Maintaining the relevance to marketing students of the PLC management experience

Although Product Life Cycle (PLC) stages and diagrams are covered in standard marketing textbooks, little attention is paid to the PLC experiences of managers and the relevance of this experience to marketers or students. In this exploratory study, final-year marketing students experienced ‘process drama’ in the form of a simulated Space Mission to Mars. Twenty-seven reflective diary entries were analysed for insight into learning connections between the drama and the PLC concept. Findings suggest that as a result of the process drama students saw the PLC in a new and more meaningful light.