With about two-weeks to go, I had to make a bit of a change to my methodology, moving it from a multiple-case approach, or rather a questionnaire sent to a fairly wide sample, I’ve gone for a case study approach with my friends at !Beware Toys, a start-up in Nottingham.
Due to the change in methodology, I had to re-write that section to include details of the various case study protocols – it’s not just the same as a ‘sample of one’ it turns out! I essentially need to utilise more than one collection method – in my case, a qualitative questionniare followed by some additional questions based on some points raised earlier.
Once I have this rich data it should’nt take too long to write it up and wrap up my paper, after all these months in the making!

I also got my ‘Contemporary Issues’ assignment back today entitled ‘Marketing Under Threat’. I got 78% for that, so I’m well chuffed.
The essay does illustrate the way many companies implement their marketing and the way they perceive it. Companies think they know how marketing should be done and who should do it…and very often, they’re bang-wrong, especially longer-established companies who have become set in the ways of ye olde marketing. It’s described better in the article! My concern is that while I’ve been studying marketing in theortical terms, I’ve grown to think of it as an academic discipine, not one which actually happens in organisations. That is becuase the way marketing is done in real-life is probably NOT as exciting and interesting as it is in academia. But this is only because companies are not receptive to the prevalent theories and best practice coming from the journals, otherwise marketing would have changed its face many many years ago. The prophesising from the likes of Levitt, Kotler, Piercy and Porter are just not realised in real-life, and so appear to remain only of interest to academics. So my point is that a job in marketing might not be as exciting as the discipine is supposed to be, because of the short-sighted restraints and ill-informed superiors of those implementing it. I feel that my (currently non-existant) marketing job might not be about implementing these innovative, forward-thinking things I’ve learned, but more about fighting a loosing battle, trying to fly the flag for marketing 2.0.