Forget Harvard Business School or Wharton. Forget Northwestern and NYU. You can show how savvy you are—anywhere in the world—by signing up for the DMA Certified Marketing Professional Program.

That’s a new offering announced today by the Direct Marketing Association.

The DMA plans to provide advanced education, especially in subjects like analytics.

Attain the requisite credits, and you will be certified as a marketing professional, the DMA says. And you can apply some sessions at DMA09 in October.

We were dubious at first—who needs the DMA to tell us we can do our jobs?—but then we saw Ron Jacobs is involved with it. Ron, president of the Jacobs & Clevinger Agency, is a smart guy.

In fact, the course and diagnostic test for this program is based on Ron’s book, Successful Direct Marketing Methods. And he has long been active in bringing DM education to marketers overseas.

So maybe this program has a chance. It will be launched in English and Japanese, and the DMA is talking with international groups to tailor the program for Spain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Brazil and Argentina.

Other details are scarce right now.

Do you see a need for it? Let us know.

We’ll be watching.