This paper examines product ideas generated by students for a new product development project in an introductory marketing class extending over almost three decades.  Over the course of a 28-year period, students in an Introduction to Marketing course were given the assignment to “invent†a new product or service and develop a complete strategic marketing plan.  Their task was to brainstorm creative, innovative, and perhaps even technologically unfeasible products that they could market.

A total of 462 student projects were analyzed.  Through the use of content analysis, each project was grouped into a category by product type by two independent researchers.  The analysis from each researcher was compared and differences were deliberated resulting in an agreement between the researchers.  After several iterations, student projects were categorized into one of eleven categories:  Food and Beverage, Household, Technology, Fitness and Games, Alcohol and Tobacco, Personal Care, Automotive, Health Care, Clothes and Accessories, Delivery Service, and Safety. Analysis of the various trends for each era and its relationship to the student products is discussed.  Specific examples of some of the products students developed are shared.

This research will show that from different time periods, the eighties through the millennium, students “invented†different types of products due to social and cultural trends of that time.  This paper also shows that most of the new product ideas that students created became actual products in the future.   For practitioners, the managerial marketing implication is that students can be a valuable source of new product ideas for companies.