Academic Areas

205. Marketing Management
Individuals and companies around the world are now more connected than ever before. These changes are evident in how companies operate, particularly in the arena of marketing—the vehicle through which companies and consumers connect. The core Marketing Management course introduces marketing fundamentals—such as understanding customers, assessing competitive markets, identifying growth strategies, and differentiating products, including the fundamentals associated with product design, pricing, promotion and distribution—in an integrated manner within the context of a complex set of factors influencing the marketplace throughout the world. Indeed, digital technologies make it possible for companies to better understand markets and interact with consumers, and also for consumers to achieve unprecedented levels of self-expression and influence. This is particularly true given the evolution of internet from Web 1.0 to 2.0. For example, Web 1.0 brings to light online search and purchase behavior, thereby allowing companies to recommend additional products and services to customers. Moreover, the interactive nature of Web 2.0 enables companies and customers to keep pulse on their relationship, for example, by monitoring what they post, how they behave and why they would react that way. Such detailed insights have significant implications for marketing strategy, including product development, diffusion, co-creation, and management. Though the core course is tailored to suit the needs and characteristics of the students in each program at Merage, each class session across programs exposes the interplay between marketing theory and practice, where students will be challenged to assess and anticipate digital realities in the marketplace, and roles for these new realities in shaping future strategic possibilities and decisions. Students will explore and apply theories related to consumers, markets, and companies through discussions of world class cases, current happenings, as well as best (and worst) practices. Through the overall course materials and a term project, students will understand that effective marketing management goes well beyond simply internalizing marketing facts and institutional detail; rather, that it involves a deep understanding of the customer through critical thinking and knowledge integration of several key principles including the unprecedented penetration of digital technologies in all aspects of marketing management.

250. Consumer Behavior in a Digital Age
Consumers have unprecedented access to information and influential power unlocked by digital technologies. This course examines psychological influences in memory, judgment, and decision making with emphasis on virtual contexts, including an experiential project employing course theories and research methods.

251A. Marketing Research
Expands on the traditional methods for conducting marketing research to generate consumer insights to incorporate digital methods of data collection and analysis. Discusses problem formulation, data collection, statistical analyses, formulating managerial recommendations, implementation, and how research is used by companies.

254. Global Marketing: Multinational Marketing Strategies
This course focuses on marketing strategies within multinational organizations from market assessments, political, legal, cultural, social environment, and the role of global interdependence. We examine digital techniques across trends, best practices and strategies. Integrative online cases will be analyzed.

 257. Marketing on the Internet
This course examines impacts of technology on marketing, emphasizing strategic and tactical implications for marketing managers. Topics cover technology and consumers, marketing strategy, branding, advertising, omnichannel, search engine marketing, email and mobile marketing, conversion optimization, web analytics, and more.

Since its commercial inception in the early 1990s, the internet has dramatically transformed marketing practice, resulting in spectacular successes as well as dismal failures within the ever-evolving space. Gaining the strategic know-how necessary for a chance at success in such a highly competitive and challenging digital environment requires knowledge of the historical, technological, social and commercial developments that have helped to shape the internet of today. Marketing on the Internet begins by laying the foundation for the type of insight necessary to intelligently and strategically engage the environment while avoiding its many pitfalls. The course covers online marketing concepts from pre-launch strategy to post-launch analytics (and numerous topics in between), referencing real-world examples to illustrate key points while encouraging participation, discussion and a shared learning experience. Marketing on the Internet merges theoretical concepts with strategic and practical solutions. Through a combination of readings, industry articles, case studies and online references (including blog posts, tweets and videos), students are exposed to the latest developments in internet marketing. Students work in groups, applying their understanding of key topics to develop their own internet marketing strategy and plan for a new (or improvement upon an existing) product, service or campaign. The course culminates with each group handing in a 10-page paper and presenting their internet marketing strategy and plan in a 7-10-minute video produced by each group.

