Future Proof and Real-World Ready: The Role of Live Project-Based Learning in Students’ Skill Development

Skill Development and Career Readiness

Marketing educators have long identified the need for students to develop the essential skills, including the technical skills as well as higher level meta-skills, that will effectively prepare them for future careers in marketing (e.g., Clark et al., 2012; Dahl et al., 2018; Finch et al., 2012; McDermott, 2012; Schibrowski et al., 2002; Schlee & Harich, 2010; Walker et al., 2009; Ye et al., 2017). Inherent in the “digital challenge” facing educators today (Crittenden & Crittenden, 2015, p. 71) is that these skills, particularly the technical skills needed to stay current in the marketing field, will most certainly change as technology and consumer behavior continues to change. Technical “how to” skills such as being able to navigate paid search (e.g., Google Ads) and paid social media (e.g., Facebook Ads) platforms evolve and change so rapidly that it is not sufficient to merely teach these skills out of a digital marketing textbook or through conceptual class projects.

At the same time, it is important for marketing educators to develop in our students those higher level meta-skills that can help prepare them for the myriad career paths which they may encounter after graduation. Meta-skills involve more generalizable skills such as analytical thinking, creative problem solving, interpersonal relations, and teamwork and communication skills that can magnify and activate other essential technical and practical skills. Skills such as these become even more critical to future student success as they enter the workforce. Bacon (2017) argues that the increasing types of marketing careers and pathways available to students today make it even more difficult to teach students those specific skills required for specific career paths. From employers’ perspectives, generalizable skills such as problem solving, communication skills, and interpersonal skills are as beneficial to career success as are specific technical or discipline-specific skills (Bacon, 2017). To provide further guidance, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (2020) has established the importance of higher level skill development among accredited business schools.

The challenge that marketing educators face is how to expose students to the technical skills that will help them become stronger job candidates upon graduation and at the same time balance the need for them to develop the higher level meta-skills to add depth to their training and career readiness. As we highlighted previously, a wide array of studies and authors have identified the need for graduates to develop the essential skills, both technical skills as well as meta-skills, to help prepare them for future careers (Aoun, 2017; Bacon, 2017; Clark et al., 2012; Dahl et al., 2018; Finch et al., 2012; Greenacre et al., 2017; Hopkins et al., 2011; McCale, 2008; McDermott, 2012; Schibrowski et al., 2002; Strauss, 2011; Walker et al., 2009; Ye et al., 2017).

The prominence of digitization, including search and social media advertising, is similarly reflected in industry hiring trends. Today, some of the most in-demand marketing jobs for recent graduates include digital marketing, social media marketing, and marketing analytics positions. Even so, companies and hiring managers are often challenged to find the right talent to fill these positions, in part because of the shortage of entry-level talent with the necessary skill sets. Industry research also highlights the gap between industry needs and skill development among college and university graduates. A recent survey of advertising industry hiring managers indicated that intern and entry-level candidates consistently fell short of the required experience and understanding of the industry and its current challenges (Ad Industry Talent Study, 2016). The study noted that strategy, digital media, and analytics were among the most difficult positions to fill with qualified candidates.

To address this opportunity and more effectively teach and assess skill development among marketing students, we highlight the application of live PBL to help students develop technical and meta-skills and so help them become future proof and real-world ready. Through a thematic analysis and assessment of student learning, we illustrate how live PBL can help students develop the foundational skills that will lead to resilience and the ability to adapt to today’s fast-changing marketing environment. We contribute to the marketing education literature by highlighting the role and structure of course projects in students’ skill development as well as the process by which we assess the key learning outcomes aligned with their skill development.

Meta-Skills

Beyond technical skills, Bacon (2017) and Walker et al. (2009) highlight the numerous challenges facing new marketing graduates as they begin full-time work. These challenges include the ability to contribute immediately with little or no on the job training, the need to develop more sophisticated content- or discipline-specific communication skills, and the opportunity to hone their critical thinking and problem-solving skills. In addition, Ye et al. (2017) highlight the role of adaptability and collaboration in helping to prepare work-ready graduates. Even today, new workplace norms brought on by the current global coronavirus pandemic, combined with millions of people working from home and communicating and collaborating through web-based platforms, will continue to magnify the importance of adaptability and meta-skill development as educators seek to prepare students for the new “normal” workforce (Leonhardt, 2020).

