Experiencing the product life cycle management highs and lows through dramatic simulation

Product life cycle (PLC) stages and diagrams are briefly and dispassionately covered in the standard marketing textbook format with little attention to the social-psychological experiences of those actually participating. This qualitative study used process drama as a teaching tool and a research instrument to probe the PLC phenomenon in a different way. A useable sample of 27 students used the educational drama convention called Space Mission to Mars, a form of process drama, to bring first-hand contact with, and relevance to, this marketing concept and practice. Student journals were analysed through content analysis, and this was combined with lecturer observations and some semistructured probe interviewing. The study found that students clearly expressed a new, more involved, and more insightful appreciation of the actual conceptual marketing processes and emotional experiences that marketers have when directly involved in PLC activities.