The Portfolio CREATE Model: Creative Portfolio Assessment for Market-Relevant Learning in Marketing Education

Marketing education faces increasing pressure to demonstrate employability, authentic assessment, and market relevance within digital-first and AI-augmented environments. This interpretive qualitative study explores how academics, employers, recruiters, employability professionals, and practitioners perceive creative portfolios as assessment practices within marketing education. Drawing on interviews and focus groups with 20 U.K. stakeholders, the study identifies seven interrelated themes shaping stakeholder interpretations of creative portfolios within marketing education. These findings informed the Portfolio CREATE Model, a marketing education–specific pedagogical framework comprising six principles for portfolio-based assessment: Communicate, Reflect, Embed, Assess, Tailor, and Engage. The stakeholder-informed model conceptualises portfolios as developmental, boundary-spanning, and market-facing assessment artefacts through which students communicate creative, strategic, and professional capability across educational and professional contexts. The article contributes to scholarship on authentic assessment and marketing education by extending portfolio assessment beyond employability showcase models towards longitudinal, programme-level approaches to professional learning, assessment, and capability signalling. Practical implications are provided for marketing educators seeking to implement inclusive, scalable, and professionally aligned portfolio assessment through curricular and extracurricular pathways.