Based on a survey of marketing practitioners, Finch et al. (2012) argue that marketing programs and curricula, in addition to strengthening students’ familiarity with technical concepts, should prioritize the development of students’ meta-skills. These meta-skills include their ability to apply both creativity and critical thinking to identifying, analyzing and solving problems, communicating and defending those solutions, and establishing priorities. Taken together, it becomes clear that the development of these essential meta-skills, summarized in Table 1, plays an important role in today’s marketing curriculum in preparing students for their future.

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Table 1.

4Cs Meta-Skill Development in Marketing Education.

4Cs Meta-skills	Support in marketing practice and education
Creativity: Coming up with solutions that are unique and novel and useful and appropriate to addressing the challenge or opportunity (Titus, 2000).	Ad Industry Talent Study (2016); Bacon (2017); Finch et al. (2012); Titus (2000)
Critical thinking: Developing students’ ability to interpret, analyze, evaluate, infer and explain (Abrami et al., 2015; Dahl et al., 2018).	Ad Industry Talent Study (2016); Bacon (2017); Dahl et al. (2018); Finch et al. (2012); Hopkins et al., 2011; McDermott (2012); Strauss (2011)
Collaboration: Encouraging students to apply their unique talents to group project, motivated by a collective goal or mission (Adler et al., 2011).	Ad Industry Talent Study (2016); Razzouk et al. (2015); Schlee and Karns (2017); Strauss (2011)
Communication: Developing students’ verbal and nonverbal communication such as presentation skills and other forms of interpersonal communication (e.g., emails, phone calls, written reports).	Ad Industry Talent Study (2016); Chad (2012); Razzouk et al. (2015)

The 4Cs

The Partnership for 21st-Century Learning has identified several skills and competencies necessary for future success in the workplace (Battelle for Kids, 2018). These higher level meta-skills include creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication and form what we refer to in our assessment process as the 4Cs. Addressing the need to better equip graduates for their future careers, Aoun (2017, p. xviii) argues that

a robot-proof model of higher education is not concerned with topping students off with high-octane facts. Rather, it refits their mental engines, calibrating them with a creative mindset and the mental elasticity to invent, discover or otherwise produce something society deems valuable . . .

By incorporating and assessing both technical and meta-skills within a live PBL approach, we aim to prepare our students for the complexity and challenges representative of the modern-day marketing landscape and workplace. In short, through the 4Cs, we seek to prepare students to be robot proof, future proof, and real-world ready.

Of the 4Cs, creativity has been conceptualized as deriving or generating “solutions that are novel and appropriate to the task at hand . . . ” (Titus, 2000, p. 226) and is considered an increasingly important skill in demand by the marketing industry (Bacon, 2017; Finch et al., 2012; Hopkins et al., 2011). On top of this, a recent study highlighted creativity as one of the most highly rated skills demanded by recruiters in the creative marketing (e.g., advertising, branding) industries (Ad Industry Talent Study, 2016). In addition to creativity, critical thinking is conceptualized as students’ ability to interpret, analyze, evaluate, make inferences about, and explain data (Abrami et al., 2015; Dahl et al., 2018). Critical thinking is an important skill for student development given the prominence of data and the growth of performance marketing (Aoun, 2017; Bacon, 2017; Dahl et al., 2018; Finch et al., 2012; Hopkins et al., 2011; McDermott, 2012; Strauss, 2011).

Drawing from the collaborative community literature, we view collaboration as encouraging students to “continually apply their unique talents to group projects—and to become motivated by a collective mission, not just personal gain or the intrinsic pleasures of autonomous creativity” (Adler et al., 2011, p. 4). The ability to collaborate, work, and function effectively as part of a team has always been an important skill, especially in business and particularly in marketing (e.g., Razzouk et al., 2015; Schlee & Karns, 2017; Strauss, 2011). As the modern workplace evolves from physical spaces that invite direct collaboration to those that involve remote, work from home settings, some argue that the ability to work as a team becomes an even more critical skill (Spataro, 2020).

