Download Marketing Strategy - Johns Hopkins Carey Business School

BU.450.710.XX – Marketing Strategy – Instructor Name – Page 1 of 10
Marketing Strategy
2 Credits
BU.450.710.XX
[NOTE: Each section must have a separate syllabus.]
[Day & Time / ex: Monday, 6pm-9pm]
[Start & End Dates / ex: 3/24/15-5/12/15]
[Semester / ex: Fall 2016]
[Location / ex: Washington, DC]
Instructor
[Full Name]
Contact Information
[Email Address]
[Phone Number, (###) ###-#### (Optional)]
Office Hours
[Please specify the day and time of the 2 hours that will be dedicated to office hours each week. For
evening classes, faculty may wish to hold their office hours by phone or email. While faculty are permitted
to state “and by appointment,” office hours should not be held exclusively by appointment.]
Text(s) & Learning Materials
1. Required HBS and INSEAD Cases
Case Title
Marketing Strategies in the Competition between Branded and Generic
Antibiotics
Product Team Cialis: Getting Ready to Market
Reference #
503-048-1
9-505-038
The Evolution of the Circus Industry
BOS007
Crafting Winning Strategies in a Mature Market: The US Wine Industry in 2001
BOS018
L’Oréal in China: Marketing Strategies for Turning around Chinese Luxury
Cosmetic Brand Yue Sai
INS291
Unilever in Brazil: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers
Renova Toilet Paper: Avant-garde Marketing in a Commoditized Category
504-009-1
INS131
Diesel for Successful Living: Strategies for an Up-market Line Extension in the
Fashion Industry
504-007-1
Russian Standard Vodka: Strategies for Global Branding and Expansion into
the US Market
502-080-1
Branding in an Emerging Market: Strategies for Sustaining Market Dominance
of the Largest Apparel Brand in India
INS6192
BU.450.710.XX – Marketing Strategy – Instructor Name – Page 2 of 10
Please register with Harvard Business Publishing and place your order well in advance, as it
may take days to register and receive cases. You need to have all the cases before the first day
of class.
2. Background Reading Materials
This course is case focused. Relevant conceptual frameworks will be discussed in class.
However, students are recommended to read the assigned chapters from the following textbook:
Aaker, David A. (2014), Strategic Market Management, 10th Edition, New York: John Wiley &
Sons.
Students should also go through the recommended articles to broaden their understanding of
marketing strategy. Please refer to the course schedule for details.
Course Description
This course provides students an in-depth understanding of marketing strategy. It is designed to help
students experience the role of senior business executives in formulating, implementing, and evaluating
marketing strategies for a variety of complex, real-world business scenarios. Students will analyze and
learn the key factors underlying the successful and lackluster marketing strategies of both major
corporations and smaller firms across different industries, across different tiers of brands and products
(luxury versus mass-market), and across the globe. Topics covered include industry and market analyses,
dynamics of competition, value creation, branding, segmentation, targeting, positioning, product
development, pricing, distribution, and promotion. Through case analyses, in-class discussions, course
assignments, and a research project, students will develop skills in devising, executing, and evaluating
marketing strategies, as well as working in teams on complex business projects.
Prerequisite(s)
BU.410.620 OR BU.911.610
Learning Objectives
By the end of this course, students will:
1. Sharpen critical thinking skills in analyzing complex, real-world business problems, and identifying
solutions.
2. Acquire an in-depth, integrative understanding of marketing strategy topics including industry and
market analyses, dynamics of competition, value creation, segmentation, targeting, positioning,
pricing, branding, distribution, and promotion.
3. Develop skills in devising, executing, and evaluating marketing strategies for current and
emerging business situations.
4. Develop a strong international perspective of marketing and understand how social and cultural
diversities impact marketing strategy.
5. Improve their ability to work in teams on complex business projects.
6. Improve business communication skills including face-to-face discussion, presentation, and
writing.
To view the complete list of Carey Business School’s general learning goals and objectives, visit the
Carey website.
Assignments
[Note to Instructors: Rubrics are provided in the Instructor Notes for this course.]
Requirements
Attendance and Contribution to Class Discussions
Case Opinion Polls
Course Learning
Objectives
1-6
1-4
Weight (%)
21%
20%
(2% per case)
BU.450.710.XX – Marketing Strategy – Instructor Name – Page 3 of 10
Final Exam
Marketing Strategy Research Project
(1) Project Proposal
(2) Research Progress Presentation
(3) Research Project Report
(4) Research Project Presentation
(5) Teamwork Evaluation and Reflection
TOTAL
1-4
1-6
15%
6%
8%
15%
10%
5%
100%
Attendance and In-class Discussion Policies
1. Full attendance and active participation are required to successfully complete this course.
Attendance and class participation are an important part of each student’s course grade. You
are expected to attend every session and make meaningful contributions to in-class
discussions.
