Marketing Strategy (MKTG 6815-01)Fall 2014

Instructor: Jack Wei, Ph.D.Office: RCOB - Room 2307 Telephone: (678) 839-5026 (Office); (404)-452-4119 (Cell)E-mail: jwei@westga.eduClass Schedule:Wednesday 7:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.Classroom: Miller Hall 2201Office hours: Wednesday 1:00-7:00 p.m. or by appointment

Required Text:The required text for the course is Aaker, David A. Strategic Market Management, 9th Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010.

The case and articles can be purchased from the site. You can click the link below.https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/access/27886968.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course will provide frameworks and tools to solve strategic-level marketing problems. Taking the viewpoint of the general manager and the senior marketing executive, the class will focus on marketing strategy design, implementation, and evaluation. Our focus will therefore go beyond marketing tactics for a single product or service offering. Instead, we will examine the strategic-level management of a firm’s marketing resources and capabilities in order to maximize long-run customer value and to generate the greatest financial return for the firm. The course will cover the issues of:

Formulating segmentation and targeting strategies Understanding, attracting and keeping valuable customers Positioning the business to achieve an advantage over competitors Identifying and exploiting growth opportunities

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Allocating resources across businesses and segments Managing the channels for gaining access to the served markets, and Aligning the organization to changing market requirements Ethnical issues

OBJECTIVES

Your objective is to develop your own understanding and management skills from this course. My primary objective is to provide a learning environment and stimulate the process. Generally, the course will attempt to help you build your knowledge base and sharpen your skills in the application of advanced frameworks, concepts, and methods for making strategic choices at the business unit level. At the end of the course, you should demonstrate a working knowledge of the marketing strategies that organizations employ in various stages of marketing management.

Specifically, after completing the course, students should be able to:    relate marketing strategy to the environmental constraints and opportunities with

which managers must deal including diversity, ethical decision making and leadership, social responsibility, globalization, and multicultural considerations (LG 4, LG 5)

   apply a problem-solving model to identify problems and generate alternative ethical actions in complex business scenarios (LG 4, LG 6);

   assess marketing problems utilizing an analytical framework that incorporates qualitative and quantitative rigor and appropriate related tools (LG 2, LG 3);

   identify and explain appropriate ethical strategic marketing decisions in various situations and provide reasoned support in oral and written form (LG 1, LG 5, LG6);

   summarize and ethically apply, through oral discussion and written documents, marketing strategy theory(s) and concepts (LG 1, LG 5, LG 6).

TEACHING METHOD

The course will use a combination of cases, lecture/discussion, videos, group projects and exams. The classroom environment will be very interactive, so prepare to get involved. Students come from a variety of backgrounds with a large and diverse knowledge base. Therefore, my primary role will be to facilitate discussions that bring out pertinent issues and to better frame the analyses of these issues.

The class will be divided into about ten teams for group work including case analysis and marketing project. Each team consists of 3-4 members. Please try to form your own teams in the first week.

1. Class Contribution (10%)

Class attendance is required and taken at each class. You will have one excusable absence during the semester and please inform me before you miss a class. After the excusable absence, you will lose five points for each day you are absent from class.

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Students will also lose two and half points for each day they are late to class. A student who arrives in class more than ten minutes after the start of the class would be considered late to that class. Two latenesses will be equivalent to one absence.

Because of the commitment to class discussion, learning hinges on your constructive in-class contribution. By constructive contribution I mean comments and questions that help advance everyone’s learning, including mine.

2. Group Case Discussion (25%)

The case method is essential to developing the kinds of problem-solving and communication skills highly valued in marketing managers. The ability to generalize from the specific case situations discussed in class to new situations that you may encounter is one of the foundations of general management education. There is one case for class discussion (the case title is “Bluefin Labs, The Acquisition by Twitter?”). The case and articles can be purchased from the website of Harvard Business Publishing (https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/access/27886968). I created the course account for this class on their website so you can purchase the case and articles for less than $4 each.

During the discussion, you will be expected to analyze the situation, identify the central problems, propose and evaluate alternative solutions, and recommend courses of action or defend a final decision. Teams will present their analysis collectively using PPT slides and other useful technologies (e.g., YouTube). Highly valued discussion include those asking insightful questions about the case, providing an appropriate qualitative analysis, highlighting pertinent environment issues, offering alternative solutions, providing with corresponding criteria for evaluation of solutions and recommendations, summarizing and/or reconciling previous comments, and drawing generic learning points from the case.

The grading criteria include: Original thought and fully elaborated ideas in situation audit. In-depth analysis of the problems. Strategies are based on the strategic framework and well developed. Criteria and analysis are complete and reasonable. Implementations are detailed and strictly consistent with strategies.

Each team will have 20-30 minutes to present their case analysis in class. Prior to the presentation, each team will prepare a one-page summary or an outline and email it to me for feedback.

