Abstract
The use of student self-branding exercises in introductory marketing courses for undergraduate business programs has been growing in popularity due to a number of advantages for students. This article introduces implementation of the “Marketing Me” variant developed and used since 2013 by the authors, wherein alumni are brought in to engage with students in a simulated networking event context. This article shows results from postexercise surveys of both student and alumni participants indicating that this variant is strongly perceived to achieve two major goals: (a) enhance student understanding of segmentation, targeting, positioning strategies and (b) aid the students’ preparation for the job and career search processes.
Keywords
By definition, the role of a marketing educator is to provide students with skills and to facilitate experiences that will bring them optimal value. There are many pedagogies available for the educator to pick from, adapt, or mix for this purpose. Educating often involves trying to create the most constructive experience for the specific characteristics of a class of students within the constraints of the resources available. In many cases, resources are available to educators in the form of participation from the school’s alumni community.
Two of this article’s authors teach an introductory marketing course to large sections of typically more than 225 students who are roughly midway through an undergraduate business degree program. The authors have been using a simulation-enhanced adaptation of a marketing plan development exercise wherein students are marketing themselves for entry to the labor market (Richmond & Soloman, 2011; Steenburgh & Norton, 2009) since the fall of 2013. It is the simulation component that differentiates it from previously published implementations such as “Marketing You” (Smith, 2004) and the authors have adopted the name “Marketing Me” for this adaptation. As the metrics used to evaluate the effectiveness of Smith’s implementation are comparable to the data we use, some of our analyses use that implementation as a comparative reference.
The format of the introductory marketing course delivery in our school’s undergraduate program is for students to weekly attend a single 3-hour lecture in a large theater, and to also spend 1 hour with a small tutorial group of typically 18 students and a teaching assistant to focus on and discuss the application of learned concepts. Marketing Me is presented to students toward the end of the course, at a point where they have been introduced in lectures to foundational concepts of marketing such as the four Ps, SWOT, positioning, and targeting.
We measure the perceived value of Marketing Me by surveying a sample of both the students and the participating alumni.
This article begins with a detailed description of the exercise, then positions the research within the context of existing literature and identifies the specific hypotheses investigated. The methodology section follows. The article concludes with an analysis of these data, the limitations of the analysis, and possible future research directions.
The Marketing Me Exercise
The exercise is broadly divided into two parts. First, students are instructed to use the marketing concepts of segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) as primary foundations toward the development of their own personal brand (Usheroff, 2000). Students each compose an online personal brand statement (Labrecque, Markos, & Milne, 2011) that would be suitable to post at the top of an effective LinkedIn profile (Chiang & Suen, 2015). They are graded on an individually written marketing plan for bringing their services to the labor market that includes articulating this personal brand.
Second, and subsequent to their completion of the first part, a sample of business school alumni are brought in to the tutorial times to simulate a potential contact at a networking event. The students’ role in the simulation is to present a 2-minute summary of their personal brand pitch to an alumnus. The alumni then provide verbal feedback to each student from the vantage of having wisdom developed by their workforce experiences. Students are graded with a yes or no participation mark on this part of the exercise. The value is gained from the live simulation experience and especially from the debriefing session that follows. Both the students and the alumni are given only minimal coaching in advance to let the experience unfold as naturally and personally attuned as possible.
The instructions to students are to envision themselves introducing themselves to a new potential contact at a professional networking event or a similar situation. The student is then invited to verbally present their unique value offering as effectively as they are able in 3 minutes. At any point, the alumnus is free to respond as they like with questions and/or constructive feedback to assist the student’s understanding of their own value offering and ways it may be meaningfully enhanced while the student is still in the undergraduate program. This debriefing discussion runs for approximately 5 minutes before the alumnus is sent the next student and repeats the process.
The ratio of alumni to students is roughly 1:6 which allows approximately 10 minutes of one-on-one time for each student during the week when the alumni are brought to the tutorials. Recent alumni are eager to help current students by sharing wisdom gained from their own experiences and are easily recruited. In fact, some alumni are willing to share multiple hours of their time serving multiple tutorial sections. Inviting and organizing the recruited alumni is performed by staff in the school’s alumni relations office with minor logistical assistance from the course instructor.
