What can you do when your students refuse to accept one of the Basic Principles upon which your subject is based?

In this article:  I examine the nature of the challenge and then, in the second half of the article, I share an exercise I have used to overcome the challenge successfully.

What if you taught Economics and students persistently challenged you about whether there is any relationship whatsoever between Supply and Demand?  

Every subject has about three or four very fundamental principles that provide a foundation for all the rest of the concepts and tools associated with the subject.  Something like the four legs on a table that support the ‘working service’ of the table itself.  For example: in Economics, the idea that there is a relationship between supply and demand is a prerequisite to being able to apply various concepts and tools that make up the repertoire of Economists.

If you were teaching Economics to a class of students who simply refused to believe that there is any relationship between supply and demand, you would have a dickens of a time helping them gain an understanding of most of the phenomena you would be examining during your course.  

What could you do?

I’m a Marketing Instructor, and here is where I run into this challenge

One of the post-secondary courses I teach is titled “Introduction to Marketing”.  It’s a survey course – what might be thought of as “Marketing 101”.  It’s intended to familiarize students with the basic tools of Marketing.

I have taught this course to a range of students.  Currently, I teach this course at Alexander College in Vancouver.  Alexander College serves International Students (mostly from Asia; in fact, mostly from China).  These students study at Alexander for two years before becoming qualified to transfer into the third year of a degree program in the public university system.

I have found that regardless whether the students in my classes for “Introduction to Marketing” are from Asia or from North America, there are certain students who are skeptical about one of Marketing’s key fundamental principles: the concept that there is such a thing as distinct ‘segments’ within the population.  This is important to marketers because they choose certain segments to be their Target Markets.  Something in the life experience of some of these students (although not all of these students) has convinced them that all there is to Marketing is to offer the lowest price. Simple as that.  Believing this, these students feel that there really is no point in my asking them to engage in critical and creative thinking about challenges that Marketers face.  

Sound familiar?

A bit of potentially useful background: Why is Target Marketing one of the fundamental principles of Marketing?

If you don’t happen to be a Marketer, the examples provided in this article will make more sense if you have the benefit of the following explanation of what a Target Market is.  

In brief:

• In any given market (e.g., the cellphone market) here are certain more-or-less homogenous groups of people – a.k.a. ‘segments’ – made up of people who happen to have a similar set of values, beliefs, needs, behaviours or  circumstances.
• To attract members of a specific segment as customers, a Marketers must tailor their Marketing programs (i.e., their products, advertising, distribution channel and pricing) to suit the targeted segment’s specific values, beliefs, etc.  
• The word ‘Targeting’ refers to the idea that, within any given market (e.g., the market for cellphones), there are several distinct segments, and that each segment differs from other segments in some important way.  These differences between segments are sufficiently significant to warrant tailoring the Marketing program to the specific segment.  Marketers would develop different (or at least modified) Marketing programs in order to deal with each segment they wish to attract (i.e., possibly with different product features, different advertising themes, different distribution channels or tailored pricing structures).

Second, why is this important?

• The reason why Marketers would go to the trouble of tailoring different Marketing programs to different segments has to do with competition.  

• The operating principle is that customers will buy the products and services that offer the best ‘fit’ between their needs vs. the benefits offered by the product or service.  Note: This does not necessarily that the Marketer has to have the ‘best’ product or service, in the sense that it is the top of the line.  For example, customers who want the lowest possible price may be quite satisfied to have an adequate (but ‘less-than-super-duper’) product as long as the product addresses their needs.

• The implication for Marketers is that they must offer a product or service whose features and benefits most closely fits the values, beliefs, needs, behaviours etc of the people they hope to attract.  By doing a better job of matching your benefits to customer needs, you will win the sale, and your competitor will not.

All of this being the case, in order to be successful in devising a Marketing program that beats the competition by offering a Target Market a better fit with customer needs, Marketers – and Marketing students taking a Marketing course – must engage in critical thinking about the dynamics of any situation they are facing, and then, engage in problem solving and creative thinking when devising the Marketing programs that are likely to be successful.

What is the equivalent in the subject you teach?

