Marketing Professor Lawrence Norman’s career has taken him across six different countries, multiple industries, and many professional roles, but his passion for marketing and storytelling lies at the core of his life.
Norman’s passion for marketing came from the Clark University School of Business, specifically from an International marketing (or management) class he took with “Professor Delaney.” On the first day of class, the class received 25 essay topics that they would need to know by the end of the semester. He only knew two or three of them and realized he had a lot to learn. He learned a lot from the other students and the professor and from the presentations he made in class. “So the passion for marketing and the passion for story time started at Clark, and then it really expanded once I landed with Adidas,” shared Norman.
Basketball and Adidas
Norman’s global journey began in 1995 when he moved to Israel to play professional basketball after graduating from Clark with his MBA. He originally planned to only go to Israel for one year to play basketball and to get an internship during the day for relevant experience he could take back to the States.
One year turned into three and a half years. “Once I was here in Israel, I really loved living there. I loved the experience of playing basketball, learning a new language, enjoying a new culture.” said Norman.
While there, he seized an opportunity to join Adidas as one of the founding members of its Israel operation. “Every morning, at 6 am, I would take three buses to work. Get there at seven. I would work from seven to seven every day. It was a startup company. It was long hours. At seven o’clock, I would take two or three buses to practice, get there at eight, and practice from 8:30 to 10:30 every night. I was young and single, and I would go out and have fun after that, but I didn’t sleep much. I really would work from 6 am to 11 pm almost every day and then go out, so there wasn’t a lot of sleeping, but it’s an electric city. Living in Tel Aviv. It’s like New York up the beach. I had some great friends, I had a great social life, and I had a great work life.” shared Norman.
The decision to join Adidas launched his 21-year career, where he held roles across Germany, Spain, the United States, the Netherlands and Greece, working his way up to positions such as Head of Global Basketball for eight years including making all the product for basketball, signing the athletes, overseeing the advertising, everything for the sport of basketball for Adidas. He was also the CEO of Adidas and Reebok for 10 countries in Europe while based in Athens, Greece.
Since finishing with Adidas, Norman has been the CEO of a stroller and car seat company for several years and began teaching at Clark. His courses included the popular Marketing To You class he started in 2020.
Teaching and Marketing To You
Norman has brought back his experience and knowledge to teach students at Clark. He pitched the concept for his class, Marketing to You, year after year. After three or four years of asking, the class began on the condition that he would be the teacher. “I wasn’t planning on teaching it. It was just a matter of, I wanted to bring the idea, and I decided to teach it. I fell in love with it.” he said.
His plan for Marketing To You came from working with summer interns at Adidas who he felt were not prepared for the job. “They’d come in in June, and they weren’t ready. Didn’t know how to communicate, they didn’t know how to write, didn’t know how to tell a good story. They didn’t know how to network the important things. They may have learned a lot of things out of a textbook, but they didn’t learn the important skills that they needed to thrive on day one at a multinational company like Adidas.” said Norman.
Norman calls his classes episodes and the semester seasons, the seventh season is coming to an end in the next week. He uses these terms because they reflect the world we live in, and are simple to understand. Norman explained, “I like to do things in a non-traditional way. There’s no blackboards, there’s no textbooks. Everything is modern and fresh and relevant and new. So that’s the reason why I use those words.”
To keep each episode new and fresh, Norman brings guest speakers to class. This semester, the class has heard from the founders of Eastside Golf, Olajuwon Ajanaku and Earl Cooper; and the head of Eastside Golf marketing, Annette Parker; Dana Klien and Fred Sharp from SAP, Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing.
One guest who has been to every season is Crazy Legs Conti, one of the world’s top competitive eaters. Norman and Conti have been friends and collaborators since high school. “We have a contract. We wrote a contract on a napkin for 33 years. We don’t know what the napkin is, and we don’t remember why we did it, but we’ve got 26 more seasons to go, so you’ll see him again.” shared Norman.
Norman teaches his classes about modern marketing tactics plus networking, writing, storytelling and being able to speak in front of an audience. With guest speakers coming to classes, it is an opportunity to allow students to showcase their skills in front of industry professionals and potentially land internships. Norman shared that dozens of his former students have landed internships, either directly from the guest speakers or from others related to the class.
“Tell a story.” This is something Norman shares with his students over and over again. Storytelling is important to him because “it makes life interesting.” Storytelling shows up anywhere, “when you’re texting a friend or texting a boyfriend or girlfriend or texting a wife or a husband, it’s important to tell a story, even in those texts.” says Norman, “if you’re writing your resume and you just say, This is what I did, it’s not enough… So you need to even tell a story on your resume so people understand who you are, what makes you tick, what hobbies you have, what skills you know, who you would aspire to be someday. In an interview, it’s storytelling also goes a long way… All that storytelling will be the difference maker along the way, from from resume to trying to get an interview to in the interview to on the job. Storytelling makes the world more colorful and creative and and fun cool.”
Norman has a live soundtrack for every class. It is always a mix of music, from old school, 80s hip hop, to current, modern music. He has even had the Clark Bars come and sing during the class. Norman said, “it’s important that the message is, music accentuates the lessons, but also music is an example, you should know what’s hot in music today, because that’s a topic of conversation that comes up in all in all circles.” As the class ends, Norman always plays the song “Come On, Eileen.” It is the one song that is played in every episode.
“The final episode of the season is on February 24. I can’t tell you who that guest is going to be, but it’s going to be pretty amazing. And you said, Who’s my favorite guest? I’ve had a lot of great guests, but the one on February 24 is going to be a pretty special experience for me and for our students and for anybody else who’s lucky enough to get a seat.”
