Peer Review

Free Marketing Simulation Game

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Sep 21, 2017 by Business

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

I have decided to develop and provide a free marketing simulation game for lecturers and instructors. One of the challenges of any simulation game is explaining, sometimes a complex set of rules, to students. Therefore, I have designed this simulation game to be simple and easy to understand, yet being complex enough to enable discussion of numerous marketing concepts.

Please note that the simulation game can be downloaded at the bottom of this article.

Please also refer to the teaching notes page and the instructor’s guide to running the game.

Type of Material:

Simulation

Recommended Uses:

This is designed to be a team activity. It can be used either in a short-version, or perhaps for several weeks in a more advanced class. The instructor can determine the best application--perhaps to accompany a marketing strategy course, addressing individual topics as the simulation progresses, or as specific homework assignments, to coordinate with course lecture topics.

Technical Requirements:

Excel is used without macros.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

- To understand a game/simulation using Excel - To grasp basic marketing topics such as segmentation, positioning, ROI, Customer Lifetime Value, metrics, and dashboards

Target Student Population:

Undergraduate upper-level marketing students

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

An understanding of Excel; marketing strategy and concepts, so at a minimum, principles of marketing course. Additional financial concepts would be helpful.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: - The simulation is fully supported with video instructions for both instructors and faculty. - Additionally, there are teaching notes and an instructor's guide provided, along with an introduction / help article provided for the students. - The simulation's strength is a short learning curve. - Students can input data on paper or Excel. - The faculty member controls inputting data for the simulation. - The system is designed to identify input problems. - Results, including graphs, are provided. - Output to students includes: total sales, market share, sales of the best product, repositioning costs, profit, rank for round and all rounds, and accumulated profits and budget. - There also are graphics of sales, profit for round and accumulated and competitors per cell.
Concerns:: - Guidance on how groups improve is not provided; faculty member must provide.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: - The simulation provides a great number of application opportunities, and could easily be used for a marketing strategy course supplement. - The site is well-designed, and support instructions and materials, along with the two approximately 15 minute videos for instructors and students are excellent demonstrations of how it works and how to use the information.
Concerns:: - It is unclear how a student would identify where the segments are when beginning.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: - The simulation is simple and easy to use--as the designer intended. - It has many applications, and covers a variety of marketing strategy decisions. - Excel is used without macros. - Supportive videos (separate 15-minute videos for students and faculty) and documentation is provided.
Concerns:: None

Other Issues and Comments:: The simulation uses a positioning map (quality and style) listing product demand. Students choose a “square” on the positioning and receive those points. Note: If multiple teams choose a cell (matrix), each receives a portion of that value. Each cell has a cost (two hundred per square moved from start). You start with a low quality and basic product. You want to minimize competitive “battles.” You may place multiple products in a cell. There are four segments. Existing products have a brand loyalty benefit (20%). Students start with 5,000 points. Repositioning is at least 200 points (per cell move). There is a cost for discontinuing a product. It is not product or currency specific although the developer does say it could be for the fashion or shoe industry.
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