Fourth, numerous academic and industry studies have shown the importance of communication as one of the most valued skills among entry-level marketing candidates (Ad Industry Talent Study, 2016; Chad, 2012; Razzouk et al., 2015), where we broadly conceptualize communication as involving students’ verbal and nonverbal communication skills. These skills are even more relevant today as organizations move increasingly toward more agile ways of thinking and executing (Rohm et al., 2019).

Live Project–Based Learning

Through our experience developing numerous digital marketing courses and direct assessment of students’ skill development, we have discovered that designing and incorporating live projects with real clients and real project activations enables students to develop both the technical as well as meta-skills that can better prepare them for future jobs and careers. In reality, marketing practitioners must deal with imperfect information, be able to adapt to uncertainty and deal with ambiguity. For our students, we argue that live PBL helps students generate and process primary and secondary data (the known knowns), fill gaps in the information they need but do not have (the known unknowns), and deal with the uncertainty and ambiguity of what they do not know they even need to know (the unknown unknowns).

In terms of skill development, Walker et al. (2009) argue that general and specific marketing skills progress across three stages of professional development: novice, advanced beginner, and competent. Undergraduate students generally begin their skill development as novices and beginners. Through live projects, they strengthen their technical skills in areas such as the use of earned, owned, and paid media, analytics, and A/B testing and campaign optimization. They also develop the meta-skills (including the 4Cs) that will benefit them as they graduate and enter the real world (e.g., Dahl et al., 2018; McCale, 2008; Razzouk et al., 2015; Ye et al., 2017). Ye et al. (2017) propose that meta-skill development among students helps them become more competitive and successful in the marketplace when compared with those who possess a more limited set of skills such as marketing vocabulary, frameworks, and theory. Related to the challenges facing educators today, Alim (2020) argues that, given the current challenges brought on by the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic, business schools can no longer turn out graduates who lack the critical thinking and creativity skills, plus the adaptability, required to address the related economic and social challenges.

Within the context of PBL, there is significant support for client based and group projects in the marketing literature. Dingus and Milovic (2018) argue that client-based projects help to integrate theory and practice and Strauss (2011) finds that client-based projects help prepare students to deal with ambiguity and stimulate meta-skill development. Others (e.g., Lange et al., 2018; Razzouk et al., 2015; West, 2011) suggest that client based and group projects create learning settings that are more realistic and relevant and help prepare students for real-world work, interactions, and challenges. Course projects involving clients and real-world applications can provide students with experience in managing real projects, real budgets, and real results, all the while keeping pace with widespread and ever-evolving industry technologies and platforms such as Google Ads for search advertising and Facebook Ads for social media advertising. Furthermore, the development of meta-skills and the 4Cs is particularly important in fields such as marketing, where it is difficult for educators today to know which specific technical skills our students will need to master tomorrow (Finch et al., 2012; Hopkins et al., 2011; McCale, 2008; McDermott, 2012; Strauss, 2011).

Live PBL involves projects where students either work with actual clients or initiate and launch concepts that they have created themselves; however, both types of projects involve real-world applications and real results. Through live PBL, we seek to incorporate the development of technical as well as meta-skills (framed by the 4Cs) within student projects. To develop the creative skills necessary to prepare students for future marketing roles (e.g., Finch et al., 2012; Strauss, 2011), we incorporate project elements such as having students create marketing content (e.g., Google search and Facebook and Instagram advertising copy and visuals as well as video content). Project elements like these enable students to develop and flex their creative muscles and learn by experimentation through iterative content creation and optimization strategies designed to ensure the effectiveness of the content. In this way, students begin to develop their creativity skills that help prepare them for internships and full-time positions after graduation.

Live PBL also helps engage students and develop their critical thinking skills (Finch et al., 2012; McCale, 2008; McDermott, 2012; Walker et al., 2009). As an example, students can analyze and apply qualitative and quantitative research findings to the development of creative content, develop and execute multichannel communication campaigns, analyze data from Google Analytics and Instagram, and perform A/B testing to optimize paid search and paid social media campaigns. They also learn to identify, frame, and solve problems and to prioritize their work in doing so. Live PBL enables students to interpret, design, create, launch, and learn. In the process, it is less about getting the right answer (moreover, where there often is no “right answer”), and more about understanding how the variables inform or suggest a host of possible answers.