Background Literature
We were motivated to add a simulation component to the exercise for two primary reasons. The first reason is that the active learning element results in more successful development of students’ conceptual understanding as measured by exam performance (Whiteley & Faria, 1989). The structure of the simulation whereby the alumni pose as potential professional contacts that students may meet at networking events aligns with the model of “Debriefing With Good Judgement” (Rudolph, Simon, Dufresne, & Raemer, 2006) commonly applied in nursing and other health sector training to enrich the learning experience. The students are also expected to develop facility with the core curriculum concepts of situational analysis and STP strategies and we measure the students’ perception of the degree of their enhanced practice of these concepts through the use of a 4-point Likert-type scale survey. We define a “neutral score” as neither positive nor negative in sentiment which would be an aggregated mean value of 2.5 on this 4-point scale. Therefore,
The second reason for adding the simulation is that the workforce experience of the alumni will help students develop a realistic expectation for their future entry to the labor market. The research of Westerman, Bergman, Bergman, and Daly (2012) indicates that Millennial college students have significantly higher levels of narcissism than college students of previous generations, and that narcissists expect to have significantly more career success in terms of ease of finding a job, salary, and promotions. This general pattern, suggesting increasing labor market misunderstanding by undergraduate students, is corroborated by anecdotal reports from the authors’ school’s own career development advisors. By bringing alumni who have recently been in the very same place as today’s students to the classroom to provide direct feedback from the current employment landscape, we hope that today’s students (a) can make better informed decisions about how they will develop their skills and experiences while still in the undergraduate program and (b) expect that effort and patience are most likely to be required in their career search regardless of their academic performance. Therefore,
Sampling Frames and Sample Sizes
Data were collected from two populations: the students and the alumni participants.
The source sample frame for the student perspective was 250 students enrolled for credit in the Spring 2014 offering of the course titled “Introductory Marketing.” From this frame, a cluster sample of 113 students was chosen by selecting a subset of the tutorial groups to participate in an online survey. Data for a demographic profile of this sample were not collected but the introductory marketing course is a core requirement in the undergraduate business program typically taken in the third year of study where the typical age is 21 years with a nominal skew in the older direction. Similarly, the school’s undergraduate business program student population is 55% identified female and 45% identified male.
The population surveyed for the alumni perspective was 25 participants from the Spring 2014 offering of introductory marketing, six of whom identified as males and seven as females. Data for a precise age profile were not collected for this group but the authors observed that the ages were at least 24 years and ranging into the 30s with an estimated median of 26 years. Of the 25 who were asked for feedback, 13 responded.
Procedure and Measures Used
Data from the two groups, students and alumni, were collected independently.
The sample group of students was given a survey at the tutorial session immediately following the week of the simulation exercise. Students were asked to complete the survey online anonymously to remove the risk of a Hawthorne effect or any bias resulting from students being concerned that their answers might affect their grade. The survey asked the following questions in the following order:
To what extent do you think the personal branding assignment helps you practice such marketing tools as situational analysis and STP strategies? (not helpful at all, not very helpful, helpful, very helpful)
To what extent do you think the personal branding assignment helps your career planning? (not helpful at all, not very helpful, helpful, very helpful)
Is there anything in this semester’s personal branding assignment that you like? Please tell us what it is. If there is more than one thing, you can tell us the thing you like most.
Is there anything in this semester’s personal branding assignment that should be improved for next time? Please tell us how we can better help the future introductory marketing students practice various marketing tools as well as compete in the hypercompetitive job market.
Any other thoughts? For example, if a student, who hasn’t taken introductory marketing, asks you about this assignment, what would you say?
Questions 1 and 2 allowed the students to answer on a 4-point Likert-type scale with the indicated labels. Open ended text boxes were provided for answers to questions three, four, and five.
The alumni feedback data were solicited as part of a “Thank you” e-mail in the week following the exercise by the staff of the alumni relations office. The relevant line of this bulk e-mail was phrased, “Ensuring an optimal guest experience is very important to the success of our Speakers on Campus program. If you have any feedback that you’d like to share at this time, we’d appreciate hearing it.” Of the 25 alumni participants, 13 responded with response lengths ranging from one to seven sentences.
Analysis and Results
Hypotheses involving variables measured on the 4-point scale were measured against two benchmarks. First, null hypotheses values of 2.5 (the mean of a balanced 4-point scale) were used to test Hypothesis 1’s and Hypothesis 2’s base validity. Second, the results from Marketing Me students were matched to the results found for the Marketing You implementation (Smith, 2004) to explore difference in the perceived value between the two variants. To most meaningfully compare our quantitative survey results with those found by Smith, we used the following methods.
