McGraw-Hill Practice Marketing

Bert Snow led the design and production of this multiplayer marketing simulation in his role of Design VP at Muzzy Lane, working with the Muzzy Lane team, Marketing professors, and McGraw-Hill editors.

The goal was to create an engaging, competitive multiplayer sim where students would work with the “5 P’s of Marketing”: Product, Price, Promotion, Place, and People. These key elements, also known as the Marketing Mix, are used to position a business strategically. They are variables businesses work with to satisfy customers in their target market, add value to their business, and help differentiate their business from competitors.

Each player controls a Backpack maker, and makes choices about what customers to target, the design and features of their product, their pricing, promotion, and distribution (where their backpacks are sold.)  Practice Marketing is a turn-based simulation, where each team makes a set of decisions, then “ends the turn”, and the simulation calculates results. 

A key challenge was to balance the amount of detail needed to satisfy professors with the simplicity needed for students to be able to understand what happened (and why) as they made changes.

The Simulation used a 3D-Map interface to locate the controls for each of the five areas in space.  This made it easier to navigate and use the sim, and also allowed us to display results visually.

Practice Marketing has won multiple awards,  including winning the SIIA Serious Games Challenge, ans a Serious Play silver medal, and it has been very successful for McGraw Hill, with over a million unit sales.