2. Absence can be excused only in the case of jury duty, medical emergency, or other
uncontrollable circumstances (e.g., extreme weather conditions). Any absence must be
validated with official documentation. If you are absent at a class, it is your responsibility to
consult with your peers and make up whatever you may have missed in the session.
3. You are expected to attend each session on time. Being late or leaving early will disrupt the
lecture, negatively affect other students’ learning, and reduce your attendance and
participation points.
4. You are expected to thoroughly prepare for each session. You will be cold-called to answer
questions in class. Inability to respond to cold-call questions can negatively affect your
participation points.
5. You are expected to pay attention to other students / the professor when they are presenting
/ lecturing. Behaviors that disrupt other students’ learning (e.g., mobile phone usage, texting,
eating) will negatively affect your attendance and participation points.
Case Opinion Polls
You need to answer all the opinion polls, which will be posted on Blackboard one week before
each session. You will be asked to indicate your opinions on a variety of marketing strategy
issues pertaining to the cases of the coming session. Please submit your answers by 6PM on the
day BEFORE the session. Late submission will not receive credit.
Final Exam
You will take a final exam at the 8th session. You will be asked to analyze local and/or global
business scenarios and respond to a set of marketing strategy questions pertaining to those
scenarios.
Marketing Strategy Research Project
1. This is a group project. You need form a research team with 3-5 members. Each team should
appoint a team representative who will submit the composition of her/his team to the
professor by midnight on the day of the 1st session. Each member is expected to contribute
equally to the project, and will be evaluated by her/his peers at the end of the semester.
2. Each team needs to identify a firm (or an organization) and conduct in-depth analyses of its
marketing strategy. The firm you select can be a local company or a major U.S. or foreign
corporation. However, you must be able to collect sufficient information about the firm’s
industry, competitors, consumers, products/services, brands, segmentation, targeting,
pricing, distribution, promotion, sales/profits, and other aspects of its business pertinent to the
BU.450.710.XX – Marketing Strategy – Instructor Name – Page 4 of 10
analyses of the firm’s marketing strategy. You might want to consider choosing the firm you
or your team members are currently working for or have worked for.
3. To truly benefit from this project, you should avoid choosing firms whose marketing strategies
are very well known (e.g., Apple). Successful research projects have focused on such topics
as how a firm in a dire situation strategized to turn around its business; how an ‘underdog’
firm successfully challenged the dominant players in the market; how a firm fundamentally
changed or reinvented an industry; how a firm achieved success in a brand-new or shrinking
market; or how a firm sustained success or achieved exceptional growth over extended
periods of time. While you are not required to use one of these themes, please keep in mind
that projects that illustrate interesting marketing strategy problems (such as these) and reveal
novel new insights tend to receive higher scores.
4. Your team representative should submit a one-page research project proposal by midnight
on the day of the 2nd session. Late submission will not receive credit. In addition to providing
basic information about the firm your team plans to research on, this proposal needs to
answer the following questions:
 Why do you think this firm or this business situation is interesting to research on?
Why do you want to study it?
 How will you collect information about the firm and its marketing strategy (e.g.,
industry, competition, consumers, marketing mix, etc.)?
 How do you know whether the firm’s marketing strategy is effective or ineffective?
How will you evaluate it?
 How will you function as a team? Who will be responsible for what? How will you
collaborate throughout the project?
The proposal should be a Word document with 12-point Times New Roman font, single
spacing, and 1-inch page margins. The file should be named using the following format:
CourseSectionNumber_ProjectTitle_Proposal
5. After your proposal is approved, your team should immediately start working on the research
project report. This report will be scored based on your ability to dissect the situation the
firm was facing, think systematically and critically about the strategic decisions the firm made,
evaluate the outcome objectively and accurately, and articulate your line of reasoning clearly
and concisely. The quality of the writing will also affect the points you receive.
The report should have a structure similar to the following:
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
Cover Page (Course Section Number, Project Title, and Members)
Executive Summary (300-500 words)
Current Business Situation
Firm’s Objectives
Marketing Strategy and Implementation
Analysis and Evaluation of the Marketing Strategy
The Future
Appendix
In Section II, you should provide a concise summary of your project, highlighting the key
findings of your research. Section III of the report should have a structure like one of the
cases you studied in this course (e.g., L'Oréal, Renova); you need to describe the market,
industry, competition, target firm, its products/brands, consumers, and all other aspects of the
firm pertinent to formulating the marketing strategy. In Section IV, you need to lay out the
objectives of the firm—what the firm aimed to achieve through the marketing strategy.
