Marketing

Fall

• Strategic Sales Management
  This is a strategic sales management course set in a business-to-business (B2B) context. In B2B firms (technology, healthcare, investment banking, industrials, manufacturing, management consulting, retail, private equity, to name a few), direct personal selling is the predominant go-to-market channel. This course will provide the fundamental tools to 1) apply personal selling tactics in pursuit of selling the firm’s products and/or services, 2) effectively design sales channels and account management programs, and 3) execute sales plans aligned to the firm’s strategies. Finally, Strategic Sales Management builds on foundational work from the core Marketing course.
• Marketing
  The marketing course prepares managers to understand the strategic role of marketing and how to apply it in their organizations. The course teaches how to grow a business by thoroughly understanding its current and prospective customers, the only source of a firm’s revenue. Companies with high or increasing market capitalizations know how to create, communicate, and deliver value to their customers. Students will learn how to create such value by applying a set of frameworks and analytical tools in three areas: identifying market opportunities, setting a marketing strategy, and formulating the marketing mix. Case studies and practical applications are used to develop experience in implementing these frameworks and analytical tools in order to grow a business. Specific course topics include market research, consumer decision making, market segmentation, targeting, positioning, branding, product development, advertising, pricing, distribution, marketing across borders, and marketing for a better world.
• Multichannel Route-to-Market Strategy
  Managing the route and intermediaries through which a firm’s products and services reach end customers was never easy but it has never been more challenging than it is today. At the same time as suppliers of products ranging from packaged foods and sporting goods to hotels and cars are bypassing middlemen and going directly to end consumers, others are inserting themselves between suppliers and their end customers to perform narrow functions and take slices from an-often shrinking profit pie. This course is about selecting and managing the route-to-market in today’s multichannel ecosystem in a way that meets shoppers where they search and buy while generating equitable revenue and profit for various channel members. The course is structured in four modules. The first module will lay out the issues involved in designing the channel, along the spectrum from direct-to-consumer to indirect distribution, with options such as franchising and selling on third party platforms in between. It will also highlight the roles of power dynamics and regulation in effectively coordinating independent channels. The second module will examine the challenge of acquiring and retaining channel members, with an emphasis on physical channels. Module three will transition into the complexities and opportunities facing all parties as the market environment evolves and new channel options emerge. Here, we will cover topics such as the role and challenges of platform-based intermediaries, and how to manage conflict particularly between online and offline and between a supplier’s direct-to-consumer channel and its independent resellers. The final module will take the perspective of retailers striving to be “omnichannel”. Here we will delve into why omnichannel is much easier said than done, and how retailers should think about which types of omnichannel initiatives to prioritize. Throughout the course, we will take the perspective of manufacturers as well as channel members and we will emphasize not just the strategy and frameworks but also the metrics needed to measure and monitor distribution coverage and performance. In addition to shorter examples, we will use full-length cases about a variety of companies, such as Brooks Running, Flipkart, Natura & Co., Pete and Gerry’s, and Thank God Its Natural (tgin).
• Sustainable Marketing
  To use Philip Kotler’s definition, “sustainable marketing holds that an organization should meet the needs of its present consumers without compromising the ability of future generations to fulfill their own needs.” To do this well, marketers need to expand their traditional scope and leverage new tools and frameworks. There has been a shift in consumer expectations around transparency and responsibility of a company’s environmental impact. Consumers are seeking out and buying more sustainable products. Consumer expectations are changing, and they now expect companies to not only be responsible for their environmental impact while making a product, but also in the sourcing, use, and disposal. Many companies have struggled to communicate on these topics because they are complex, which has led to marketing that is often inadvertently misleading. Marketers want to leverage this interest in sustainability, but they struggle with what, where, when to communicate during the customer journey. To meet these challenges, we will explore several new tools and frameworks. Over the course of this class, we utilize system thinking to map out an industry and create a new product or service that makes a positive environmental impact. We identify stakeholders who are aligned to the same end goals so that a business can partner in non-traditional ways to accelerate and magnify sustainability progress. We will walk through how to create an emotional connection with a potential customer and how to conduct customer research so a company’s marketing resonates. We will update the 3C’s and 4P’s for sustainability. We’ll review circularity strategies and the evolution of circular systems. We’ll bring all these tools and concepts to life as we use several current cases- Impossible Foods, Nike, and Liquid Death- to discuss strategy in action and debrief on how these companies executed their marketing strategy around sustainability. This course meets the Ethics and Social Responsibility (ESR) requirement.

