Applied Strategic Marketing
Units: 6
Marketing is going through a radical shift from traditional to digital, broadcast to hyper targeted, internally focused to collaborative across the extended organization. In addition, we are seeing a dramatic shift from a concentration on products and services driven through sales to focusing on customer experience and engagement. Historically, marketing decisions were based on intuition, anecdotal information, company capacity and what has worked in the past. John Wanamaker, a successful United States merchant who opened one of the first and most successful department stores in the United States, which grew to 16 stores and eventually became part of Macy’s, coined the term - “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half”.
Dramatic shifts in the marketspace (for example the pandemic) have resulted in changes in consumption, shocks to the supply chain and changes in how organization engage and interact with consumers. In addition, disruption patterns (e.g. new entrants) result in fragmentation threatening market share especially for incumbents. Marketing is increasingly being called on to assess organizational strategies to deal with these shifts. With an increasingly digitized society, data has allowed marketers to assess different channels for interaction, monitor the customer journey and measure interaction, brand awareness and consumer sentiment. Marketers are looking to develop individualized consumer experiences which is predicated on data as well as revising processes and interaction across the extended enterprise. Anticipation, resiliency and adaption to these evolving industry dynamics, shocks to the system and changing consumer expectations, is key for staying relevant and being able to take advantages of opportunities as they present themselves.
This class is designed to provide students basics of modern marketing but more importantly how they are applied in today’s environment. In addition, it will cover current issues confronting marketers including messaging bias, data privacy, brand interruption/hijacking, social influence, misinformation, etc. The professor will review new concepts each week, in class exercises will be done to apply those concepts and homework will be used to reinforce methods and critical thinking associated with case study. Students will be assigned to teams for the in-class exercises as well as the final (Case scenario, recommendation and analysis). Each week, readings will be assigned covering topical information on that week’s subject.
Marketing Concepts and Application
Critical Thinking and Reasoning focused on marketing related issues
Team Development - Expectation Setting, Communication and Agility
Understand forms and usage of marketing data
Future of Marketing in an age of automation, hyper targeting and fleeting loyalty