What is it like to be a MSc supervisor?

This is a reflection on my recent supervision experience with a group of MSc students. I must say the experience has been challenging and, yet, not very rewarding or stimulating. The experience has been very challenging because I have to work extremely hard just to get my students to produce a 'passable' dissertation.Very few of them, in my opinion, will get top marks (i.e. 70 and above). But, most of them should pass their dissertations if they work hard. Many of them are clueless on how to conduct a research project and how to write a thesis. Since they have to submit their dissertation in early September and many of them did not start writing until mid-April, I as a supervisor, basically have less than five months to guide my students on how to conduct a research and how to write a 'decent' dissertation.

The supervision process could have been less challenging if I only had two or three students to supervise. Unfortunately, I have nine students this year and some of my colleagues have twelve students. Each of my students has a different research topic and, thus, this has made the supervision process more complicated and demanding. As a supervisor, I basically have to familiarise myself with nine different domains of marketing literature, ranging from consumer involvement and consumer attitude to consumer experiences and consumer decision making process.

I do not mind the supervision experience to be challenging as long as it is rewarding or stimulating, especially, in an intellectual way. Unfortunately, the supervision experience so far has not been rewarding or stimulating. Many of my students seem to lack the ability to exercise independent and logical thinking. Many of them have constantly asked for 'advice' and their definition of 'advice' is 'tell me the answers' or 'tell me what to do next'. Many of them just want to be spoon-fed. Many of them tend to choose the easiest way to seek the answers for their questions, that is, emailing me. Very few of them will take other initiatives to seek the answers for their questions such as reading journal articles or textbooks.

As a human being, I do, sometimes, get frustrated with the flood of emails I receive from my students. As much as I try to be patient in guiding them through the research process, some of them do not seem to get it. Some of them do not seem to understand why they need to provide a theoretical framework in their Literature Review chapter, why they need to develop an interview protocol before conducting an in-depth interview, why they need to have a Data Analysis Strategy section in their Methodology chapter. Their lack of understanding on these basic research issues makes me wonder about the knowledge they have learnt from their undergraduate degrees (and other degrees). Surely, many of them would have studied a research module in their undergraduate degrees.

Maybe, I am being too harsh on my students. Maybe, I should blame the educational culture in their origin countries. Many of my students are international students from China and Thailand. In these countries, pupils are accustomed to being told what to do and what to learn by their teachers or lectures. In these countries, pupils are not encouraged to challenge the views of their teachers or lecturers, but merely accept whatever their teachers or lecturers say are correct. It is this kind of educational culture that have created a problem for their learning process in a Western country like UK. That is, they lack the ability to think for themselves, both independently and logically. Throughout this supervision experience, I do sincerely hope that my students have learnt to be more confident with their own ideas or opinions and to be more independent in problem solving. Am I hoping too much from my students?

Murketing - what is it?

I just finished a book titled 'I'm with the brand'. This book is written by Rob Walker, who is a columnist for New York Times Magazines. This book is not of those (boring) branding textbooks, which typically focuses on branding theoretical frameworks. This book is about the relationship between branding and consumer culture. Hence, this book covers many consumer-centric issues, ranging from rationale (not rational) consumption, self concept to media consumption, sub-cultures and ethics. I have mixed feelings after reading this book. I feel 'refreshed' and  'inspired' as Rob has put forward many ideas that challenge the current thinking and practice of marketing. I feel 'informed' because he has provided many examples about how companies constantlt tap into consumers' sub-cultures to acquire novel ideas and inspiration in order to develop their branding strategies.

Besides feeling positive after reading Rob's book, I also feel 'ashamed' because I realise that I am, what Rob described as, a typical 'rationale' consumer. Rob discussed the concept of rationale thinking and consumption in Chapter Three. Rob put a strong emphasis on the distinction between 'rationale' and 'rational' consumption. Rationale consumption is about consumers making a purchase based on their self-generated rationales or justifications. Put it bluntly, consumers convince themselves that they need to make purchase. On the other hand, rational consumption is about making a purchase based on one's needs, rather than, one's wants or desires. Hence, rational consumption, strictly speaking, should be based on an objective and functional evaluation process. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, our basic needs are generally related to food, a shelter, some clothes (to keep us warm and protected) and, maybe, an automobile. But, do we need to have more than one pair of pants? Two automobiles? Three types of breakfast cereals? Four jackets or blazers? Five underwears? Six pairs of socks? And, a dozen of shirts or t-shirts?

