Journal of Marketing Education

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Placing a Hand in the Fire: Assessing the Impact of a YouTube Experiential Learning Project on Viral Marketing Knowledge Acquisition Nathaniel J. Payne, Colin Campbell, Anjali S. Bal and Niall Piercy Journal of Marketing Education 2011 33: 204 originally published online 31 May 2011 DOI: 10.1177/0273475311410853 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jmd.sagepub.com/content/33/2/204

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JMDXXX10.1177/0273475311410853

Placing a Hand in the Fire: Assessing the Impact of a YouTube Experiential Learning Project on Viral Marketing Knowledge Acquisition

Journal of Marketing Education 33(2) 204–216 © The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0273475311410853 http://jmed.sagepub.com

Nathaniel J. Payne1, Colin Campbell2, Anjali S. Bal3, and Niall Piercy4

Abstract The goal of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of an experiential learning social media project that was integrated into a graduate marketing class. As part of the semester-long project, students were required to work within a team and create a spoof video, which was posted on YouTube. Students’ success was partially determined by the number of views made of the particular video. After reviewing the results obtained by a semistructured survey, the research indicates that the inclusion of an experiential project into the core curriculum was associated with student motivation, engagement, team management, and communication skills. Furthermore, this integration promoted learning of technical and theoretical knowledge related to consumer-generated advertisements and virtual viral marketing. Results and implications are discussed. Keywords consumer-generated advertising, experiential learning, classroom exercise, user-generated content, viral marketing, social media

Consumer-Generated Advertising Is an Emerging Concern for Managers Over the past decade, the field of social marketing has experienced incredible growth. By leveraging personal contacts and acquaintances, information transmitted over the Internet has the ability to shape consumer expectations (Anderson & Salisbury, 2003; Shukla, 2010; Zeithaml & Bitner, 1996), preusage attitudes (Herr, Kardes, & Kim, 1991), and even postusage perceptions of a product or service (Bone, 1995; Burzynski & Bayer, 1977; De Bruyn & Lilien, 2008; Venkatesh, Smith, & Rangaswamy, 2003). Today, less than 30% of consumers pay attention to mass media advertisements (Lee, Lee, & Lee, 2009), and less than half of consumers believe that advertisements are a useful way to collect information about a product. Although the Internet has dissolved the boundaries that typically prevented anyone from producing media (Berthon, Pitt, & Campbell, 2008), managers have struggled to deal with the challenges that consumer-generated advertising and viral marketing pose. This new generation of media requires new managers to develop proficiency in the technical and theoretical application of consumer-generated advertisement and viral marketing theory in order to build and manage successful marketing campaigns (De Bruyn & Lilien, 2008).

To answer this challenge, graduate business schools have started introducing alternative teaching methods into their curriculum, which use “hands-on” learning and enable managers to acquire strong technical and theoretical foundations in social marketing theories. Unfortunately, despite the successful application of experiential learning methods to a number of graduate business fields, graduate marketing courses that address consumer-generated advertisements and viral marketing are not widespread (Duan, Gu, & Whinston, 2008). To address this gap, the present article reports on the impact of an experiential learning project that was introduced into a 48-student graduate MBA class in the fall of 2009. This project required students to work within a team and create a consumer-generated spoof advertisement that was posted on YouTube and then marketed. The goal was to design a project that would strengthen graduate business pedagogy relating to 1

Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada Monash University, Clayton Campus, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3 Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 4 University of Bath, Bath, UK 2

Corresponding Author: Colin Campbell, Department of Marketing, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Melbourne, Victoria 3800, Australia Email: [email protected]


