Practising creativity to develop students in marketing

This paper presents the findings of a ‘client-based’ experiential learning innovation introduced into the curriculum of a postgraduate marketing and advertising programme at a UK higher education institution. Based on interview data from current and former students, academic staff and industry participants (representing an evaluation of up to five years post-implementation), and this research sought to offer empirically generated understanding of student engagement with creative problem-solving. Students worked in small groups to synthesize their prior learning of the subject in order to devise and competitively present an advertising campaign to a client firm. Findings highlighted the important role of realism in the approach adopted that led to the development of creative skills and resilience among the cohort. This paper concludes that whilst students place emphasis on skills that make them more flexible in the application of creative problem-solving, firms appear to value their fluency and ability to elaborate on their decision-making. With the increasingly prominent feature of experience in contemporary business and marketing programmes today, this paper therefore contributes to an understanding of the process and value of such experiential project-based teaching and learning approaches.