Courtesy ESPN
Rob King
Rob King, senior vice president of SportsCenter and news for ESPN, will be giving the keynote speech at a marketing conference on campus Thursday. The conference, Expand Your Brand, will be hosted by the Meek School of Journalism and New Media in Farley Hall. The conference will focus on the idea of using social media and new media as marketing tools.
King said he sees social media as a new expression of an old psychological mandate: to connect with other people. He said that social media helps people not only to connect with one another but to express themselves as well.
“There’s an inherent emotional charge within every post, as every one, even a retweet, is intended to represent a personal expression,” King said.
He said that this trend in personal definition has created a mutual benefit system between news and consumers.
“Marketing is more targeted to specific demographics,” King said. “News reports are delivered with less dispassion and more opinion. And everyone is moving faster to match the torrent of social media.”
This increased focus on personalization and human connection reflects what King said is the real heart of journalism and communications -— storytelling.
“Journalism not only informs us, it empowers us,” King said. “In that way, it is a precious form of storytelling.”
King believes storytelling and a love of stories are integral to someone working with communications, himself especially.
“I like people,” King said. “I like to read, hear, watch stories. You have to want to take in information if you hope to be good at dispensing (information),” King said.
King said he hopes that those attending his speech, particularly students, walk away with the understanding that the stress and demands required to create a career shouldn’t hold students back.
“I will try to make sure that it’s better to think of this as a journey, rather than a career,” King said. “A lot of folks these days get in a plane or a train or a car and never bother looking out the window to take in what’s moving around them. Folks in their late teens and early 20s should look out the window.”
No stranger to the journey himself, King received his undergraduate degree in English, began working at a newspaper and, years down the road, worked his way up to senior vice president of a major sports news and entertainment network.
His professional path, he said, “went through a lot of twists and turns, but all have been connected by storytelling — identifying unforgettable characters and narratives and sharing them with authority, intimacy and urgency. Sports, like all great stories, move and connect us.”
King also recognizes that Ole Miss is, as a university, on a journey of its own to grow and improve. He termed it “fascinating,” saying that “Ole Miss is in the middle of an important American undertaking. That’s to be admired, as we’ll all learn here.”
Ultimately, King said the greatest thing he hopes to accomplish with his participation in the conference is to stress that journalism people in general are important. He said he also wants to emphasize that the hard work that people put into their jobs is worth it.
The Expand Your Brand conference will be held March 27 in Farley from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tickets for the conference are $150.