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Payne et al. social media, while building a template that was transferrable to other learning environments and that would enable the development of well-rounded business graduate students. Learning was meant to encapsulate both familiarity with social media and related Web 2.0 tools as well as experience with the new world of two-way, Internet-facilitated customer–company dialogue or “talk back.” The success of consumer-generated advertisements is intimately related to the concept of viral marketing. Viral marketing leverages the power of peer-to-peer relationships to disseminate information about a product or service (Kalyanam, McIntyre, & Masonis, 2007). Research has shown that consumer-generated media and viral marketing campaigns that use “word-of-mouth” communication models (Godes & Mayzlin, 2004) can have a significant impact on retail sales in various product categories (Chevalier & Mayzlin, 2006; Forman, Ghose, & Wiesenfeld, 2008). This impact is dependent on various product attributes including tie strength (De Bruyn & Lilien, 2008; Frenzen & Nakamoto, 1993; Lee et al., 2009; Watts & Strogatz, 1998; Wuyts, Stremersch, Van Den Bulte, & Franses, 2004), demographic similarity (Banerjee, 1992, 1993; Ferrand, Mounier, & Degenne, 1999), brand congruence among members of a social group (Reingen, Foster, Brown, & Seidman, 1984), degree of trust (Gilly, Graham, Wolfinbarger, & Yale, 1998), perceived risk (Cunningham, 1967; Palka, Pousttchi, & Wiedemann, 2009), and perceptual affinity (Dellarocas, 2003; Duan et al., 2008). YouTube is a popular social networking site that leverages the power of viral marketing. By enabling users to upload and post self-generated content, YouTube is changing the way that consumers interact with brands (Duan et al., 2008; Laroche, Yang, McDougall, & Bergeron, 2005). Every day, an estimated 65,000 new videos are added to YouTube (Arrington, 2006; Clark & Stewart, 2007), and the equivalent of 75 million e-mails are sent through posted commentary as well as forwarded video links (Clark & Stewart, 2007; Kelly, 2007). By posting videos on YouTube, responding to content via posts, and sharing posted content, consumers have the ability to influence marketing and communication campaigns (Owen & Humphries, 2009) as well as the purchasing decisions of consumers across virtually every product category (Duan et al., 2008; Owen & Humphries, 2009). Although some marketers are beginning to recognize the role that consumer-generated advertisements and viral marketing now play in the communications sphere, teaching related skills is a challenge. Because of loss of company control, increased number of communication variables, unpredictable interaction of variables within the communications campaign, and feedback velocity, social marketing strategies are significantly more complex than mass marketing strategies founded in promotional media theory (Owen & Humphries, 2009). Some graduate marketing courses dealing with social media attempt to address the technical aspects of

consumer-generated media and viral marketing using foundations based in traditional print media strategy. Unfortunately, this approach can leave significant gaps in the knowledge of graduating business students. In addition to this, although mass media campaigns often have clear and measurable intentions, the simplicity of open source video-editing software and popularity of social media sites such as YouTube enable anonymous users to edit and repost advertisements and other marketing media, often to the detriment of the target product or brand. Research has shown that consumers have many different motivations for editing campaign content or using video software to produce their own consumer-generated advertisements, including extreme satisfaction or dissatisfaction (Anderson, 1998; Bowman & Narayandas, 2001; Dichter, 1966; Maxham & Netemeyer, 2002; Richins, 1983; Yale, 1987), commitment to the firm (Dick & Basu, 1994), length of the relationship with the firm (Wangenheim & Bayon, 2004), and novelty of the product (Bone, 1992; Dahl & Moreau, 2007; De Bruyn & Lilien, 2008). Unfortunately, in many cases, the motivations of the creator of the consumer-generated advertisements are often ambiguous. This ambiguity can cause significant problems for both new and experienced marketing and communication managers.

