Real experiences from the classroom

I teach digital marketing management course at the Poznań University of Economics and Business. The course lasts fifteen weeks. The simulation fits into the practical part of the course, taking place in a lab. Lab work is preceded by a short lecture, which introduces key concepts relevant to the current round of the simulation. At the end of the semester, students present their assumptions, strategies, and how they evolved across Simbound rounds. There’s also a short theoretical test. The best performing teams are exempt from it, to encourage competition.

I appreciate both the scope and the depth of digital marketing modules offered. They resemble the real tools such as Google Ads or Meta Ads, while being simple enough to avoid overwhelming the students without prior digital marketing experience. I also appreciate that students receive objective feedback based on their performance, along with a chance to improve it. This is entirely separate skill, that’s extremely tough to practice using more traditional methods.

The largest change I’ve noticed is how consistently engaged and motivated students remain across the semester. Oftentimes they get so into it, that they are surprised by the class ending. They are also more motivated to seek out new knowledge on their own. In general, it seems that whereas in typical class or project work, students seek solutions that are good enough, with Simbound, they actually try to get as good as possible.

1. Play through the simulation yourself and learn the interface. Students will raise questions and may experience technical problems (sometimes self-inflicted). Dealing with them quickly is important, and communicates that you know what you’re doing, rather than just offloading your teaching job to an algorithm. 2. Leverage competition, but in a balanced way. It’s a great motivator, but someone is bound to lose, even if they still perform great value-wise. If the price of losing is too high (e.g. failing the course or receiving a poor grade), then students may focus too much on trying to game the system (e.g. by finding exploits), rather than treating the game as a learning opportunity and an environment where one can safely make mistakes.

A crisis communication simulation. A more in-depth social media simulation (e.g. with multiple platforms with differing audiences, content formats, etc.). An influencer marketing simulation (with several fictional influencers, with specific brand affinities, audiences and risk/reward parameters).