Winter

• Pricing Strategy and Analytics
  In this course, we will study pricing strategies and approaches to achieve profitability, including questions such as: How do I measure what my product should be worth to customers? Should I invest in product improvements or advertising to raise prices? How can I expand into price-sensitive markets without diluting existing high-value sales? How do I avoid a price war? This is a practical course that will equip you with the tools to manage pricing decisions in B2B and B2C environments. The course builds hard analytical skills that enable you to apply the full range of marketing principles in real-world situations. You will learn the techniques of strategic analysis necessary to price more profitably by evaluating the price sensitivity of buyers, determining the relevant costs and anticipating and influencing competitors’ pricing moves. We will also link pricing theory to the practice of marketing strategy via the consulting engagements of the professor, who has led global innovation and aviation practices at a large consulting firm. This course is valuable to anyone who will be directly or indirectly involved in pricing decisions; it will be especially relevant for those who intend to work in general management, marketing, and consulting.
• Creating Winning New Products and Services
  This course builds upon the inaugural offering of CWNPS in Winter 2023 by incorporating (i) an individual student project on the creative process of a person you admire, (ii) updated research findings on creativity and innovation, and (iii) student suggestions for streamlining the course content. New products and services are vital to companies’ success. In fact, creativity and innovation are the key drivers of market success and shareholder value for most of today’s leading companies. Indeed, a culture of creativity, innovation, and design is commonly recognized as the only persistent competitive advantage. To win (and hopefully dominate) markets, companies must often create entire new markets and move beyond a product’s functional capabilities to connect with customers on an emotional and relational basis. However, innovation is risky and most new products fail. This course teaches a process for identifying market opportunities, creating new product/service ideas, and turning those ideas into valuable new products and services. We focus on the tools and techniques for analyzing market opportunities, creative thinking for generating new ideas, and then designing, testing, and launching new products and services. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches are covered. More specifically, this course covers the new product development process, including idea generation, concept testing, product design and development, mapping customer perceptions, product positioning, market sizing, and market entry strategies. The course emphasizes how to incorporate customers and competitors into all aspects of new product development. Students will solidify their learning by putting these tools and techniques into practice by forming teams to conceive and develop a new market offering and then present their idea to classmates and external judges. The goal of each presentation is to convince others that your idea satisfies criteria for winning in the marketplace. For your individual project, you will select a creative genius who you admire, research their creative process, and prepare a brief write-up reflecting on their process, your own creative process, and the creativity processes discussed during the course. The course is intended for students who are interested in creating and developing innovations, both in entrepreneurial firms and in established companies; and for students interested in enhancing their creativity more broadly. The course structure is flexible in terms of choosing case write-ups and selecting group and individual projects, so you can tailor the course to meet your personal goals.