Building Social Media Competency in Managers The management of brands is a strategic issue that can affect the firm as a whole (Keller, 1999). As the marketing and communications evolves beyond its traditional form, graduate marketing pedagogy must evolve to ensure that those charged with the creation of viral marketing campaigns and the management of consumer-generated advertisements understand the factors influencing the success of both (Berthon et al., 2008; Handelman, 2006). Today, brands give identity to the customers who purchase, own, use, and consume them (Muñiz & Schau, 2007). Consumers can identify themselves according to the brands that they support as well as the brands they oppose. For many consumers, creating and broadcasting online advertisements that spoof or mock certain brands is a key part of their own identity formation (Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006). Additionally, as our knowledge of consumer psychology continues to evolve, there is increasing recognition that the online behavior of consumers is mediated by a number of key factors. For example, consumers with little expertise in a product category (Gilly et al., 1998), who perceive a high risk in decision making (Bansal & Voyer, 2000) or who are deeply involved in the purchasing decision, are more likely to seek the opinions of others for product advice (De Bruyn & Lilien, 2008). Once managers become aware of the factors relating to consumer-generated advertisements and viral marketing, they must develop appropriate strategies to respond and monitor this phenomenon (Berthon et al., 2008).


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It is important that the curriculum sufficiently addresses the technical and theoretical aspects of these issues so that business graduates working in the area of communications and marketing are capable of moderating or influencing consumers’ perceptions, attitudes, and online behaviors. A sound analysis of a social marketing channels will optimally consider the implications of viral marketing from the firm’s perspective, addressing what the firm’s attitude should be toward the communications, how to engage it, how the perceptions of that firm or actor are being influenced as compared with those of competitor firms, and how the organization or actor should respond (Berthon et al., 2008). Although foundational and case-based methods help answer some of these questions, our research proposes that the operational integration of these concepts is most effectively addressed within an experiential learning framework.

The Growing Role of Experiential Learning in Marketing Education Over the past 20 years, mimetic and coercive pressures from various stakeholders in the business and educational community have encouraged the evolution of graduate marketing curricula. As the foundations of graduate marketing education have become more student-centric, graduate marketing departments have been forced to ensure that their graduate business courses include an experiential element (Barr & Tagg, 1995; Elam & Spotts, 2004; Lamont & Friedman, 1997). Commonly, foundational graduate marketing courses bombarded students with constructs and terminology that delineated theoretical approaches to social marketing problems but often provided graduates with limited opportunities for hands-on technical skill acquisition, thinking, and problem solving (Diamond, Koernig, & Iqbal, 2008). This lack of technical orientation, often reserved for fieldwork semesters and capstone degree projects, prevents other MBA graduates from developing a deep understanding of consumer-generated media and viral marketing constructs. Although prospective employers often agree that the typical graduate marketing major is conversant in the language of social marketing, they have historically been less satisfied with the ability of current MBA graduates to develop and manage successful viral marketing campaigns while responding to the challenges that consumer-generated media provides (Chonko & Caballero, 1991; Diamond et al., 2008; Enis, 1989; Floyd & Gordon, 1998; Jaju & Kwak, 2000; O’Brien & Deans, 1995). To solve the lack of technical and practice-based pedagogy in graduate business education, postsecondary institutions around the world have slowly started increasing the frequency in which alternative learning frameworks are included in graduate business courses. Unfortunately, these additions have not sufficiently addressed the need for technical and practical knowledge of social marketing, particularly as it applies to