The survey used by Smith addressed the concept of Hypothesis 1 in this article by asking students four questions; “The Marketing You project improved your understanding of the marketing concepts of (a) SWOT (situational) analysis, (b) target market, (c) positioning, and (d) four Ps (product, place, promotion, price).” For these, Smith used the 4-point scale strongly disagree, disagree, agree, and strongly agree. The average of the means of Smith’s (a), (b), and (c) questions was calculated and compared with the mean of our student survey Question 1 using a pooled variance t test.
This article’s Hypothesis 2 is a functional equivalent to Smith’s Hypothesis 3 where students answered on the same 4-point scale, “The Marketing You project helped you (a) learn about yourself, (b) define your career goals, (c) think about your career plans, (d) become more knowledgeable about industries and companies you want to work for, (e) have better expectations about salary and benefits in a first job, and (f) have an edge in the job search marketplace. The average of the mean values to all of Smith’s questions was compared with the mean of our survey Question 2 using a pooled variance t test.
The data and summary calculations are presented in Table 1. The values for Hypothesis 1a and Hypothesis 2a show clearly that, like “Marketing You,” “Marketing Me” is perceived by the students to be significantly helpful for both practicing marketing fundamentals and helping their career planning with p values in both cases being significant at <.01.
Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2 Tested in Comparison With (a) Neutral Mean of 2.5 and (b) Results Previously Published for “Marketing You.”
When compared with the results of Smith, however, the data tell different stories for Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2. The mean value score for “Marketing Me” for perceived help in practicing marketing fundamentals (Hypothesis 1b) is not statistically different from “Marketing You” suggesting that both variants are equivalent on that dimension. However, the data do suggest that students perceive “Marketing Me” as more helpful toward their career planning (Hypothesis 2b) than “Marketing You” with a p < .01.
Questions 3, 4, and 5 invited students to share their thoughts (positive, negative, and otherwise) on having just completed the “Marketing Me” simulation enhanced exercise to help illuminate where value was found, where opportunities may have been missed or resources wasted without providing justifying value, and any other constructive input they might have.
When asked for their favorite parts (Question 3), 51 students responded. In order to get a sense of the degree to which the simulation component was appreciated, these 51 responses were categorized as: (a) making a positive statement about the exercise generally without reference to alumni or the simulation (b) for explicitly identifying the simulation component as the part they liked most. The counts are provided in Table 2 and reinforce the degree to which many (39% of the students who made a positive comment) single out the simulation experience with the alumni as their favorite part of the exercise. Selected “favorite part” statements are listed in Table 3 to convey the typical tone and character of these responses.
Categorization of Positive Statements About “Marketing Me” Exercise.
Selected Student Responses to Question 3 (Students’ Favorite Part of the Exercise).
Note. STP = segmentation, targeting, and positioning.
When asked for suggestions for improvement (Question 4), 42 students responded. The responses could be easily classified by a short list of repeating themes, sometimes with comments relating to multiple themes found in single responses. The identified themes are classified by criticisms of: (a) organization/preparation by professor and teaching assistant (TAs), (b) format of the exercise execution, (c) marking weight insufficient for the exercise, (d) relevance to marketing, (e) scheduling of the exercise within course or within degree process, (f) value of the exercise generally. The occurrence frequencies of themes are provided in Figure 1 revealing that for the 2014 semester offering of this course, the dominant criticism from students was toward the organizational execution of the exercise and the second was toward the format of delivery. These can be interpreted as indications that students frequently felt even more value could be taken from the exercise if they, or the alumni, or the TAs and professor were better prepared in advance, and underlines the need for meticulous planning and coordination for running an exercise of this scale. Furthermore, the criticism that insufficient grade weight has been assigned to this exercise can be read as a judgment that this exercise involved more work than is currently reflected in the grading schema but can also be read as it having more value than is reflected. For the semester in which the students were surveyed, the Marketing Me exercise was weighted as 5% of the course grade. Selected “suggestions for improvement” statements are presented in Table 4 to convey the typical tone and character of these responses.
Frequencies of “Marketing Me” criticism themes cited by students.
Selected Student Responses to Question 4 (Students’ Suggestions for Improvement).
