How a professor’s advice propelled two Binghamton grads into successful marketing careers

In their junior years, Chris Epple ’97 and Marc Hanson ’97 were two Binghamton University School of Management (SOM) students at a crossroads. Both wanted to pursue marketing careers, but which avenues — brands or agency marketing — would best suit them?

They approached Associate Dean George Bobinski, then a professor, for advice. Fortunately, he had both his students figured out.

“Marc, you should work at an agency. You’re more about the wider thinking of things and you’re good at handling a lot of details at once,” Epple recalled Bobinski telling them. “Chris, you should go into brands because you think a lot about brand strategy and the creative aspects of brand building.”

Fast forward nearly three decades: Epple is a vice president of marketing for North, South and Central America with Harman International, a global leader in audio and automotive technology. Hanson, meanwhile, is a senior director of commercial marketing with PepsiCo, leading a team responsible for promoting the company’s multi-billion-dollar beverage brand portfolio.

No matter where their careers have taken them, Epple and Hanson have retained strong connections with Binghamton and each other. They frequently act as mentors for SOM students, offering a personalized style of guidance that is especially important for a successful entry into the marketing field.

“One of the biggest challenges in this business is finding ways to stay relevant while also being willing to experiment,” said Hanson, who has worked at PepsiCo for 19 years. “What I love the most is that, even as a massive company with longstanding and iconic brands, PepsiCo still has a very entrepreneurial mindset. Ultimately, marketing is in the service of driving sales, but we also focus on driving brand health and long-term equity to stay relevant with consumers.”

Epple describes marketing as a unique opportunity to become “a chameleon” by putting yourself into the mindset of your target demographic.

“What are their aspirations? What are their goals? What, or who, do they want to be? By putting myself in that mindset, I’m able to focus more on how to show value to the consumer,” Epple said. “At the end of the day, the job of a marketer can be boiled down to one clear job, which is to think about the needs of your consumer —the ones they know and even the ones they can’t articulate — and develop the right innovations and messaging for them.”

Epple and Hanson credit Binghamton’s multifaceted business education program for building their versatile business skills, from knowing the value of group collaboration to grasping how psychological principles align with marketing strategies.

Epple doesn’t mind adding that while earning his Master of Business Administration at another institution, on four different occasions he encountered the same textbook he’d used during his undergraduate studies at SOM. That, he said, is a perfect example of how “Binghamton groomed me for where I was headed and gave me a significant advantage while quietly building me into a business leader.”

That’s why both are motivated to guide SOM students, including those in the Binghamton University Marketing Association, by visiting classrooms and hosting case competitions. Their goal is to “demystify” the marketing industry for today’s students.

“I encourage students to find their own most relevant on-ramp to get into this business because what works for one person doesn’t always work for another,” Hanson said. “The big advantage is that these companies are very interested in recruiting younger professionals so they can help attract newer generations of consumers.”

For Hanson, who transferred into SOM in the second semester of his sophomore year, courses in human resources management, social psychology and, of course, marketing reinforced his desire to explore career opportunities in business. He fondly remembers how each SOM course and the projects that came with it provided a direct link to how they could be applied in the “real world.”

Looking back, Epple said, he’d like to have put more effort into his finance classes. Even though he knew he’d never pursue it as a career, he’s realized how integral skills like financial accounting and measuring return on investment are to the broader field of business.

When working with this current generation of SOM students (Generation Z), he sees a highly prepared cohort ready to “grind it out.”

“There isn’t necessarily a ‘daily train’ of recruiters coming through the way there is in accounting and finance, so marketing students have to work a lot harder,” Epple said. “The ability to network and meet potential hiring managers is as important of a skill as your ability to come up with good strategies and business plans. It’s a skill I see with many of these students.”

Since that day when Bobinski, who announced the spring 2025 semester would be his last at Binghamton after nearly 36 years, helped steer Epple and Hanson in the directions that would ultimately define their professional lives, their careers have taken them into some fascinating arenas: A&E Networks, Kraft Foods and the Dannon Company.

“The fundamentals of marketing haven’t changed much, but the biggest shift has clearly been how we’re connecting with consumers and holding their attention in this rapidly evolving digital ecosystem, Hanson said. “It’s more important than ever to understand who your consumer is, what motivates them and know the unique selling points of your brand. Once you have that, it’s about communicating that in a clear, relevant, motivating and entertaining way to capture the consumers’ attention.”