consumer-generated media and viral marketing (Elam & Spotts, 2004). Experiential learning is the study of learning through action. In experiential learning, students actively engage with the information being presented and link the theory to their own practice. By engaging in experiential learning, students cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally processes the information they are learning, enabling them to achieve a high level of active involvement (Elam & Spotts, 2004; Keeton & Tate, 1978) that is reinforced through active reflection (Frontczak & Kelley, 2000). Active or experiential learning is an outgrowth of the constructivist perspectives developed by Jean Piaget (Piaget, 1970; Piaget & Inhelder, 1973). Piaget and others (Kolb, 1984; Vince, 1998) argue that knowledge is actively constructed, resulting from a continuous interaction with the world via the process of assimilation and accommodation (Diamond et al., 2008). To enable the introduction of experiential learning in the graduate classroom, instructors have been forced to keep abreast of current practice and implementation rather than simply rely on more general theory. Students have also been forced to take a more active role in their own knowledge development (Celsi & Wolfinbarger, 2002). This transformation has enabled students to create strong links to their own practices and experience (Hamer, 2000), resulting in greater enthusiasm and motivation (Dabbour, 1997; Garcia & Pontrich, 1996; Karns, 2005), higher grades, improved performance (Drea, Tripp, & Stuenkel, 2005; Hamer, 2000; Lawson, 1995; Perry, Huss, McAuliff, & Galas, 1996; Young, Klemz, & Murphy, 2003), better retention higher perceived course effectiveness (Karns, 2005), and a more meaningful learning experience (Granitz, 2001). Within the past decade, the number of graduate business programs using experiential learning frameworks to complement their traditional curriculum has increased (Gremler, Hoffman, Keaveney, & Wright, 2000). Experiential learning designs have been applied successfully in a number of areas in graduate business education, including foundational marketing (Bobbitt, Inks, Kemp, & Mayo, 2000; Munoz & Huser, 2008), marketing research (Bridges, 1999), services marketing (Gremler et al., 2000), economics (Hawtrey, 2007), entrepreneurship and retail management (Daly, 2001), and community-based service learning (Andrews, 2007; Govekar & Rishi, 2007). This lack of attention to consumer-generated advertising and virtual marketing has left a gap in the literature relating to experiential social marketing education that impairs new graduates’ ability to manage social media campaigns effectively.

A Technique for Teaching Consumer-Generated Advertising In an effort to provide deep learning of both the technical and the theoretical foundations relating to consumer-generated


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Payne et al. media and viral advertising, an experiential learning project was developed for a graduate MBA marketing foundations course. This exercise required students to develop an Internet spoof video that was posted on YouTube and to use whatever means necessary to maximize the number of views their video received. The 48 students who participated in the activity came from a variety of backgrounds, and many were unfamiliar with the video editing required to create the online video. Students were graded on the number of hits their videos received, as well as on the creativity of the final result. This grading scheme required students to identify products and organizations amiable to viral marketing, determine the content of their spoof video that would optimize views and viewer feedback, choose the best promotional channels to advertise their video, and react appropriately to responses and actions taken by anonymous viewers. The experiential learning project had a number of learning objectives. The first goal of the project was to ensure that all students were able to build theoretical and technical foundations in the areas of consumer-generated advertising and viral marketing. The project forced students to develop competencies in search and retrieval (Natesan & Smith, 1998), problem solving, and viral promotion, while providing technical competencies relating to the areas of information technology, multimedia, information support services, and desktop publishing (Daly, 2001; Jones & Berry, 2000). The second objective of the project was to develop an encompassing experiential exercise that would require each student to apply social marketing concepts in a technical manner. The resulting spoof video would form part of the graduate’s final portfolio, helping them position themselves as leaders in the social marketing field on graduation (Elam & Spotts, 2004). Another learning goal of the exercise was to include a team-based component that would enable each student to develop his or her teamwork and team management skills. To meet this objective, each student was randomly selected to a team consisting of 4 to 6 members. Group members were not allocated based on prior knowledge or technical ability. Teams were given few guidelines regarding team organization and group leadership. Group members were asked after the project was complete to provide peer evaluations that influenced the final allocation of project marks. By including an undefined team component, group members were forced to navigate many of the pitfalls that are often associated with group work. This group component helped students learn not only the importance of meeting deadlines but also the important of being flexible when working with peers who had demanding work, family, and scholastic commitments. Finally, the exercise helped build business communication skills. Successful business graduates must be highly competent communicators. By incorporating project components that required written submissions, as well as the preparation and presentation of benchmark reports to instructors regarding

the project, students were able to practice creating formal business correspondence and develop their presentation skills. As with other projects, students were encouraged to communicate with each other using social networking tools as well as postings in virtual classroom bulletin boards and virtual blogs (Eastman & Swift, 2002).