Past research has shown the role of PBL in helping students develop collaboration and teamwork skills (Strauss, 2011). Through live PBL, students learn how to effectively manage complex group work and team dynamics, take on different roles, give and receive feedback, work together to address challenges and solve problems, and be individually accountable for their collective team roles and output. Furthermore, students collaborating on multidisciplinary teams have been found to perceive greater degrees of career preparedness (Wickliff, 1997).

Live PBL also helps students develop crucial communication skills (Clark et al., 2012; McCale, 2008; Walker et al., 2009). Through frequent small- and large-scale presentations, students hone the written and verbal communications and presentation skills that are critical to their future success. Students also learn the importance of managing client communications, engaging an audience (faculty, peers, industry panelists, or clients), and defending their assumptions, opinions, and insights.

Live PBL Design and Structure

In this section, we discuss the structure of two real-time project types (student initiated and student led as well as client based) designed to promote technical and meta-skill development: (1) the marketing for good project, in which student teams create and activate or bring to market a social good initiative and (2) the adaptive media project, in which student teams work with an external client to create and execute paid search and paid social media advertising campaigns. The underlying objectives for both projects are to (1) help students develop and strengthen their technical as well as meta-skills in a real-life setting and (2) help them learn to adapt to uncertainty and manage the ambiguity inherent in real-life projects.

The first project, marketing for good, is sequenced early in students’ upper level marketing coursework (typically during the first semester of their junior year) to provide a broad platform of skill development. The second project, adaptive media, blends continued 4Cs development along with deeper level technical skills related to digital marketing, including paid search and paid social media advertising, optimization techniques, and campaign analytics. In both projects, we seek to progressively build students’ skills in an iterative approach by sequentially introducing new marketing concepts and tools such as design thinking, insight generation, campaign creation, organic and paid search and social media advertising, optimization strategies, and budgeting and return on investment measurement.

We designed these projects to provide students with real-life experiences in working with actual clients along with real budgets and real results. We based the design of these two projects on the development of technical skills (e.g., Facebook and Google Ads, campaign performance measurement and return on investment, Simmons market research, A/B testing) as well as the 4Cs. Throughout both projects, student outcomes and performance are assessed based on the 4Cs in addition to their ability to demonstrate a mastery of technical skills.

Technical and Meta-Skills Assessment

Marketing educators highlight the role and importance of direct assessment of actual student learning (e.g., Bacon, 2016; Lange et al., 2018). Drawing from Bacon (2016) and reflecting the program-level assessment of learning outcomes detailed by Lange et al. (2018), we evaluate the development of students’ technical and meta-skills in a 360-degree assessment process (see Figure 1). This process involves both direct and indirect assessment of skill-based learning outcomes as well as the application of assessment learnings to help inform future course revisions and development.

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Figure 1.

360-Degree skill-based assessment process.

We begin with a direct assessment of technical and meta-skill development associated with predetermined learning outcomes. Between three and five industry and faculty panelists attend the final presentations for both the marketing for good and adaptive media projects and provide feedback related to students’ application of the related technical and meta-skills using a detailed rubric. We analyze the emergent themes from the panelists’ project comments to assess students’ ability to apply these skills as they develop and execute their projects. Indirect assessment includes pre- and post-project surveys related to perceived specific skill development, a reflective writing assignment to capture students’ learning experiences throughout the semester, and student and panelist open-ended comments related to the projects and outcomes. We then apply the results from both the direct and indirect assessment to help inform and revise course content in future semesters.

Learning Outcomes

Learning outcomes for assessing students’ specific technical and meta-skill development are shown in Table 2. Technical skill development includes developing research skills, gaining a working knowledge of paid search platforms (Google Ads) and paid social media (Facebook Ads), optimization (e.g., A/B testing) techniques and how to track and measure campaign performance over time. For instance, through the adaptive media project, students undergo Google Ads certification and learn how to create paid search ads, including key word choice, bidding, ad copy, and week-to-week search campaign optimization. In the project, students also learn to navigate the Facebook ad platform, including audience selection and targeting techniques, selecting campaign objectives (e.g., awareness or conversions), campaign budgeting over time, learning how to apply A/B testing techniques to optimize performance, and analyzing performance with Facebook’s analytics dashboard.

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Table 2.

Assessment of Project Learning Outcomes (LO).

