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Select 'passwords' and then you can 'impersonate' one team at a time. Bear in mind that this will log you out of your lecturer account and you will have to log back in again.

Students can see their rankings and scores (and those of their competitors) by clicking 'Ranking' on the top right.

Each round lasts a quarter of a year, or 12 weeks. The whole simulation takes place over the course of 2 years.

The news items affect the scoring and the students will be rewarded for reacting to them appropriately.

Nothing; a team's company name is its user name.

It is more important for a team to hit its KPIs than make sales - the simulation judges teams on their good marketing decisions rather than purely on revenue earned. They will still score some points for making sales, but students must make sure those sales are within their target market to score the most points.

If a team asks you why they are scoring badly, there are a few responses you can give that should cover most cases:

• Are you making consistent decisions? Remember that once you've picked your target market, every decision you make should be aimed at selling to that group of people. You get some points for selling outside it, but many more points for selling within it.
• Are you hitting your KPIs? Even if you're making sales and earning plenty of money, you can still get a bad score if you're not hitting your KPIs. This is because the software judges you on your good marketing decisions, more than how successful your company is (although you do get some credit for earning money).
• As you go through the sim, each quarter is worth more and more points. So if you're doing badly now, don't give up. There's everything to play for in the final round!

When a team buys market research, they get the results in the next quarter. It appears under Metrics & Analysis. They will score more points for reacting to it in a sensible way.

They give more information on the theory involved and also how to play the game. Students should be told to read them all.

This happens when you try to close a quarter before closing a previous one.

The total market comprises 2 smaller markets (men and women). Each of these markets has 4 main, overlapping segments. Each segment consists of a number of personal variables. All segments are overlapping, meaning there are not just 4 types of customers, but millions.

Your market share is compared to your competitors' market share within each of the 4 main market segments. This determines the demand for your jeans, which is compared with the stock levels of all of the companies. If a company can’t deliver enough stock to satisfy the demand, the demand will shift to the ‘closest’ competitor.

Yes, the limit is 1,024 characters. Students should be aware that if they write more than that, it won’t all save and may be cut off. However, if students want to write more, they can always edit the marketing plan in the Word document.

Nothing can be changed within the sim.

If you want to move through the sim more quickly, you can close more than one quarter at the same time if you want to, or you could finish it without going through all 8 quarters. However, the recommended route through the sim is through all 8 quarters.

The easiest way is to click on 'Debriefing' to see the students' ranking, along with other metrics like their market shares and financial data. You can also 'Impersonate' each company by clicking on 'Passwords'. However, please be aware that this will sign you out of your lecturer account and you will have to sign back in again.

Make sure you start planning a long time before term starts and that you've read all of the support materials.

You only get credit for responding to market research sensibly. You do not get credit simply for buying it (like in real life).

They may have entered more text than the limit allows. The limit is 1,024 characters. There may also be more than one person logged in with the same login details – make sure only one team member is entering information at any one time.

No they can’t, but there are some options that stay open for more than one quarter.

Students must remember to click ‘Identify target market’ before saving their results. This enables them to see the size of their target market before continuing.

It's possible to create a target market with a size of zero if you make too many selections – every time you make a selection, the target market shrinks. Students should think carefully about what they want their target market to be.

This is the degree to which size, purchasing power and, importantly, profits of a market segment can be measured.

This is the degree to which a market segment is sufficiently large or profitable.

The segments are conceptually distinguishable and respond differently to different marketing-mix elements and programmes.

This is the degree to which a market segment can be reached and served.

This is the degree to which effective programmes can be designed for attracting and serving the given market segment. It measures how well you’ll be able to target a group with your marketing mix. If the target market is too big, you’ll not be able to target them effectively.

Promotion costs = (promotion mix * number of weeks) + design and decorate shop window (m+f).

This is the only instance where costs are calculated per week. All other costs are per quarter unless clearly stated otherwise.

It will cost money, and students won't benefit from it, because they won’t ever see the results.

Students don’t have to answer this question if they don’t have a physical shop.