Key Challenges of the Technique By using an experiential learning exercise, students were empowered to control their own learning. Students were not instructed how to divide work within their group, and no advice was provided regarding their problem and assigned tasks. Students were provided with evaluation criteria prior to the beginning of the assignment as well as the expected outcomes and due dates but were not provided with any insights on how to accomplish those outcomes. Although this setup was attractive, there were a number of challenges that this approach imposed on students. Although self-directed learning can be empowering for students, those students who have lower competencies or intrinsic motivation can suffer when required to take responsibility for their own learning (Lambrecht, 1999). This can be significantly detrimental to students, particularly those who were less engaged in the project and with their group. To address this issue, the professor acted as a facilitator and provided a rich pool of resources to groups, which support the learning of each individual student. Another challenge arose because of variance in the skill levels of students. To ensure fairness, teams were selected anonymously. A drawback of this approach is that since the technical expertise of each individual student was not identified prior to group selection, some groups lacked members with both technical and theoretical foundations in media production. This challenge was thought to be most significant for groups whose members were all unfamiliar with the technical skills required to create a YouTube spoof video. As expected, this increased conflict between group members of some teams and required a number of group members to dedicate significant time to tasks within the project that they had no experience completing. Even in groups with students skilled in video production, the potential for disagreement exists. Some groups reported that those with poor competencies relating to technical video editing engaged in free riding within their teams. This negative behavior has been shown to increase intergroup frustration and conflict, while interfering with the processes of engagement and active reflection that are critical to the experiential learning process (Diamond et al., 2008).

Results and Learning Outcomes Following completion of the 4-month exercise, each student in the class was asked to anonymously and individually complete a survey discussing his or her perceptions of the project,


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Focused On Picked The Evaluated Determined Group Picked The Target Product With The Which Leader Product That Ad The Greatest Popularity of Product Was Determined We Disliked Online the Product The Funniest The Product The Most Appeal

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Figure 1. Product selection: How did your group choose the product you spoofed?

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Figure 2. Selection motivations: Why did your group choose the product that it did?

challenges, as well as the relevance of the project for students. Students were asked, but not required, to submit feedback to ensure that the integrity of the responses was maintained. Forty-eight surveys were issued to the class, and all 48 surveys were returned completed. Following the collection of the surveys, survey answers were compiled. To ensure that validity was maintained, the qualitative responses were not edited when thematic coding took place (Neale et al., 2009). By categorizing the open-ended responses into topics and subtopics, insights into the student’s attitudes regarding experiential learning frameworks were revealed. The qualitative responses are available categorized and uncategorized, according to the 11 questions asked on the postproject survey. During the assignment, the following organizations were chosen as the target of consumer-generated YouTube spoof videos: Garnier Shampoo, Pepsi, Lens Crafters, CTV Olympics, Twilight, Disney, Starbucks, Sony, and E-Harmony. Student selection of companies was quite varied; however, they did share one commonality: significant online footprints. When analyzing how students arrived at a product choice, 25.0% of the students from the class chose their products using group consensus or compromise; 22.9% of the class selected the product based on the spoof video that they wanted to produce

without consideration for the product or its popularity; and 16.7% of the class chose their products based on the degree of online appeal the focal organization or product had on social networking sites including YouTube. Finally, another 16.7% chose the product in question based on the overall market popularity of the product without taking into account how frequently the product was spoofed or displayed on social networking sites. Of interest, 10.4% of the class reported selecting the product because of their dissatisfaction with the brand and stated desire to negatively affect the brand and its product. Student product selection choices are noted in Figure 1. Why students chose an organization or product is a key determinant in analyzing the strategic decision making pathways of students. As noted in Figure 2, 31.3% of the class chose their product based on the popularity of the product, and 20.8% decided which product or ad to spoof according to the humor inherent in the advertisement. In addition to these responses, students used the following additional criteria to guide their product selection choices: ease of completion (10.4%), group compromise with no identified strategy (14.6%), the product was one enjoyed by the majority of group members (12.5%), and originality (2.1%). In terms of satisfaction relating to the creation of the advertisement, 79.2% of the class noted that they enjoyed creating


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Figure 3. Satisfaction evaluation: Did you enjoy planning and making the advertisement? 50.0%

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Figure 4. Understanding student dissatisfaction: Why did you dislike planning and making the advertisement?

