Every student takes over BrewCraft — a D2C specialty coffee subscription — and runs it for four months against four rivals. A traditional marketing sim ends at the purchase. This one ends, and restarts, at the renewal.
Maps to your syllabus
The subscription frame forces students to think past the purchase. A clever launch month is undone by a sloppy second month. Brand trust accrues; social proof compounds; both decay if neglected. Students don’t learn the renewal-cycle the way the textbook tells it — they learn it by watching their own churn rate.
Learning outcomes
Apply the consumer decision model
Need → search → evaluate → buy → reflect — but for a category where customers re-decide every month.
Target by psychographic, not demographic
Pick among Ritualists, Discoverers, Conscious Consumers, Pragmatists. Defend the choice on motivation, not income.
Design subscription levers
Price, commitment tier, promo, first-bag trial — each one moves acquisition or retention, not both.
Build long-term brand assets
Brand trust accrues, social proof compounds — and both decay if neglected. Watch the curve, not the spend.
Each round asks the same decisions — segment, message, price, commitment tier, channel mix, CX touchpoints. What changes is what’s carried over: trust earned in R1 compounds in R3; churn ignored in R2 cascades into R4. Students who optimize one round at a time lose to students who play the curve.
The First Month
Market is curious, nobody has a base yet, and the four rivals all start from roughly the same place you do. Pick a segment. Plant trust. Ship.
Case study this round
Warby Parker · the 5-stage decision journey
The Diagnosis
Your first results are in. You see who actually bought from you — some of it is who you targeted; some of it is a surprise. Adjust, don’t overhaul.
Case study this round
Nike · self-concept and aspirational identity
The Compounding
The brands that planted trust in R1 are now harvesting it. The ones that procrastinated are paying for that, audibly. Your accumulated assets start mattering more than your spend.
Case study this round
McDonald's India · culture, family, cross-cultural cues
The Pull-Away
Leaders pull away — or you become one. No round after this. Spend everything that compounds inside this round; save nothing for next month.
Case study this round
Netflix · habit formation, churn, post-purchase loyalty
The Engel-Blackwell-Miniard consumer decision model is the spine of the course — and the spine of the sim. Every in-game decision maps to a stage of the buyer’s journey. Students who can name which stage they’re investing in stop spending evenly and start spending where their segment is weakest.
What students actually see
The model is taught in the briefing, reinforced in the playbook, and surfaced in the round-results panel — so when retention slips, students can locate it at a stage, not just a number.
Need recognition
Did the customer notice they want better coffee?
In-game lever: Channel spend on awareness · influencer reach
Information search
When they look you up, what shows up?
In-game lever: Brand trust · content marketing · social proof
Evaluation
Compared to four real rivals, do you win on what they care about?
In-game lever: Message frame · product attributes · positioning
Purchase
Does the price, commitment tier, and trial offer match the segment’s buying posture?
In-game lever: Price · commitment tier · promo · first-bag trial
Post-purchase
Did they stay? Did they refer? Did they renew?
In-game lever: CX touchpoints · retention · referral spend
Every round produces a brand state and a subscriber state you can review in the instructor dashboard. The case-study answers are submitted alongside and auto-graded against your answer key.
Message frame & segment
Premium Craft, aimed at Ritualists. Quarterly commitment with a first-bag trial. Holding $18 monthly; trimming the influencer line, doubling content + referral.
Price
$18 / mo
Commit
Quarterly
Trial
On
What the panel surfaces
“Ritualists retained at 92% — the quarterly tier is doing the work. Discoverers churned at 41%; the Premium Craft frame isn’t reaching them. Brand trust climbed +14, social proof +9.”
The fastest way to evaluate the module is to take a guided tour of Round 1 — same brief, same decision form, same results panel your students see, prepopulated with sample inputs so you can click through and read the reveal without grading your own work. We recommend doing it before assigning.
Already adopted? Open the instructor dashboard →
Course wizard
Roster size auto-allocates one BrewCraft brand per student.
Individual play
Every student runs their own brand against the cohort.
Four case studies
Warby Parker, Nike, McDonald’s India, Netflix — auto-graded against your answer key.
Canvas-ready CSV
Export the full gradebook on demand.