Because of this rationale consumption, it sparks the emergence of MURKETING. Let's get back to the key theme of this blog ie Murketing. Rob introduced this terminology in this book to highlight the fact that consumers and marketing often intertwine with each other. The distinction between these two entities is consumers and marketing is often murky. Rob argued that many consumers might like to claim that they can see through marketing or they are immuned from marketing, but the reality is no consumer is immune from marketing. We, as consumers, are part of marketing. We are, in fact, living in a marketed society. Most of us, knowingly or not knowingly, are the marketers of many brands, especially brands that we like. Look around your living room, kitchen and/or garage, many products or merchandises occupy in these spaces have brands. Perhaps, a Samsung or LG flatscreen tv, a Nintendo Wii, an iPhone or Blackberry lying on the coffee table, a BMW or Fiat parking in the garage, a set of Tefal cookwares in your kitchen's cabinet, a box of Kellog's cereal on top of your fridge and so on.

Inception - how does it relate to advertising practice?

I went to watch Inception last Sunday. I must say the movie is very interesting. It is about extracting (secret) information and implanting (manipulated) ideas in people's dreams. After watching the movie, I was a bit horrified, not by the movie, but by what science can do in the future i.e. manipulating people's dreams. My movie buddy told me that some scientists are researching in this area.

I know I may be being melodramatic. I surely do not want some strangers to 'poke' around in my dreams. What if I was having a wet dream? How embarrassing will that be? Similarly, I do not want some strangers to inject ideas in my dreams so that they can manipulate me to behave the way they want me to.

A large part of the movie, Inception, is about how a group of 'professionals' (I was not sure about their backgrounds as the movie does not go in detail in explaining that) 'hijacked' into a young businessman's dream. This group of 'professionals' attempted to manipulate this businessman's behaviour by implanting an idea in his dream and, consequently, his memory. I use the word 'hijack' because this group of  'professionals' did not seek permission to enter into this young businessman's dream. Instead, this businessman was drugged and then 'hooked' to a dream-manipulating machine.

Whilst I was a bit horrified with the possibility of our dreams being manipulated, I was also fascinated by this idea, especially from a marketer's perspective. Will not it be a golden dream for any marketer if he or she can manipulate the dreams of target customers? The notion about 'implanting ideas into people's dreams' is, indeed, parallel to the advertising campaigns of many products such as luxury products (e.g. Louis Vuitton and D&G), vodka (eg Russian Standard) and holiday destinations (e.g. Thomas Cook). These products constantly strive to motivate people to dream about the person they apsire to be (e.g. a successful, handsome business man in the Russian Standard's ad) and the holiday destination they desire to visit (e.g. relaxing, having fun and making love with your lover on an exotic island in the Thomas Cook's ad). By promoting these dreams, marketers hope that consumers will then take necessary actions to fulfil these dreams. Stated bluntly, by promoting these dreams, marketers hope that consumers will buy a Louis Vuitton product, purchase a bottle of Russian Standard or telephone a Thomas Cook branch to book a holiday. After all, that is the main objective of many advertising campaigns. That is, to influence consumers' minds (cognition) and hearts (emotion) so that they will act(behaviour) upon the idea communicated by an advertising campaign . Many advertising campaigns are designed to manipulate consumers' cognition, emotion, behaviour or a combination of these three components.

To give you an example, I will use the Russian Standard vodka ad, which I have seen many times in the cinema. The ad features a fairly young, good looking man asking for a shot of Russian Standard vodka at, what appears to be, a high-end night club. After a sip of the vodka, he started to visualise a series of dreamlike events such as being seduced by a gorgeous, blond-hair female, escaping with this female to a country side and ice-skating in Russia. The ad obviously uses a fantasy appeal and aims to provoke several dreamlike fantasies or desires such as sexual seduction, escapism, thrill and mystery.

What is your thought on manipulating people's dreams?

• From a marketer's perspective?
• From a consumer's perspective?