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The Output We Enjoyed I Enjoyed The Was The Chance To Teamwork Entertaining Be Creave

I Enjoyed I Enjoyed Experiencing Compeng Something With My Peers New

2.9% Class feedback

Figure 5. Student satisfaction explained: Why did you enjoy planning and making the advertisement?

the advertisement itself, whereas 10.4% noted that they did not enjoy the process (see Figure 3), and 8.3% of the class enjoyed the process but had reservations. For those who did not enjoy planning and creating the advertisement, or who had reservations, the following rationale was expressed. As noted in Figure 4, 6.3% of the class was frustrated with the lack of equitable distribution of technical skills, and another 4.2% was frustrated with the time commitment required to complete the project. Approximately 10.4% of the class described being frustrated with their group members and disengaged over the course of the semester because of the group conflict. On the other hand, of the 79.2% of the class that enjoyed

designing and creating the spoof video, the following reasons were cited (see Figure 5): 33.3% found the process to be entertaining, 12.5% enjoyed having the opportunity to be creative, another 12.5% of the class enjoyed the teamwork component, and 10.4% of the class enjoyed the challenge the product provided. A critical element of the project required group members to maximize the number of views their particular video received. Students had a number of options available to them to achieve this, including forwarding the spoof video link to their family or friends. Of the 48 students surveyed, 87.5% of the class forwarded the link to their family and friends and


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Figure 6. Spoof video distribution: After the video was posted on YouTube, did you forward the link to your family and friends?

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Figure 7. Project views: How often did you visit you tube to check on the number of views of your video?

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Read All Comments, Responded To None

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Figure 8. Commentary analysis: Did you read any of the comments posted on your video? Did you respond to any of the comments?

encouraged them to click through and view the video. These results are consolidated in Figure 6. Approximately 8.3% of the class forwarded the link to select contacts, omitting close family, friends, or future coworkers. In reviewing the responses of those who did not forward the project link to their family, a number of responses noted that they were uncomfortable with the content in the videos. This was particularly significant for respondents who were hesitant sending advertisements with strong sexual themes directly to their parents. A number of other students did not forward it though because they were unhappy with the quality of the final product. Student engagement is a critical part of the experiential learning process. If students do not engage with material

presented, connections between the new content and the students’ prior experiences are less likely to be established. One way in which student engagement was evaluated in this study was through an analysis of how many times each student visited the video on the YouTube site following posting. As noted in Figure 7, 56.3% of the students said that they visited the video page every day to review content, messages, and hits; 29.1% of the class visited the YouTube page 2 to 3 times a week; whereas 12.5% of the class visited once a week. Additionally, as shown in Figure 8, 64.6% of the students in the class read all responses posted but did not respond to any posts; 20.8% of the class read all comments and responded to all; whereas 12.5% of the class only read a selection of


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Figure 9. Future actions: Based on your experiences, would you ever make another spoof video on your own?

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Figure 10. Assignment improvements: If you could do the activity again what would you change?