Skill-based learning outcomes: Technical and meta-skills

Technical skills  LO1: Working knowledge of paid search platforms (Google Ads)  LO2: Working knowledge of paid social media platforms (Facebook and Instagram Ads)  LO3: Apply human-centered design thinking and methodology to frame problem and potential solutions  LO4: Conduct primary research and evaluate, apply secondary research, and identify potential target audiences using Google and Facebook audience development platforms  LO5: Create search and social media advertising copy and visuals  LO6: Prepare comprehensive campaign performance reports identifying key performance indicators, apply optimization strategies, and track campaign performance Meta-skills  LO7: Develop distinctive visual brand identity (creativity)  LO8: Create communication elements (video, websites, social media, presentation content; creativity)  LO9: Synthesize primary and secondary research to generate insights (critical thinking)  LO10: Analyze weekly campaign performance (critical thinking)  LO11: Develop teamwork and collaboration skills (collaboration)  LO12: Develop project management skills (collaboration)  LO13: Develop oral and written presentation skills (communication)  LO14: Develop clear and persuasive weekly campaign reports and effectively incorporate weekly campaign data (communication)

Learning outcomes applied to meta-skill development involve the 4Cs. Outcomes related to creativity include the design of visual brand elements and content creation (in the marketing for good project) as well as creating Facebook and Instagram ads and visual elements (images, GIFs, video content), writing ad copy and deciding on ad format (static images, carousel ads, video). In the adaptive media project, learning outcomes include creating search and social media advertising copy and visual elements. Outcomes related to critical thinking include applying team research findings and insights to developing campaign concepts in the marketing for good project and analyzing weekly campaign performance and optimization strategies in the adaptive media project. Learning outcomes involving collaboration include assigning team roles and accountability (both projects). Finally, learning outcomes related to communication include developing and delivering effective and persuasive final team campaign presentations (both projects).

Direct Skills Assessment

Based on the specific learning outcomes shown in Table 2, direct assessment of project outcomes is based on a detailed assessment rubric (see Table 3) that objectively scores student performance on a battery of metrics tied to learning outcomes that are classified as either technical or meta-skills. At the beginning of the semester, student teams are introduced to the assessment rubric so that they know what is expected of them and how their projects will be evaluated. At the end of the semester, final team project presentations (in-person or conducted remotely online) are assessed and evaluated with the assessment rubric by a panel of marketing faculty and select marketing managers and executives from industry. Course coinstructors evaluate student performance related to the rubric- and skill-based learning outcomes. In this way, a student’s performance is assessed through the lens of how well she is able to apply the technical and meta-skills tied to the respective learning outcomes.

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Table 3.

Skill Development Rubric.

Skill type	Four assessment levels: outstanding, good, fair, needs improvement
Paid media  LO1: Conceptualize and launch search key word strategies consisting of branded and nonbranded terms on Google Ads  LO2: Launch, test, and optimize paid social campaigns on Facebook and Instagram
Research and audience development LO3: Design and implement design thinking methodology to inform brand positioning LO4: Develop and analyze primary secondary research and apply Google and Facebook tools to uncover insights and inform campaign and media concepts
Campaign development and tracking LO5: Craft a clear and concise creative brief and create search and social media advertising copy and visuals LO6: Identify and analyze key performance indicators such as search and social media engagement metrics, apply optimization strategies, and track campaign performance
Creativity LO7: Generate original strategic and brand content ideas that are distinctive and address client objectives LO8: Create unique communication elements (video, websites, social media, presentation content)
Critical thinking LO9: Analyze large amounts of information and extract insights that inform brand and creative strategy LO10: Apply data to analyze campaign performance over time
Collaboration LO11: Ability to work in multidisciplinary teams on fast-paced and complex real-world projects LO12: Demonstrate effective project management skills
Communication LO13: Present and defend strategic and creative ideas orally and in well-designed presentation decks LO14: Illustrate campaign performance over time by incorporating weekly campaign data

In addition to the direct assessment of project outcomes and to provide a more holistic 360-degree view of skill development, we incorporate the three indirect assessment techniques that include (1) pre-project and post-project tests of perceived student development and growth linked to specific learning outcomes, (2) a reflective learning assignment involving a written project reflection blog to capture students’ weekly experiences, and (3) student and industry partner qualitative open-ended comments (see Tables 4 and 5) that help illustrate their unique perspectives related overall learning and skill development.

