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Competitive Marketing Strategy: BUAD 880

Alex Brown
Marketing and E-Commerce Dictionary of Terms
Discussion Board
Text: Marketing Management; Philip Kotler: Companion Web-site. This site provides objectives, exercises, and key term definitions along with online practice tests.

BUAD 880-10, Monday/Wednesday, 4:00-5:15, MBNA 125
BUAD 880-50, Wednesday, 6:00-8:45, MBNA 125

Course Objectives

The objective of this course is to allow you to develop a framework around the topic of marketing. You should develop an excellent working knowledge of marketing concepts, tools and analyses.

Feedback

In order to obtain objective feedback, throughout the semester, I have two volunteers, Melissa Bailey (Section 10) and Paul Handler (Section 50), who will serve as your class representatives. Please e-mail your representative with any concerns, issues and general comments about the class, at anytime throughout the semester. I will be meeting with each of them, from time to time, to gain that feedback, in an anonymous fashion (they will not reveal the source).

Course Schedule

Tentative and subject to Change

Week Title Readings Key Concepts Case Presentations
1: Feb. 4, 6 Course Overview
Teams
Case Preparation
Knowledge @ Wharton 		Req. Chp. 1 Concepts
2: Feb 11, 13 Analyzing Markets and Customers 1 Req. Chps. 3, 7 and 8 Concepts
3: Feb 18, 20 Analyzing Markets and Customers 2 Req. Chps. 2 and 6
Concepts
Online (Week of Feb. 25) K@W Discussions
4: March 4, 6 Analyzing Markets and Customers 3 Req. Chps. 4 and 5 Concepts
5: March 11, 13 Marketing Decision Process Concepts Federal Express
6: March 18, 20 Products and Brands Req. Chps. 13, 10 and 11 Concepts
7: March 25, 27 Managing Product Portfolio Req. Chps. 12 and 14 Concepts Vistakon Acuvue
8: April 8, 10 Pricing Issues Req. Chp. 15 Concepts 1 and 2
9: April 15, 17 Pricing and Distribution Strategy Concepts Rohm & Haas 3 and 4
10: April 22, 24 Distribution Strategies Req. Chp. 16 and 17 Concepts 5 and 6
11: April 29, May 1 Marketing in a Digital Era Req. Chps. 21 Concepts Merril Lynch 7 and 8
12: May 6, 8 Marketing Communications Req. Chps. 18, 19 & 20 Concepts 9 and 10
13: May 13, 15 Wrap Concepts BMW Roadster
Requirements:

Marketing Strategy Presentations

Team presentation, choosing from one of the listed organizations. You can either select a brand within the organization or the organization itself.

You may want to use google to find things.

1 Amazon.com, 2 Catholic Online, 3 CNN, 4 Coca-Cola, 5 Ford, 6 General Electric, 7 Labour Party (UK), 8 Microsoft, 9 Procter and Gamble, 10 World Trade Organization

A presentation should comprise 5 slides, focusing on, history of product/organization, market environment, marketing segmentation, 4 Ps strategy, future. Presentation should be 10 minutes, with 5 minutes Q and A following. Strict adherance to 10 minutes (+/- 1 minute max.) and 5 slides is critical for the grade. I page handout on discussion board?

Class Participation Online

Lead a discussion from a K@W article, or other web article, approved by instructor. Leading a discussion means posting the link, summarizing key points, proposing thoughtful questions and following ongoing discussion and interjecting important points. You also need to participate in at least 2 other discussions and add value. Your discussion needs to attract at least four participants. To increase interest in your discussion, you can offer a five minute presentation to your class, requesting instructor's permission.

Online participation = 50% of participation grade. Participation in class comprises the remainder.

In Class Participation

In class participation comprises 15% of grade. This includes general class discussions and case discusisons. Grades reflect quality of discussion, not volume of discussion.

Case Analysis

The case method allows you to apply your marketing knowledge to solve marketing problems, and helps hone your decision making skills. Cases usually lack all the information required to make effective decisions, but this is reality. The classroom discussion that follows the case allows you to share your thoughts and learn from others' analysis of the case.

You should analyze each case within your team. You are required to prepare each case before the scheduled class. Your team is required to turn in 2 of the 5 case analysises before the class starts for the selected case. This should be e-mailed to me at least 24 hours before the assigned class period. The cases you do not choose to write up, still need to be prepared for. If you attend class, the instructor assumes you have prepared (and you will likely be cold called). Each written case analysis is worth x% of your grade.

Preparing for a case.
To prepare for the cases, most students prefer to read the case first, making few notes, in order to understand the context of the entire case. Once accomplished a second read allows the student to start to understand the salient points of the particular case. This will then allow you to begin you analysis. After concluding your analysis, you should meet with your team, as a sounding board for your ideas, and to learn from their ideas. I do not assume you all reach a consensus, nor will I ask for team consensus in the class discussions. Of course, hte case write-ups do require team consensus, so htose may be approached accordingly.

Each written case should include:

Extra Credit

Select news paper article, and present to class. This will require bringing it to me in a prior class, and e-mail me your talking points for approval.

Final

Write a 1,000 word paper summarizing and analyzing the article you selected for your online discussion assignment. This analysis should consider material that this class has covered, discussions that have evolved as a consequence of your discusison assignment, and other appropriate outside materials. This paper should be posted to the discussion board, under the paper folder, so others are free to review and print out and learn from your analysis. This is due by end of day Monday, May 20.