responses and responded to those. Only one student in the class reported not reading any responses posted to the video. When students were asked whether they would ever make another consumer-generated advertisement, responses were mixed. Figure 9 shows the consolidated results from the survey on future actions. Of the class, 41.7% mentioned that they would make another consumer-generated advertisement on their own; whereas 35.4% of the class said that they would not. However, 22.9% of the class had no response to this question. Of those students who said that they would not make another advertisement, a variety of reasons were cited, including a deficiency in the necessary technical skills, a lack of time necessary to allocate to the process, as well as a lack of interest. The time required to complete the project was a significant drawback noted by nearly 50% of the class, which is to be expected considering that student workloads within the class were not uniformly shared. Of those students

who said that they would pursue the creation of consumergenerated advertisements on their own after the class, the opportunity to be creative and participate in the brand development perspective was a key reason. After reviewing their final product, students were asked what improvements they would like to see if the assignment were repeated. In all, 18.9% of the class noted that they would not change anything if they had to complete the assignment again. As noted in Figure 10, 22.9% of the class mentioned that they would change the product, recognizing that they had made strategic mistakes that impaired the appeal and ultimate distribution of the advertisement. Additionally, 16.7% of the class mentioned that they would improve the quality of the video that was produced, whereas 8.3% of the class felt that the time commitment should be reduced or the marks allocated to the project increased. In total, 10.4% of the class noted that they would change their groups or build more


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Figure 11. Memories: What will you remember from this activity?

formal mechanisms to reduce group conflict, whereas another 4.2% of the class noted that they would change the way their team distributed and promoted the video. Finally, students reflected on what they would remember most about this activity. Readers are reminded that in the interest of questionnaire brevity, students made only once choice from those presented. As such, it is likely that their overall memories are more multifaceted than this question might make them seem. Nonetheless, the question provides insight into the assignment’s strongest appeals. Of the class, 27.1% noted that they would remember the group members that they worked with as well as the team management skills that they learned. As noted in Figure 11, 14.6% of the class noted that they would remember the theoretical and technical lessons regarding viral marketing and consumer-generated advertising and use those in their own workplace. Another 12.5% of the class mentioned that they would remember the entertainment value they derived from completing the project, 10.4% of the class noted that they would remember the group conflict experience in completing the project, whereas 8.3% of the class would remember the creative process. The final 8.3% of the class noted that they would benefit significantly from the technical skills acquired by completing the project.

Discussion A review of the students’ results shows that they benefited significantly from being able to participate in the entire planning and execution process of the YouTube spoof video.

Students used foundational resources provided by the instructor, as well as their own experiences and those of their team members, to develop a plan of action, select an organizational or product target, create a spoof advertisement, post this consumer-generated spoof video online, and receive feedback from their peers as well as from anonymous users regarding the video content and quality. The survey responses elicited a number of themes that support the inclusion of experiential learning projects within graduate business courses. These responses contribute to discussions regarding the effectiveness of experiential learning frameworks within the postsecondary environment as a whole. First, results show that this project positively affected student engagement. Although students were involved in the planning and creation of their team’s advertisements, consolidation of the responses reveals that 97.9% of the students in the class checked the status of their videos at least once a week after posting. Every student in the class reported reading some of the comments posted by viewers, enabling students to receive feedback from both anonymous users and peers. This process of review increased the amount of reflective learning students experienced through the project. Moreover, the class’s commitment to reviewing commentary and checking their projects weekly speaks strongly to the issue of student engagement. Although the project’s result was tied to the students’ overall grade, students’ involvement in their projects exhibited a level of engagement that exceeded the traditional level of engagement seen in practice-focused projects


