Enhancing Student Performance in Collegiate Marketing Competitions: The ECHO Judges' Perspectives

Abstract

Marketing and advertising educators are striving to better prepare students to meet the demands of the rapidly changing, data-driven, knowledge-based world. Employers seek graduates who have analytical and creative knowledge and skills and experiences beyond typical classroom learning. Most educators agree that it is critical to reduce the gap between marketing theory and practice by incorporating more experiential components in students' learning processes. This study reports the findings of an online survey conducted to gather the perceptions and opinions of business professionals who have served as judges for an international collegiate marketing competition, the Collegiate ECHO Challenge, in order to assist marketing and advertising educators to better mentor student competition teams, especially those competing in the Collegiate ECHO Challenge; help educators evaluate the quality of student projects and marketing campaigns created for client-based projects and competitions via grading rubrics; and enhance the overall quality of student marketing projects and campaigns.