This basic principle plays a role in Marketing similar to role of one of the four legs on a table.  It supports the ‘working surface’ within which most other concepts and techniques of Marketing are brought to bear.  Without acceptance of this principle, the ‘table top’ a student of Marketing is working upon becomes unstable.

It just so happens  that I have stumbled upon a tactic that has helped me to persuade almost all of my ‘skeptics’.  Before I go there, however, it would probably serve you well to identify one of the basic ‘table legs’ (i.e., fundamental principles) in the subject you teach that some of your students sometimes challenge you about.  That way, you will be in a better position to consider whether the suggestion I am about to make may potentially be useful to you.

Okay, ready?

Why some of my students may be skeptical

I started off by considering whether there are some legitimate reasons why some students are skeptical.  Could it be that there is something in their life experience that leads them to be skeptical about my ‘segment’ and Target Market concept?

I soon discovered that, indeed, there is.  Several things, in fact.

First I considered whether there is something related to the fact that they are mostly Twenty-Somethings.  For example, could it be that the impact of Social Media tends to give Twenty-Somethings the impression that everyone is more-or-less the same and wants more-or-less the same things?

Let me state that I am a great admirer of today’s Twenty-Somethings.  I do realize, however, that although they are adults, many of them were adolescents fairly recently.  And regardless the impact of Social Media, it has long been the case that many adolescents tend to assume that EVERYONE has the same beliefs, values and perspectives, and aspires to have the same things.  Before having had sufficient life experience to discover that what they themselves personally value and need may differ from ‘the crowd’, many adolescents simply assume that what the crowd wants is indeed the only thing a person could want.

Second, I wondered if here is at least a kernel of truth to the cultural stereotype North Americans apply to Asians – i.e., something along the lines that whereas in North American society people are  encouraged to think of themselves as a unique individual, in Asian societies people are encouraged to think of themselves as part of ‘the group’.  To the extent this stereotype is true (if it is true at all), is it the the case that Asian people are discouraged from accepting the idea that there are different groups within society.

Now, I realize that by asking such a question in a public forum I am playing with fire.  So, let me hasten to make sure that I have not created the wrong impression.  I am NOT saying that ALL Asians are the same – as in ‘the Great Yellow Peril’ or that their culture is monolithic.  In fact, by asserting that even within apparently ‘homogenous’ societies there are segments, I am actually arguing the exact opposite.  I sometimes find that students from China tell me that “We are all the same,” to which I invariably reply, “You may have a number of common characteristics, but you belong to various different segments.”

And while there may be some truth to this ‘cultural’ argument, I have concluded that it probably has more to do with recent economic developments in China.  The impact of a ‘developing economy’.

For example, those who study Marketing will remember that when North American society emerged from the Second World War, there was an emphatic shift of society’s focus in the direction of addressing pent-up consumer desires.  Seemingly en masse, ‘everyone’ sought to move to the suburbs, raise a family, and buy all the products and services that were deemed necessary to living ‘the good life’.  And while it was true that not ‘everyone’ was able to participate in this consumer extravaganza, acceptance of this worldview – at least in an aspirational context –  became so widespread that the majority of people alive in North America at the time would have assumed that ‘everyone’ wanted these things and, therefore, that ‘everyone’ was the same.

A situation that is at least somewhat similar to 1950s America is currently playing out in developing economies.  Not an exact match, but something very similar.  Just as happened in 1950s North America, very large number of people suddenly find themselves in a surge of economic advance (i.e., entry into the Middle Class).  Just as in 1950s North America, many are finding that, for the first time in their lives, they have ‘disposable income’ and ‘discretionary funds’.  Finding themselves in this position, they rush to acquire the kinds of Western material goods and lifestyle they see depicted on television and on the Internet.  Seemingly by consensus, the newly emerging Middle Class seizes, en masse, upon the same types of material goods.  Those who have yet to ascend to the Middle Class aspire to do so.  The result: there appears to be one mass society, made up of people thinking and acting in unison, rather than a complex society made up of many differing segments and Target Markets.

All of this is to say that, just as many consumers in 1950s North America probably assumed that ‘everyone’ wanted the same thing, so it is probably true that many consumers in Asian markets today probably assume that ‘everyone’ wants the same thing.

What would be the equivalent among your students?