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Payne et al. using group-based problem solving, problem-based learning, case studies, and interactive computer learning (Arwood, 2004; Handelsman et al., 2004). Second, survey results illustrate that the majority of students enjoyed the process of planning and creating the advertisement, with 79.2% of the class stating that they enjoyed making the YouTube spoof video. Students enjoyed the opportunity to be creative, to work within a team, to compete with their fellow peers, and to build an entertaining product that they could share with their parents, friends, coworkers, and future employers. Furthermore, the majority of students commented that they enjoyed having the opportunity to develop technical as well as foundational skills that built around their previous experience. This research also shows that the project design was not immune to the challenges inherent in experiential learning. The use of an unstructured experiential learning approach did increase the amount of frustration and conflict occurring within groups. A number of students were clearly frustrated by the time commitment required, and it was clear from the results that every student did not engage equally in all aspects of the project. This frustration, along with the inequitable distribution of work within teams, prevented every student in the class from developing a comprehensive theoretical and technical understanding of consumer-generated advertising and online viral marketing. In addition to these discoveries, by reflecting on their work, many students found that even when a product seems inherently amenable to viral marketing, fast growth is not guaranteed. Success within the online sphere depends on a variety of factors, including the distribution methods, video quality, script, content, product, as well as environmental events. Many students were surprised that their video did not receive significant hits immediately, particularly when it contained humorous or sexual themes that were perceived to be favorable. This reinforced the fact that many groups did not engage in a rigorous preparatory phase prior to selecting the product or advertisement to be spoofed. Rather, these decisions were dictated by group politics and conflict, individual group member’s affinities for particular products, as well as other factors that resulted in nonoptimal decision making. Overall, we found that the approach of administering a semistructured experiential learning project through the course of the semester was extremely effective. This project achieved all the initial objectives, helping students identify deficiencies relating to their knowledge of online viral marketing; strengthened students’ strategic decision making skills; and helped students acquire strong group, time, and project management skills, while also helping them improve their communication skills. The group project provided students with a tangible manifestation of their knowledge in the form of a group project presentation and gave students the opportunity to receive significant amounts of feedback from users within the community. Moreover, this project filled a critical gap in

the graduate marketing curriculum by providing every student in the class the opportunity to acquire theoretical and technical foundations in consumer-generated advertising and viral marketing.

Limitations It is important to note that the present research, like all research, has a number of limitations. First, student responses were unstructured and did not necessarily capture all feelings— positive and negative—relating to the course. Although our survey approach met the requirements for a semistructured research tool, a more rigorous approach in the future could enhance the validity of these findings. As well, other researchers may want to expand on our sample size and explore further the issue of technical proficiency in the learning process. Future researchers may also want to have several data collection points so as to better gauge how groups are operating throughout the terms rather than merely after the fact. Furthermore, as experiential learning frameworks are not consistently applied, and this project focused on a novel area of marketing theory, we were not able to identify marketing exercises that covered similar content in a comparable way. Similarly, our course used a blended approach combining both traditional instructional with an experiential learning project. To truly address the question of student satisfaction, engagement, and intrinsic motivation within the context of a graduate marketing course, it would be necessary to compare our results with a pure experiential course in social marketing as well as with a pure instructional course teaching the same content. This comparison would improve the strength of our results and improve the overall research design. Finally, the experience of using a blended experiential learning framework represents only one approach to course design. Other designs and approaches to teaching this content could and should be considered. As noted above, one could hypothetically restructure the entire course into an experiential learning framework. Unfortunately, although this was our desire, traditional institutional assessment requirements as well as course history made this transition difficult.

Conclusion Overall, our results are important for graduate business instructors, business faculty members, and curriculum designers. As graduate business programs continue to face increased competition, graduate business schools will find it increasingly more difficult to attract and retain high-caliber students. Experiential learning projects and courses fill that gap, providing institutions with a valuable tool that can help motivate marketing students, as well as attract nontraditional applicants back to the classroom. By providing an action-oriented learning environment, anchoring the project within the task domain, helping the students recognize and navigate errors, and providing limited


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guidance, a superior training environment was created that resulted in significantly higher levels of class engagement, learning, and achievement. Additionally, by encouraging students to view the professor as a resource rather than an instructor, and by empowering students, this social constructivist approach strengthens the relationship between the professor and students, while facilitating the type of deep learning that is critical for long-term knowledge retention. The purpose of this research was to present a framework for a blended experiential learning course that would help teach future graduate business students to identify viral marketing opportunities, create consumer-generated media, and respond strategically to challenges posted by viral marketing threats using sound decision making. By integrating an experiential learning framework within the course, students were able to personalize and develop a rich tool kit of social marketing knowledge that will serve them well in the future. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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