In Section V, you should explain in detail the marketing strategy the firm decided to pursue
(e.g., STP, 4P’s), how the firm made the decisions, and what were the rationales behind
BU.450.710.XX – Marketing Strategy – Instructor Name – Page 5 of 10
these decisions. You will then explain, in Section VI, how and why the strategy is effective or
ineffective (what worked and what didn’t), and, if appropriate, how and why the firm should
have done it differently. In Section VII, you should discuss what might be the future
challenges and opportunities for the firm, as well as what you think the firm should do next.
You can provide charts, diagrams, photos, tables, and other supplementary materials in
Section VIII.
6. Your team needs to prepare a 3- to 5-minute research progress presentation showcasing
your research project idea and the progress your team has made to other teams and the
professor. You need to send the PowerPoint slides to me by 6PM on the day BEFORE the 4th
session. The PowerPoint file should be named using the following format:
CourseSectionNumber_ProjectTitle_Midterm
Late submission will not receive credit. The presentation should include the following
information:
 An overview of your marketing strategy research idea
 What have you done thus far for the project?
 What else is needed to complete the project?
 How you have functioned as a team? How have you collaborated on the project thus
far?
After your presentation, the audience (including the professor) will be given time to ask
questions and offer suggestions.
7. The final research report must be submitted in a Word document with 12-point Times New
Roman font, single spacing, and 1-inch page margins, and should be within 15 pages
(excluding the Appendix). The report should be named using the following format:
CourseSectionNumber_ProjectTitle_Report
The research report must be submitted by 6PM on the day BEFORE the 8th session. Late
submission will not receive credit.
8. Each of you will be asked to evaluate other team members’ contributions at the end of the
course. You will also be asked to report how you have contributed to the project and what
you have learned from the teamwork experience. See the end of this syllabus for a sample
evaluation form.
Final Research Project Presentation
1. Each research team needs to deliver a 15- to 20-minute presentation in the last session of
the course. Team representatives should submit their team’s slides to me by 6PM on the day
BEFORE the 7th session. The slides should be named using the following format:
CourseSectionNumber_ProjectTitle_Final
2. Your presentation should have a ‘flow’ similar to the way your report is structured. You can,
for example, first present the business situation the firm was facing, then describe the firm’s
objectives, explain the formulation and implementation of the firm’s marketing strategy, and
discuss the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the strategy as well as future opportunities and
challenges. After each presentation, the audience (including me) will be given a few minutes
to ask you questions about your research.
3. Your presentation will be evaluated based on the extent to which it helps the audience
understand the content and insights of your research, and the extent to which you are able to
address the audience’s questions and concerns.
BU.450.710.XX – Marketing Strategy – Instructor Name – Page 6 of 10
Grading
The grade of A is reserved for those who demonstrate extraordinarily excellent performance. The grade
of A- is awarded only for excellent performance. The grade for good performance in this course is a
B+/B. The grades of D+, D, and D- are not awarded at the graduate level.
Please refer to the Carey Business School’s Student Handbook for grade appeal information.
Tentative Course Calendar*
*The instructors reserve the right to alter course content and/or adjust the pace to accommodate class
progress. Students are responsible for keeping up with all adjustments to the course calendar.
Due
Session
1
Focus
Background Readings
Introduction to the
Course
* Strategic Market Management
Chapter 1-6
Fundamentals of
Marketing Strategy
* Christensen, Clayton M., Scott Cook,
and Taddy Hall (2004), “Marketing
Malpractice,” Harvard Business Review,
83 (12), 74-83.
(Unless otherwise noted, assignments
are due at 6PM on the day
BEFORE each session)
* Group Composition
(due at midnight on the day of this session)
* Levitt, Theodore (2004), “Marketing
Myopia,” Harvard Business Review, 82,
138-149.
* Porter, Michael E. (1996), “What is
Strategy?,” Harvard Business Review, 74
(6), 61-78.
2
Dynamics of
Competition
* Strategic Market Management
Chapter 7-9
* Case Opinion Poll
(Generic Antibiotics)
* Boulding, William and Markus Christen
(2001), “First-Mover Disadvantage,”
Harvard Business Review, 79 (9), 20–21.
* Case Opinion Poll
(Cialis)
Suarez, Fernando, and Gianvito Lanzolla
(2005), “The Half-Truth of First-Mover
Advantage,” Harvard Business Review,
83, (4) 121-7.
* Hoch, Stephen J. (1996), “How should
National Brands Think about Private
Labels?” Sloan Management Review,
Winter, 89-102.
* Quelch, John A. and David Harding
(1996), “Brands Versus Private Labels:
Fighting to Win,” Harvard Business
Review, 74 (1), 99-109.
* Research Project
Proposal
(due at midnight on this day of the session)
BU.450.710.XX – Marketing Strategy – Instructor Name – Page 7 of 10
Due
Session
3
4
Focus
Background Readings
(Unless otherwise noted, assignments
are due at 6PM on the day
BEFORE each session)
Market Driven vs.
