Office Hours With Dr. Adesegun Oyedele

Dr. Adesegun Oyedele received his PhD in Marketing from The University of Texas–Rio Grande Valley, alongside a certificate from the MIT Digital Marketing Analytics Executive Program. At St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, his courses focus on startup business models, integrated marketing communication, digital branding, and international entrepreneurship. As a professor interested in teaching students the importance of creating repeatable success, he chose Novela for its one-of-a-kind AI technology, as well as the real-world data powering each of Novela’s simulations.

What gaps were you looking to fill with Novela’s simulations?

“I was already using a hands-on simulation,” Dr. Oyedele tells Novela. “So I was not looking to replace experiential learning. What stood out to me with Novela was the AI integration, the clear goals, and the chance for students to replay, use analytics, and improve.”

According to research by SurveyMonkey, 88% percent of marketers are using AI in their current marketing roles, and 70% believe that AI actually outperforms humans on many marketing tasks.

But for digital marketing professors, finding simulations with built-in AI remains a challenge. For Novela, however, AI is a core component, not an add-on. Our AI co-pilot, Ela, guides learners through our digital marketing simulations, providing data analysis and simulation best practices without doing the work for them.

How are your students actually using Ela — are they relying too heavily on AI, pushing back, or ignoring it altogether?

“Most students used it as a support tool, especially for persona research and optimization,” Dr. Oyedele says. “They were not just relying on it blindly; they used it along with the data to improve their choices.”

AI skills are in high demand. In fact, job listings requiring these skills can command up to 28% higher salaries. And students can’t necessarily hope to learn AI skills in internships or entry-level positions, since just 70% of employers offer AI training. Learning to trust their own AI judgment in the classroom by using AI to inform marketing decisions and make data-driven decisions puts students at an advantage as they step into a job market that expects AI know-how from day one.

How does Novela compare to other simulations you’ve tried?

“The biggest difference was the replay feature,” Dr. Oyedele says. “Students could keep improving instead of treating it as a one-time assignment. What surprised me was how much that supported persistence and learning.”

As Ela simulates the tools they’ll use in their day-to-day marketing jobs, students can experiment with digital marketing best practices as they perfect skills in each simulation play. Building on knowledge with each play provides the scaffolding for real digital marketing know-how rather than becoming just another hoop to jump through for a grade.

How does Novea impact learning outcomes? Do students apply the marketing knowledge later in the course?

“Yes,” Dr. Oyedele says. “They seem to retain the importance of using data rather than assumptions to guide decisions. They also better understand that paid and organic social require different strategies.”

One of the most important educational goals for any professor is building skills that go beyond the syllabus: Providing the foundation for real-world problem-solving. In teaching these transferable skills, Dr. Oyedele joins educators like North Dakota State’s Dr. Magda Marchowska-Raza, who uses Novela to help prepare her students for a real-world final project: Tackling marketing challenges for local businesses. As Dr. Marchowska-Raza puts it, after working with Novela simulations, students “know what tools are available and how they can utilize those tools to grow and achieve the business objectives they’ve learned at the beginning of the semester.”

Ready to add Novela to your digital marketing curriculum. Find out how you can go from sign-up to syllabus in just two days. Request a demo here!