In Question 5, 44 students responded to the request to imagine offering advice to future students prior to embarking on the “Marketing Me” exercise. As with the previous question, a small number of explicit themes were repeatedly present in the responses. In many cases, multiple themes were found in the same response. Students advised their successors to (a) embrace the exercise for all of its potential value, (b) use the exercise to plan careers, (c) use the exercise to better understand themselves, (d) interact with the alumni to get insightful custom advice, (e) use the exercise to better understand the labor market, and (f) do not engage as they feel the exercise is a waste of effort. The frequencies of these themes within the sample are provided in Figure 2 with the majority not only being positive but encouraging students to get maximal value from the exercise. Making specific reference to the value provided by the simulations with alumni was a significantly represented theme on its own, corroborating Hypothesis 2b validation. Selected student advice statements are presented in Table 5 to convey the typical tone and character of these responses.
Frequencies of “Marketing Me” advice to future students themes.
Selected Student Responses to Question 5 (Advice to Future Students).
The data from alumni are in the form of unstructured e-mail response from 13 participants. From this volume of text, the following themes are evident: (a) participation was a pleasure and the alumnus stated explicit willingness to return, (b) students seemed to benefit from lessons taken from experience, (c) the students were generally very engaged, (d) alumni had criticisms of the organization/preparedness of TAs, (e) the simulated interview format was effective, (f) students frequently began with unrealistic assumptions about the labor market, (g) some students did not engage. The frequencies of these themes is presented in Figure 3 where it is immediately evident that of those who replied to the request for feedback, a strong majority made a point of indicating a willingness to return. The second and third most frequent themes were to the effect that they felt students benefitted significantly from their participation and that students typically embraced the opportunity eagerly. While the others listed are arguably stretched to be labeled as themes with frequencies of two or less, it is worth observing that some of the themes identified in the student survey questions are represented in the experiences of alumni also. Selected alumni feedback statements are presented in Table 6 to convey the typical tone and character of these responses.
Frequencies of “Marketing Me” feedback comment themes from alumni.
Selected Alumni Response to Postsimulation Request for Feedback.
Discussion, Limitations, and Research Directions
The comparisons of numeric perception scores between the student populations taught by the authors and those taught by Smith must be read with some caution. The populations differ both geographically and temporally and the ordinal units of the comparison scale used were labeled slightly differently between the surveys. With these considerations noted, the authors feel that the commonalities of the populations, both composed of third-year North American undergraduate business administration students, and of the surveys, both using 4-point scales that map to the same meanings, justify comparison.
With each passing semester, the specific mix of professor, TAs, students, and participant alumni in the Marketing Me exercise changes, as do the environmental factors of the broader economy and the labor market landscape. As a result, the task of effectively coordinating a successful implementation of this exercise requires a meticulous level of organization and planning, customized for each semester. This is a level of additional time and effort that the instructor needs to understand must be committed well in advance. The other critical resource is an alumni relations facilitator who can manage sourcing and coordinating a pool of alumni to attend the tutorial subgroups of a large introductory marketing class. The authors have learned that attracting eager participation from the alumni community is not a challenge so long as the exercise details and participation expectations are made clear and consistent. Evidence in this article shows how even minor lapses in organization details are quickly noted as frustrations for all parties. This information has been used by the authors to more effectively run Marketing Me for the semesters following the 2014 semester from which this article’s data are collected.
With the above constraints and caveats noted, this article presents strong evidence that implementing Marketing Me as a cornerstone component of an undergraduate introductory marketing course is highly effective as a tool for teaching marketing concepts and pays dividends as a distinctly valuable experience for students who are in the process of defining and presenting a personal brand for themselves as the product they will soon bring to the labor market.
The options for utilizing the participation of alumni in educational simulations for personal brand development have by no means been exhausted by the authors and two interesting suggestions have been brought forward to try in the future.
One suggestion is to extend the role-play simulation beyond the introductory pitch to a complete, if cursory, mock interview. This will require either a larger pool of participant alumni or more time commitment from each. The suggested benefit would be that the emotional engagement of each student would be raised yet again, effectively giving each student a vibrant and memorable job interview experience to prepare them for their career launch.
A second suggestion is to follow the current one-on-one simulation and debriefing sessions with open Q&A discussions with the larger tutorial group where the most relevant lessons learned individually can be shared and thus benefit the entire tutorial. Once again, this would necessitate more time from the participating alumni and would require 2 weeks of tutorial time dedicated to the Marketing Me exercise rather than the present 1 week.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.