Market Driving
* Strategic Market Management
Chapter 10-15
* Case Opinion Poll
(Wine Industry)
* Case Opinion Poll
(Circus Industry)
Globalization and
Localization
* Porter, Michael E. (2008), “The Five
Competitive Forces that Shape Strategy,”
Harvard Business Review, 86 (1), 78-93.
* Day, George S., and David J. Reibstein
(2004), “Managing Brands in Global
Markets,” The INSEAD-Wharton Alliance
on Globalizing: Strategies for Building
Successful Global Businesses,
Cambridge University Press.
* Case Opinion Poll
(L’Oréal’s Luxury Chinese
Brand)
* Case Opinion Poll
(India’s Largest Apparel
Brand)
* Gatignon, Hubert, and Christophe Van
den Bulte (2004), “Global Marketing of
New Products,” The INSEAD-Wharton
Alliance on Globalizing: Strategies for
Building Successful Global Businesses,
Cambridge University Press.
Research Project
Progress
Presentation
* Presentation on your research idea and
the progress you have made
* Slides for Research
Project Progress
Presentation
* Q&A
5
The Tip vs. Bottom
of the Pyramid
* Prahalad, Coimbatore K., and Allen
Hammond (2002), “Serving the World's
Poor, Profitably,” Harvard Business
Review, 80(9), 48-59.
* Case Opinion Poll
(Renova)
* Case Opinion Poll
(Unilever)
* Karamchandani, Ashish, Mike
Kubzansky, and Nishant Lalwani (2011),
“Is the Bottom Of the Pyramid Really for
You?” Harvard Business Review, 89(3),
107-111.
6
Product and Brand
Portfolios
* Aaker, David A. and Erich
Joachimsthaler (2000), “The Brand
Relationship Spectrum: The Key to the
Brand Architecture Challenge,” California
Management Review, 42 (4), 8-23.
* Tybout, Alice M. and Gregory S.
Carpenter (2000), “Creating and
Managing Brands,” Kellogg on Marketing,
John Wiley & Sons.
* Case Opinion Poll
(Russian Standard for the
U.S. Market)
* Case Opinion Poll
(Diesel)
BU.450.710.XX – Marketing Strategy – Instructor Name – Page 8 of 10
Due
Session
7
Focus
Background Readings
Research Project
Presentation
(Unless otherwise noted, assignments
are due at 6PM on the day
BEFORE each session)
* Research Project Presentation
* Slides for Research
Project Presentation
* Q&A
* Research Report
* Peer Evaluation
8
Final Exam
* A case analysis exam that assesses
your ability to dissect different aspects of
local and/or global business scenarios
and make strategic marketing decisions
Sample Teammate Evaluation Form
Name: __________________________________________________________________
Project: __________________________________________________________________
Please evaluate each of your teammates in three areas:

Amount of effort put into the marketing strategy research project

Quality of contribution

Interpersonal skills in working with others
For each of the three areas, please provide a number (between 1 and 5) that most appropriately
describes the individual’s contribution:
No contribution
Poor
Fair
Good
Excellent
1
2
3
4
5
Effort
Quality
Interpersonal
Skills
Teammate #1 Name: __________________________________ ______
______
______
Teammate #2 Name: __________________________________ ______
______
______
Teammate #3 Name: __________________________________ ______
______
______
Teammate #4 Name: __________________________________ ______
______
______
Teammate #5 Name: __________________________________ ______
______
______
BU.450.710.XX – Marketing Strategy – Instructor Name – Page 9 of 10
Please briefly describe (1) your specific contributions to the group project and (2) what can you do to
improve your skills in collaborating with others on complex business projects in the future.
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
BU.450.710.XX – Marketing Strategy – Instructor Name – Page 10 of 10
Carey Business School
Policies and General Information
Blackboard Site
A Blackboard course site is set up for this course. Each student is expected to check the site throughout the
semester as Blackboard will be the primary venue for outside classroom communications between the
instructors and the students. Students can access the course site at https://blackboard.jhu.edu. Support for
Blackboard is available at 1-866-669-6138.
Course Evaluation
As a research and learning community, the Carey Business School is committed to continuous improvement.
The faculty strongly encourages students to provide complete and honest feedback for this course. Please
take this activity seriously; we depend on your feedback to help us improve. Information on how to complete
the evaluation will be provided toward the end of the course.
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All students with disabilities who require accommodations for this course should contact Disability Services
([email protected] or 410-234-9243) at their earliest convenience to discuss their specific needs. If you
have a documented disability, you must be registered with Disability Services to receive
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that you identify your needs to Disability Services as early as possible.
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