A Case Study of Teaching Integrated Marketing Communication Using an Innovative Group Internship Project

In recent years, many college campuses have moved to implement experiential learning projects in many disciplines. It is generally accepted that experiential learning projects or client projects (we will be using these two terms interchangeably throughout the paper) help students to communicate effectively, perform well in teams, solve problems, and acquire functional knowledge. We describe our experience of implementing an innovative experiential learning project that required students to form a company, and plan and execute an integrated marketing communication (IMC) plan for a real-life company on a tight budget. Finally, we compare the student assessment for this group internship project with traditional client projects that typically do not involve a full-fledged execution of an IMC plan