1. www.postersession.com Methods Conclusions Introduction Results A Teachers’ Overview of Digital Marketing Education in China Guangzhi Chu & Chenyu Li Advertising School, Communication University of China China has the largest digital media users in the world. It means great potential for marketers as well as for marketing and communication education. Until the end of 2011, there are 355 universities and institutes enrolling undergraduate students majoring in advertising in Mainland China. Based on a national survey among advertising teachers in China, this research aims to explore how advertising education come up with the development of digital marketing. WHAT DID WE FIND FROM THE RESEARCH INTERESTINGLY? Among all advertising majors participating in this survey, 63 (48.1%) have offered digital marketing courses, and 24 (35.3%) will develop these courses in next school year.(see figure1). Internet advertising, new media advertising and introduction of new media are the top three digital marketing courses that participating universities and institutes are offering to students. 95% of digital marketing teachers came from their major or department. Micro blogs, social network sites, mobile phone, E-commerce website, and search engine are the top five disciplines that digital marketing courses pay attention at. Comparing to it, they paid less attention to LBS, LED, and mobile TV in public transportations. (see figure 2) Figure1: Digital Marketing Courses Offered in Chinese Universities The survey targets members of China Advertising Education Society, the biggest advertising education organization in China. Two respondents were selected from each of those universities or institutes. The questionnaire was designed by the authors. This survey was conducted in May, 2012. In total, 314 questionnaires were sent by email, and 146 completed questionnaires were returned. After filtering out incomplete questionnaires, 131 valid questionnaires were used in the analysis, covering 95 universities and institutes in China. Figure2: Digital Media Mentioned in Digital Marketing Courses in China Teaching in class (100.0%), discussion in class (76.2%), and homework (52.4%) are the top three methods that teachers most often used. Besides, they also invite guest lecturers from marketing and communication firms, and encourage students to join digital marketing competitions. Teachers are more likely interact with students at QQ (the biggest IM platform in China) and Micro blogs after class. Respondents from 63 universities and institutes that offer digital marketing courses thought, to their knowledge, students held relative high evaluation to digital marketing courses since the total percentage of “very good” and “good” is 74.6%. “Lack of professional practice”, “slow knowledge updating” and “pay less attention to digital marketing” is the top three restrict factors. The top two reasons that some universities and institutes did not develop digital marketing courses are “Some courses have already included digital marketing part”, “Lack digital marketing teachers” (N=68). It means they realized the importance of digital marketing education, and are promoting it. In these universities and institutes, digital marketing is often taught in advertising media, advertising creativity (planning), and marketing class. New media marketing, social media marketing, mobile marketing, micro blogs marketing, brand marketing (management), and IMC were seen the most important courses that should be introduced (N=68). (1) Digital marketing education still in its early stage in China. However, it has great potential in China. (2) It seems lacking of teachers specialized in digital marketing is the biggest challenge that China’s digital marketing education is facing. (3) It is notable that some problems exist for long time, before the rising of digital media, such as lacking of interaction with marketing practitioners. (4) It seems that renew the mind set of advertising education teachers and managers are the key factors to promote digital marketing education in China. (5) Besides, the resources inside and outside universities or institutes should be integrated. Figure4: Improvements Needed in Digital Marketing Education in China Figure3: Barriers from Teachers in Digital Marketing Education in China