3. Group marketing strategy project (25%).

Each team will be required to work on a marketing strategy project related to the content of the course and providing a significant learning experience for all members of the team. The handout on the project will be distributed in the first class when each team will pick up a company for itself. The project will be based on field research of a real company in the U.S. Each team will submit a three-page typed proposal with the

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name of the company and names of the team members in the second class. The proposal should explain the major reasons that your team chose the company for the project and how your team will conduct research to gain the information.

The final paper should be between 10 and 15 pages, excluding any charts, graphs, and figures. This paper is due on the last day of class. It should be single-spaced, 12 Time New Roman font with 1 inch right and left margins and 1 inch top and bottom margins. Please use sections, subsections, bullets and the like to enhance readability. Neatness, grammar, punctuation will be evaluated in addition to content when determining the final grade.

The group project is due at 7 p.m. (EST) on 12/3. Please note that NO later submission is accepted. A class presentation of your project will be scheduled for the last class as well.

The group project will be evaluated according to the following criteria: The quality of teamwork. The quality of the data collection and analysis The evidence that the frameworks, concepts, and methods have been applied

properly and creatively. The feasibility of the conclusions or recommendations The quality of the written and verbal presentation of the project.

4. Exams (40%)

Both midterm exam (20%) and final exam (20%) cover the chapters and articles. Exams may consist of multiple choice items or short answer questions or essay questions designed to measure your understanding of general concepts and details you learned in classes and your ability to critically evaluate situations and solve problems. Early or make-up exams are allowed only in the most extreme cases and never without prior arrangements. Please contact the professor before the exam in order to be considered for any rescheduling.

Grading Scale

Your grade for the course will be calculated according to the following.Class contribution 10Group case analysis 25Group marketing strategy project 25Mid-term exam 20Final exam 20 __ Total 100

Your final letter grade for the course will be determined using this scale:A= 90 and above B= 80 – 89.99C= 70 – 79.99 D= 60 – 69.99F= below 60

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

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It is the philosophy of The University of West Georgia on that academic dishonesty is a completely unacceptable mode of conduct and will not be tolerated in any form. All persons involved in academic dishonesty will be disciplined in accordance with University regulations and procedures. Any forms of cheating will result in a zero grade for this course. Discipline may also include suspension or expulsion from the University.

STUDENT RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Please carefully review the information at the following link: http://www.westga.edu/assetsDept/vpaa/Common_Language_for_Course_Syllabi.pdfThe document at this link contains important information pertaining to your rights and responsibilities in this class.

Credit Hour Policy (3 credit hours): For approximately fifteen weeks, students in this class will generally spend 150 minutes with direct faculty instruction (either face-to-face or online) and work about 360 minutes outside of the classroom each week. This out-of-class work may include, but is not limited to, readings, assignments, projects, group work, research, and test preparation.

TENTATIVE CLASS SCHEDULE

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Date Topics and Assignments8/27 Introduction to the Course

Chapter 1: Strategic market managementArticle-1: What is a strategy? (M. Porter) Team formation Case Analysis Guideline (Handouts) Group Project Guideline (Handouts)

9/3 MODULE I: EXTERNAL /INTERNAL ANALYSIS

Chapter 2: Customer Analysis Chapter 3: Competitor Analysis

Articles for discussion:Article-2: New Dynamics of Competition

9/10 Chapter 4: Market/submarket analysis Chapter 5: Environmental Analysis

Articles for discussion:Article-3: Unleashing the Power of Marketing

9/17 Chapter 6: Internal Analysis

Case Discussion:Case: Bluefin Labs, The Acquisition by Twitter?(Situation audit)

9/24 MODULE II: BUILDING STRATEGIES: PHILOSOPHYChapter 7: Creating Advantages, Synergy, and Strategic Philosophies

Case Discussion:Case: Bluefin Labs, The Acquisition by Twitter?(Problem Statement)

10/1 Chapter 8: Alternative Value PropositionsChapter 9: Building and Managing Brand Equity

Articles for discussion:Article-4: Break free from the Product Life Cycle

10/8 Mid-term Exam10/15 Case Discussion:

Case: Bluefin Labs, The Acquisition by Twitter?(Strategy development)

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10/22 MODULE III: GROWTH STRATEGIESChapter 10: Energizing the BusinessChapter 11: Leveraging the Business

10/ 29 Case Discussion:Case: Bluefin Labs, The Acquisition by Twitter?(Criteria and analysis)

11/5 Chapter 12: Creating New BusinessChapter 13: Global Strategies

Articles for discussion:Article-5: Blue Ocean Strategy

11/12 MODULE IV: IMPLEMENTATIONChapter 14: Setting Priorities for Business and BrandsChapter 15: Organization Issues (Business Ethics)

Articles for discussion:Article-6: How to Embed Innovation into Your Organizational Culture Article-7: Bringing Customers into Boardroom

11/19 Case Discussion:

Case: Bluefin Labs, The Acquisition by Twitter?(Implementation)

11/26 Thanksgiving Holiday. No class!

12/3 Group Presentations

12/ 10 Final Exam: 7-9:30 p.m.

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