Work-integrated learning in the form of internships is increasingly important for universities as they seek to compete for students and seek links with industry. Yet, there is surprisingly little empirical research on the details of internships: what they should accomplish, how they should be structured and how student performance should be assessed. There is also surprisingly little conceptual analysis of these key issues, either for business internships in general, or marketing internships in particular. Furthermore, the "answers" on these issues may differ depending upon the perspective of the three stakeholders: students, business managers and university academics. There is no study in the marketing literature that surveys all three groups on these important aspects of internships. To fill these gaps, this paper discusses and analyses internship goals, internship structure, and internship assessment for undergraduate marketing internships, and then reports on a survey of the views of all three stakeholder groups on these issues. There is considerable variety of approaches for internships, but generally there is consensus among the stakeholder groups, with some notable differences. Managerial implications include recognition of the importance of having an academic aspect in internships; mutual understanding concerning needs and constraints; and the requirement that companies, students, and academics take a long-term view of internship programs to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to extend transformative service and social marketing practitioners’ and academics’ understanding of how gamification and serious m-games are designed, and second, to model the effects of game design elements on key transformative service and social marketing outcomes, satisfaction, knowledge, and behavioural intentions. Design/methodology/approach The research adopted a two-study, mixed-method research design, encompassing focus groups (n=21) and online surveys (n=497), using four current marketplace serious m-games. Study 1 was qualitative and the data were analysed in two cycles using an inductive and deductive approach. Study 2 was quantitative and the data were analysed using PLS-SEM. Findings The qualitative results of Study 1 discovered a framework of five game design elements for serious m-games. In Study 2, a conceptual model and hypothesised relationships were tested at a full sample level and by each serious m-game. Results show different significant relationships for each serious m-game and moderate to high levels of explanation for satisfaction and knowledge, and low to high levels of explained variance for behavioural intentions. The findings are therefore not only robust across four different serious m-games, but also demonstrate the nuances of the relationships. Originality/value This research contributes to two service research priorities: leveraging technology to advance services, and improving well-being through transformative services. This research demonstrates that gamification through serious m-games is one form of technology that can be designed to create a satisfying and knowledge-creating service experience, which can also influence intentions to perform health and well-being behaviours.

As consumers become better educated and more skeptical of traditional advertising, alternate forms of marketing communication have emerged that aim to influence audiences unobtrusively. One such example is product placement. Product placement has attracted ongoing debate as to whether it is covert, unethical, and influences consumption. The current article examines the nature and practice of product placement in this light. This taxonomy of product placement attributes is based on current marketing practice and examines whether this is, indeed, a covert marketing strategy. Further, it presents a conceptualization of the influence of product placement on consumer welfare. We highlight that the many forms of product placement necessitate independent evaluation to determine ethical and regulatory standards. Operational solutions for developing public policy are offered.

Engaged students are committed and more likely to continue their university studies. Subsequently, they are less resource intensive from a university's perspective. This article details an experiential second-year marketing course that requires students to develop real products and services to sell on two organized market days. In the course, students participate as both consumers and marketers in a simulated world. The current article explores the effectiveness of this experiential assessment in terms of its ability to engage students. Comparing student engagement to a traditional lecture course and National Survey of Student Engagement benchmarks, the results suggest that the use of a simulated marketplace is capable of engaging students. Specifically, the assessment reported encourages more active learning and collaboration, is more academically challenging, and permits more student-faculty interaction than a traditional lecture-based course. The course structure outlined in this article permits the dynamics of a live marketing environment to be introduced into the classroom. The authors provide practical advice for educators seeking to design and implement engaging pedagogy.

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