkeley. Drawing on his collective experience, Okogbo taught a weekend MSL course that launched this January: Introduction to Marketing Analytics. 

The 5 Ws of Marketing Analytics 

Okogbo’s course focuses on how an organization uses and applies data in making its marketing decisions. The course takes a deep dive into these five Ws:   

• Who are data professionals and what are their roles within an organization? 
• What exactly is data, its purpose, and its use case? 
• When are your customers or potential customers interacting with your business, and does your data model showcase this? 
• Where is your organization capturing data and why is this important from a legal standpoint? 
• Why is communicating data findings necessary and a key skill for entrepreneurs and other organization stakeholders?  

Each of the above bullet points demonstrates the overlap of marketing analytics with business and law, and why understanding the core concepts behind data are critical to the success of a business.  

“You are going to have to learn marketing eventually if you are an entrepreneur,” Okogbo says. Ask yourself the question: “What’s it going to take for me to run a business and how do I sustain that idea?” 

Addressing the How 

In addition to addressing the “who, what, when, where, and why,” as it applies to marketing analytics, Okogbo’s class addresses one more lingering question: How? More specifically, how do organizations collect the information they need and use it to bring their product to market? The answer to this question is at the intersection of marketing analytics with law and business. 

For example, there are many legal issues that can arise from how companies collect and use customer data. There are privacy issues to consider in addition to questions around ownership and security. The methods or tools that organizations use to collect, distribute, and reference data may have legal implications. There are also quality issues to take into account, for example, ensuring the data is valid and free of duplicate information.  

All of the above considerations that go into data collection will not only influence an organization’s go-to-market plan, but it can also impact the success of that plan if the data isn’t clean and set up to deliver measurable results. 

Changes to How We Collect and Analyze Data 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one area that has begun to impact how companies are collecting and utilizing data, and this is creating new challenges for both legal and marketing teams. This is a topic Okogbo confronted in his course and one that will continue to occupy decision-makers in the days and years ahead as AI is increasingly integrated into a company’s set of data tools.   

Why Should MSLs Take This Skills-Based Class? 

Marketing isn’t necessarily an area one thinks about in considering how business and STEM intersect with law, but as Okogbo says, data analytics is essential in business, and understanding the legal and technology issues involved with analytics is key to its effective use. Okogbo’s ability to see this connection explains why he was the perfect person to teach this course. Additionally, Okogbo says his experience in the MSL made it easier for him to find examples that would connect with current students. He even used MSL marketing materials he received from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law as a jumping-off point in his class. 

Introduction to Marketing Analytics was offered as a weekend online course in the 2024 Spring 1 semester, but some students are already asking for more material. While Ekogbo hopes for the opportunity to introduce more detail in future, the response to this course is a reflection of how the MSL adapts its offerings to adjust to the needs of its students as technology and the law continue to evolve.