Critical approaches in undergraduate marketing teaching: investigating students' perceptions

For some years now, marketing educators have been exhorted to adopt more critical approaches in teaching and learning. Such approaches are purported to bring numerous benefits to students, including improved appraisal skills, self-awareness, and enhanced abilities to deal with the uncertainties and ambiguities of marketing practice. To date however, there has been very little empirical study of how students respond to critical approaches, and whether they perceive any of the proposed benefits themselves. This study addresses the gap by investigating the perceptions and experiences of students on two modules, both of which take similarly designed critical approaches. In practice, students were found to perceive the modules as more labour intensive and intellectually challenging than others, due primarily to the volume and depth of required reading. The task of being critical was itself perceived as difficult, due to the need for a different mindset, and for students to have confidence in their own ideas. However, overall evaluations of the modules were positive, and students identified a number of benefits and personal rewards from their experiences, at least some of which matched with those proposed in the literature. The paper discusses factors influencing students' perceptions and concludes with some practical recommendations.     

Managing destination brands: establishing a theoretical foundation

There is general agreement in the literature that the marketing of places as brands requires “a special type of marketing” (Ashworth 1993, p. 648). But while the problems inherent in place marketing are well documented (see for example Karavatzis and Ashworth 2005) very little attention has been given to the development of a theory of destination branding which can be used to guide destination brand managers and form the basis of future research. The conclusions from a review of the literature are tested against the experiences of practitioners (Churchill 1979) by means of 25 depth interviews with Senior Managers in 20 Destination Marketing Organisations. Five critical antecedents of successful destination branding are identified: stakeholder partnerships, brand leadership, departmental coordination, brand communications and brand culture. Two key mediating factors are also identified: brand reality and brand architecture. The managerial implications of these findings are discussed.