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Table 4.

Representative Student Project Comments.

Respondent	Comments
Student, junior	Developing an actual product helped make the project real.
Student, junior	It gave me exposure to real life marketing and advertising.
Student, junior	Super applicable to real life.
Student, junior	Real life experience, felt like an internship.
Student, junior	It combined all parts of business and we were given enough creative control to become very passionate about marketing.
Student, senior	Hands-on learning. Managing + controlling our campaigns. Lots of responsibility!
Student, senior	Being able to use money to actually run the campaigns. There was added pressure to perform since more was at stake.
Student, senior	This is the most effective, relevant and fascinating course I have taken.
Student, senior	Being able to run ads/optimize campaigns in real life versus just learning from lectures.
Student, senior	I have learned so much by working with a real brand running ads with real money.
Student, senior	Having so much contact with the “outside world” makes the class feel very real and quite valuable. Industry is so baked into nearly every class that it is hard to forget that we are learning things that are so prevalent in the professional setting we’ll be entering upon graduation.

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Table 5.

Representative Industry Partner Comments.

Respondent	Panelist feedback
CEO, advertising agency	Over several years, [agency name] has had the privilege of collaborating with a number of [your] students who personify what it means to be real-world ready. I was impressed with the students’ ability to create a visual identity and communicate how they brought their marketing for good projects to market!
Senior manager, digital media agency	This program bridges the gap between industry need and entry level readiness like nothing I have witnessed before. Students are learning ever changing real-world skills from industry leaders and entering the workforce prepared for success. I can personally attest to the value put on candidates coming out of the program. They meet and beat expectation every time, and that’s rewarded.
Founder, start-up accelerator	I was so incredibly impressed by everything the teams accomplished in the marketing for good projects. They all did a terrific job and you should be proud. I sure am. So, thanks for letting me be a part of the journey.
Executive director, consortium of advertising professionals	By working directly with industry experts and, not only studying, but creating real world marketing solutions, the students step into the world confident, experienced and ready to take on the industry.
Chief strategy officer, advertising agency	The ambition of the [projects] is not to develop book-smart students who not only have an appreciation for the accepted rules of marketing, but real-world ready students.

Taken together, the direct and indirect assessment process evaluates performance on skill-based attributes at the student as well as at the project level. Even though we do not have a “test group” (e.g., students in similar yet purely conceptual projects) with which to compare findings, the assessment results over the past 3 years suggest that students consistently perform strongly (“outstanding” to “good”) on technical and meta-skill development.

Lessons for Marketing Educators

By incorporating live PBL and through the direct and indirect assessment of skill-based learning outcomes, we sought to develop an effective approach to teaching to help students develop technical and meta-skills and learn to adapt to uncertainty. As noted by numerous marketing educators (e.g., Crittenden & Crittenden, 2015), a key challenge for educators in the future will be to continue to develop and evolve course (and project) content so that it keeps pace with frequent industry, technological, and even socioeconomic developments. This is particularly relevant when developing and teaching courses containing digital marketing content, particularly as industry leaders such as Google and Facebook continue to update their advertising platforms and models. In the marketing field, live PBL approaches can help educators introduce new content geared toward advancing both technical skills and meta-skill development among students, ensuring that their courses and content stay relevant given industry developments and shifts in consumer behavior. Similarly, live PBL offers students unplanned learning opportunities involving ambiguity and uncertainty—for instance, when a client does not provide clear feedback, what to do when a user gets locked out of a social media account, or when a social media platform algorithm rejects an ad for unknown reasons. Here, we close by offering several lessons for other marketing educators seeking to bolster and assess student skill development.

First, build in ambiguity. We often find that students struggle with the uncertainty associated with live projects. Beyond knowing what they already know, through live projects students must also dig for and uncover information or data that they need—the known unknown—as well as deal with the ambiguity inherent in simply not knowing what they need to know. Rather than providing students with a strict list of specific boxes to check in order to receive an “A,” we structure the projects around higher level milestones such as problem identification, research and insights generation, proposed solutions, product development where applicable, campaign and messaging creative, and measurement. This provides some necessary structure and direction, yet it also requires the student to fill in the blanks and apply the tools and skills taught in the course to address the unknowns and complete the project. Compared with conceptual projects, ambiguity is also embedded in the “live” nature of the projects themselves, where real-life and client-based work is often characterized by imperfect data, communications, and outcomes. Thus, we believe that students’ skills evolve more fully in a real life “test-and-learn” environment rather than in a “here is how it would work in a perfect world” conceptual project context.

