Types of Activities

Welcome to Great Ideas 

This is a website set up in 2012 and designed to help lecturers and teachers add practical activities, as well as  variety and depth to teaching marketing.

To facilitate this goal, efforts have been made to provide a variety of different exercises in order to help with the development of suitable marketing lesson plans.

Ideally, many of these activities and exercises fit nicely with flipped classroom teaching. As we know, this is an effective method of teaching as it deepens students understanding beyond top-level theory and gets them to practically apply their knowledge.

And finally, the Great Ideas website has been designed so that you can pick-and-choose the style and topic of marketing activity that suits your needs. The main activity styles available and their teaching intentions are listed below.


Review exercises

  • These are relatively short activities designed to quickly reinforce and apply a marketing concept/model.
  • These teaching activities can be used equally in a lecture or a discussion class.
  • Typically they should be completed on an individual student basis.
  • Check out all Review Exercises here.

Discussion exercises

  • As suggested by the name, discussion exercises are designed to be completed in a small group of students, usually with the intention of feeding back into an overall class discussion.
  • In most cases, the students are presented with a specific marketing situation and are often asked to connect the topic back to aspects of marketing theory, identify advantages and disadvantages, and then reach a conclusion or business recommendation.
  • Check out the range of Discussion Exercises here.

Role-play exercises

  • Role-play exercises are usually structured around several people (or functional roles) and the presentation of the initial information is often in the form of a summary from a manager’s marketing meeting.
  • This gives the students an insight into the range of business views.
  • These exercises can either be used as straight discussion activities or utilized as actual role-plays, where the students can read out the ‘script’ or even take the role of one of the meeting’s participants.
  • See the selection of Role Play Exercises here.

Decision activities

  • With the decision activities, students need to make a marketing decision. Usually a difficult marketing scenario is presented (that is, one where several approaches are viable).
  • The task of the student in these activities is weigh up the for/against of a number of marketing options and select and argue for one approach.
  • Review the choice of Decision Activities here.

Mini-case studies

  • On this marketing teaching resources site, the mini case studies have been placed in the same category as decision activities (see how to search).
  • Therefore, they are similar in structure and design. However, the initial marketing information that the students are presented with is slightly different.
  • The students will generally have 3-5 paragraphs outlining the marketing situation of either a real or hypothetical firm (see below why hypothetical case studies are often used).
  • Review the choice of Mini-case Studies here.

Teaching Games and Sim Games

  • There is a wide and growing selection of teaching games available on GITM, as I have had a focus on the gamification of teaching marketing.
  • They are very effective for student engagement, team building, and adding a sense of fun and competition to the classroom.
  • And when you think about it, teaching marketing students about being competitive is a helpful skill for their future careers.
  • See the list of Teaching Games and Sim Games here.
  • Here is a summary of List of All Free Marketing Tools
  • And a summary for List of All Marketing Tools for Members

Digital Escape Rooms

  • It is possible that some of your students have participated in a escape room for fun, as they have become quite popular in recent years.
  • The escape rooms on Great Ideas require students to answer marketing questions and then solve a puzzle (or crack a code) before moving on to the next puzzle – just like in a physical escape room.
  • Find out more about the Digital Escape Rooms here.

Multiple Choice Questions

  • There is a mix of video-based and written multiple choice questions on Great Ideas.
  • The video MCQ’s are fun and easy to use in class.
  • And the written MCQ’s are a little tougher and provide excellent revision and discussion opportunities.
  • See the MCQ Activities here.

News items

  • Next we have teaching activities built around a marketing news item. These are summarized versions of a firm’s media release (they will also be a link to the article an online newspaper).
  • Therefore, the students review a summary of an article, usually about a marketing initiative or challenge, followed by a range of discussion questions.
  • See the News Items activities here.

Helpful Tools

  • There are many helpful tools for students to use available on Great Ideas.
  • These include a SWOT Maker, a Customer Journey Map Maker, a Perceptual Map Maker, and quite a few more.
  • They are ideal for more in-depth exercises or student tools for their assignment and reports.
  • See the related activities for the Marketing Tools here.

Helpful Teaching Tips and Guides

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