All of this is to say that reason that some students in my Introduction to Marketing courses are skeptical about the existence of segments and Target Markets has to do with their personal experience, and not merely a disinclination to engage in the admittedly hard work of thinking critically and creatively in the context of Marketing.  

What would be the equivalent life experience among the skeptics in your classroom?

A classroom exercise I have discovered

I concluded that, since my skeptics come by their views honestly, I believe that it is incumbent upon me as their instructor to find a way to convince them that their perspective may not actually reflect how the world actually works.    

I have discovered a classroom exercise that helps me convince my learners (International as well as North American) that, even though ‘EVERYONE’ may want something, there are segments nonetheless (i.e. and there is more to Marketing than the lowest price).

Twenty-somethings tend to LOVE their cellphones.  So I start by asking everyone in the classroom if they have a cellphone.  They laugh.  Someone near the back of the class generally says, “Who doesn’t?”

Then I ask everyone to stand up and hold their cellphone up so that I can see them.  “Sure enough, you all have one,” I say.  So it is established and acknowledged that ‘EVERYONE’ wants and has a cellphone.

Then I ask, “I wonder if this means that, at least with respect to cellphones, everyone is the same.”  before the guy near the back makes his next comment, I say, “Let’s find out.”  

First, I ask everyone who uses their cellphone “a lot” to move to the left side of the room, and those who use their cellphone “only a little” to move to the right.

Almost everyone moves to the left side of the room.

I laugh and say, “Well, it just might be that at least with respect to cellphones, everyone is the same.”

Then I say, “Well, let me try something else.”

Next, I ask everyone who uses their cellphone BOTH for voice and ALSO for data (i.e., smartphone access to the Internet) to move to the right side of the room and those who use their cellphone for voice only to move to the left.  

Twenty-Somethings engaged in post-secondary education mostly have smartphones. Accordingly, almost everyone moves to the right side of the room.  The imbalance between left and right is not as big as before, but it is still very lop-sided.

I laugh and say, “Okay, let me try one last thing.”

Then, I ask everyone to move to the left side of the room who thinks that, when choosing a cellphone package, the HANDSET – its style, its look, its coolness – is more important than the PLAN.  I ask everyone who thinks the reverse – that the PLAN is more important to them than the HANDSET – to move to the right side of the room.

Invariably, the room divides almost evenly – with about half the people on the “HANDSET is more important” side and half of the people on the “PLAN is more important” side.

Every time I try this, quite a few learners seem to be genuinely shocked.  Invariably, I hear someone mutter, “But we are all the same.”  (Okay, I confess.  I for one am NOT actually shocked at this point.  I used to be in the Marketing Research business and I’ve done tons of surveys.  So I knew what the break-out would be.  Go ahead; call me evil.)

“Gee,” I say, as if I was all surprised and disoriented.  “What happened?  I thought everyone was the same.”

It’s interesting to me that, invariably, some of the skeptics are actually surprised and even disoriented.  Evidently it is a genuine shock to their system to realize that the ‘group‘ they thought they were part of may not be homogenous.  Not a group at all, but  a crowd made up of at least two groups.  And it is not a shock to their system because they are stupid.  Rather, it’s because the ‘we are all the same’ assumption had previously been the equivalent of an unquestioned article of faith.

“I wonder what this means,” I continue.  “If I was a Marketer, and I was planning an advertising campaign, what do you think I would have to do?”

I have observed that for most of my ‘reluctant’ students, it is at exactly this moment that they begin to engage with the course.

What similar challenge do you have in a course you teach?  What is it – and what do you do to win over the ‘skeptics’?
Please add your comments in the comment section below.

Also: If you have a suggestion to make that could help me refinement / improve on my cellphone exercise, I would very much appreciate it if you shared it with me and the other readers of this blog.  Maybe we can discover something together, drawing on our collective experience.

What similar challenge do you have in a course you teach?  What is it – and what do you do to win over the ‘skeptics’?
Please add your comments in the comment section below.  Also: If you have a suggestion to make that could help me refinement / improve on my cellphone exercise, I would very much appreciate it if you shared it with me and the other readers of this blog.  Maybe we can discover something together, drawing on our collective experience.