Second, keep it real. A prominent challenge outlined in the marketing education literature related to PBL is the complexity involved with client-based projects (e.g., Clark et al., 2012; Parsons & Lepkowska-White, 2009). However, clients can also add a dimension of reality that theoretical approaches do not. Based on our experience, having real clients participate in live projects adds the important dimensions of direct industry experience and actual results. Client-based projects also require students to manage the client relationship, which alone can be a significant learning outcome. Live projects that receive funding (either from external participating partners or internal budgets) force students to be scrappy and strategic with their spending, to engage more fully in the product development process (including sourcing and negotiating), and to strengthen their knowledge of media planning as they manage budgets and spending. In this way, they learn about actual advertising rates and costs. In terms of client selection, we recommend that educators and administrators develop a source for project “clients” from a pool of local small businesses and startups, some that even may have been started by current or past undergraduate and graduate students.

Third, make projects a three-sided win. Studies suggest that, despite the added complexity and time demands associated with live projects, client-based projects can be beneficial for multiple stakeholders, including the local business community, the students, as well as the client itself (Shanahan et al., 2021). Lange et al. (2018) highlight the different interests and motivations for both students and industry project partners that need to be considered in project design. Student interests involve gaining practical and relevant skills and forging important industry connections. Industry partners may be extrinsically motivated by the opportunity to connect with prospective employees and intrinsically motivated by the opportunity to simply “give back” and help students in the same way that others had helped them during their education. Moreover, the local business community at large can benefit from a wider pool of future-proof and real-world ready entry-level talent.

Finally, be proactive in working with local businesses and with university or college development teams for project funding opportunities. With college and department budgets stressed resulting from the global pandemic, funding projects so that students gain the experience of working with live clients and managing real executions and budgets presents a challenge. Donors, however, may be motivated to fund initiatives such as live industry-based projects that provide students much needed practical experience. One approach is to develop a project funding budget through ongoing college development initiatives or solicit industry sponsors from companies or agencies that may have a vested interest in the project theme. For example, with our marketing for good project, we worked closely with local consumer product brands whose missions aligned with social good and social justice to help fund the project and help students not only create but also actually execute and bring their ideas to life.

Conclusion

It has become increasingly difficult for marketing educators and their course content to keep pace with the rapid changes and developments taking place in marketing and digital technology (e.g., e-commerce, online search, targeting and retargeting practices, privacy regulations, mobile and social media marketing). In response to this challenge, we detail two projects—the marketing for good project and the adaptive media project—that aim to help students develop not only the technical skills necessary for their future development but also important meta-skills as well.

Through live PBL, we highlight how well-crafted projects can lead to the development of what we have defined as the 4Cs as well as numerous technical skills. As technology continues to advance, students will need to continue to adapt to social and economic changes. It therefore becomes even more important for educators to help students develop higher level meta-skills such as creativity, critical thinking and analysis, collaboration and communication, in addition to the technical skills they learn. Research has shown that higher level skill development among students can help them adjust to industry shifts and adopt new technology and tools (Ye et al., 2017). Students who develop both meta-skills and technical skills have an advantage over those who possess a more limited set of skills (Ye et al., 2017). Our recent experience in teaching through the global pandemic shows us that this broader scope of skill development can be even more important in helping students cope with and adapt to change. In this way, live PBL serves as an important component to students’ learning, engaging students in both technical skill and meta-skill development and helping them learn to adapt to future and unknown challenges.

Although developing live projects that involve either real clients or real budgets, or both, can be more complex and costly, we believe the depth and relevance of student learning that takes place in the context of live PBL will help prepare students for future employment and careers—in other words, to become future proof and real-world ready. It is our hope that our experiences and the lessons learned from the projects and the assessment practices detailed here will help inform and inspire the development of even more innovative and progressive marketing curricula, courses, and pedagogy in the service of our students and industry.