Spring

• Business Applications of Natural Language Processing
  Natural language processing (NLP) is the field of artificial intelligence that allows computers to understand human languages such as English. NLP has made astonishing strides in the past decade, and is increasingly used by businesses to extract and understand useful information from large amounts of unstructured text, found in sources such as customer correspondence, online product reviews, Twitter feeds, social media posts, press releases, SEC filings, news feeds, contract repositories, web pages, and organization document caches. NLP techniques allow businesses to gain insights into customers, competitors, and industries. In this minicourse, students will gain knowledge of state-of-the-art NLP techniques, including large language models and associated tools. The course also describes how to apply those techniques to a range of marketing and other business problems. Students will become able to critically read the NLP literature, converse with NLP experts, and understand what new NLP capabilities are expected in the future. Students will also develop custom NLP software tools to solve concrete business problems, and will retain these tools to use after the course ends. Basic programming experience is required. You should be able to understand simple programs and you should be comfortable writing simple programs in a language such as R or Python. If you have taken the Quantitative Digital Marketing course in the Winter term, you will have the comfort level needed. If not, resources will be made available for you to get to that comfort level.
• Quantitative Digital Marketing
  We now live in an immersive world of digital engagement with every aspect of our lives, from personal to professional to social aspects all sharing some digital platform. Marketing in this new paradigm has rightfully taken on a life of its own. In this course, you will receive an overview of the current landscape of digital marketing: the key players, the different elements, the strategies, and some hands-on experience in data-driven decision making in digital marketing. We will make use of lectures, cases, and learn to code, run, and interpret quantitative models of analytics commonly used in digital marketing. For coding, our language of choice will be (Monty) Python. Monty Python is an iconic British surreal comedy group popularly known as the Beatles of comedy. Python, on the other hand, is the Beatles of programming languages since it is popular, versatile, and relatively easy to understand. I can Python and so should you. This course is designed keeping in mind someone who has some familiarity with a programming language and has gone skydiving before. According to a recent study, over one hundred percent of American adults not living under a rock own a smartphone and use the internet. Let’s learn how to market to them.
• AI for Managers
  In this minicourse, students will learn about a wide range of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Model (LLM) techniques and how they can be applied to the challenges and opportunities that firms face. AI is delivering impressive results across a growing number of industries and business functions, including marketing, strategy, operations, and finance. A firm’s competitive advantages increasingly rely on its ability to make superior decisions using AI technologies. This in turn requires managers to become conversant with a growing number of AI capabilities in order to assess and oversee the opportunities that AI provides. This course provides broad exposure to how AI is used for different business tasks: marketing, product strategy, revenue management, operations, etc. We take the viewpoint of a manager or consultant who must understand and offer advice on a wide range of AI topics relevant to a variety of business needs. The course also describes the pitfalls and challenges firms face when attempting to introduce or scale AI technologies. Basic programming experience is required. You should be able to understand simple programs and you should be comfortable writing simple programs in a language such as R or Python. If you have taken the Quantitative Digital Marketing course, you will have the comfort level needed.
• Brand Strategy
  Developing and managing intangible assets has become one of the main sources of differentiation that firms use to compete. Among all intangible assets, the brand is considered one of the most important ones. Specifically, for companies, the brand represents a way to build differentiation, drive loyalty, and leverage growth. For consumers, the brand is a link with which to establish relationships and, more interestingly, to express their identity. However, creating, developing, and managing brands to reach their full potential is more difficult than ever. Firms are facing a complex environment where differentiation is hard to build, products and services tend to be commoditized, product lifecycles are getting shorter every day, and consumers are not only more heterogenous, mobile, and well connected, but also skeptical about brands, and even about some marketing practices. Digital technologies have opened a world of opportunities for brands, especially start-ups, but also have empowered consumers when evaluating, choosing, and recommending brands. Interestingly, consumers are being actively involved in co-creating brand meaning. Brand Managers today are not only required to design branding concepts and interact with consumers in significantly new ways, but also to deliver promises that are relevant, credible, and consistent across geographies. During this 5 week- mini elective we will discuss the core elements of brand strategy. We will pay special attention to the role of brands and brand managers in the new competitive and social context. Core learnings will focus on how brand strategy can be defined, crafted, developed, and managed in ways that create value for today’s consumers and firms. While the main focus of the course is strategic, we will also discuss how brand strategy speaks to execution.
• Consumer Insights
  This course is designed for students who plan to work in firms that market directly to consumers or who plan to work in companies that offer support to these firms. It explores the challenges faced by marketers, business managers, strategic planners, and consultants in managing existing and new products in contexts ranging from consumer packaged goods and consumer technologies to pharmaceuticals and sports. This course will expand upon and explore more deeply some of the concepts that were looked at in the core Marketing course. But, it will do so by taking a decidedly psychological look at consumers and their behavior, contrasting what consumer should do with what they actually do. The primary goal of this course is to provide a greater appreciation for how and why consumers purchase the goods and services that they do. In this regard, it is not enough to develop good products, it is also necessary to overcome the biases and tendencies that consumers bring to their decision making. This course should provide a better understanding of what those biases and tendencies are. To do this, the course will rely upon in class case discussions (a mix of older and newer cases), and exercises that try to get students to apply some of the concepts explored in the course.
• Marketing Research and Analytics for Data Driven Growth
  This course was previously titled Marketing Research (MR). Students who have taken MR may not enroll in MRA. Most decisions in marketing are characterized by significant levels of uncertainty. Some of these decision-making instances are new market entry, new product or service development, product pricing etc. Marketers can control for the uncertainty around a decision making with appropriate research and data analysis. Market research and analysis enables marketers to understand and predict evolving customer trends and anticipate competitor response. This course provides a managerial introduction to market research and analysis methods that can help managers with the following: i) Translate marketing decision problems into questions amenable to research and analysis. ii) Scope out the problem and determine the research design. iii) Identify sources of data and appraise these on cost and quality considerations. iv) Identify and utilize the right methodology and analysis toolkit for the research question at hand. v) Interpret results from the analysis and develop recommendations for marketing action. This course encompasses the traditional market research methods intended for short-term decision making (e.g., new product design or addressing a service complaint) and introduces predictive analytics that provide insights for long term decision making (e.g., lead generation, post-marketing campaign tracking). The course is intended for those who want to pursue a career in marketing research, product marketing, marketing analytics, and data science. This is primarily a methods class with emphasis on hands-on training through in-class workshops. The course will use R as the main programming software, Sawtooth Software for conjoint analysis, PERMAP for perceptual maps. The course covers the following methods: • Survey and questionnaire methods • Data cleaning and preliminary analysis with crosstabs and chi-squared tests of association • Understanding customer sentiment with textual analysis • Understanding customer’s choices with binomial and multinomial logit models • Translating customer choices to product design with choice based conjoint analysis • Segmenting the market with cluster analysis and identifying appropriate target segment • Understanding product positioning with multidimensional scaling and perceptual maps • Lead generation and post-launch campaign tracking with predictive models (overview): logit, random forests, gradient boosted trees.