258. Marketing Strategies for High Technology Companies
This analytical course aims to provide an understanding of the marketing problems faced by managers in high-technology firms, and to familiarize you with the conceptual framework and decision tools necessary for managing technology-intensive businesses. Advances in digital technologies have changed almost all aspects of marketing in high-tech industries. Thus, it is important that students learn appropriate frameworks and tools that allow them to create and capture value through marketing actions in the presence of these technological changes. This course provides the necessary frameworks, techniques, cases, and examples that should help a marketing manager or an entrepreneur in this new digital economy.

Representative topics include product and pricing policy in the presence of network externalities, compatibility concerns, and systems competition; effect of technological and market uncertainty on marketing strategies; technology licensing strategies; contracting in high-tech markets; product and pricing policy for managing inter-generational transitions; product line design; product bundling strategies; specialized pricing issues such as usage-based pricing (e.g., pricing of Internet services), pricing of congested networks, and auctions.

 290. Digital Marketing for Business Analytics (MSBA)
Course description coming soon

This course introduces students to the practical side of the highly effective Insight Marketing method. Insight Marketing integrates the disciplines of traditional Brand Marketing, Product Marketing and Consumer Insights. Students will learn the key difference between information and insight and become more consumer-centric in how they view the world. There will be much attention on understanding the difference between product attributes versus product benefits; an important skill in the marketing profession. Students will learn the drivers of brand equity, the importance of product positioning, and be exposed to several proven strategic frameworks. This course is designed to be both strategic and practical in nature. Students will be required to present almost weekly as we learn and apply the various aspects of Insight Marketing. The final project requires student teams to take an existing consumer product or service and generate a clear positioning and brand essence. Additionally the final project requires students to leverage a key consumer insight to create a 30 second commercial which will be strategically and creatively critiqued; just like in the real world.

290. Marketing Strategy
Investigates how social media and the digital age affect marketing strategy considering the frameworks identifying marketing problems, plans for courses of action to address marketing problems, and marketing tactics and strategies to reach business objectives in a turbulent market.

290. Sales Management
Investigates the role of the sales manager in the digital age by considering the trends and evolution of the sales management function and the role of the salesperson responsible for large customer relationships in the turbulent Business to Business Market.

290. Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing examines recent developments in the social media world including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others. Topics cover user generated content, digital strategies, market behaviors and consumer issues. We examine these developments and application areas through concepts and case studies.

The Social Media Marketing seminar is not a “fast fix” with a set of “how to” technical prescriptions; such information is widely available through online resources generously offered by the industry.  Though we will master crucial “how to” tools, our approach will focus on in-depth analysis of current global trends in Social Media Marketing rooted in a conceptual understanding of social networks and the role of technology. Because of the fluid nature of Social Media Marketing, in the classroom we may not find answers to all our burning questions. However, students should finish the course prepared to professionally face the near future of Social Media and market on evolving social platforms.

 295B. Micromarketing with Digital Footprints

Micromarketing with Digital Footprints focuses on how businesses use digital footprints from household data and point-of-purchase data to customize product offerings and delivery, store locations, advertising, and promotions to households and neighborhoods with the highest market potential.

In the first part of the course, students will receive extensive, hands-on experience using data on household digital footprints, as well as mapping software called Geographic Information System (GIS) software to visualize the data such as household and then consumer segments based on the digital footprints from Experian, Alteryx software to access and analyze the data, mapping software from ESRI called ArcMap, and an address geocoder from TomTom. The second part of the course will teach students to use point-of-sale digital footprint products from retail stores. By using data and software are provided by AC Nielsen, in their business intelligence product called Answers Retail Edition, students learn unit and dollar sales for all stocking units (SKU’s) at several retail locations, including sales by competitors. In addition to data reported monthly, which includes sales by brand, manufacturer, product category, price, and price promotion.

 Digital Strategy Electives

Critical review of economic theory and data based marketing models to predict and understand the behavior of customers, the firm, and its competitors, and to aid in managerial marketing-mix decisions.

291-MK2 PhD Seminar in Marketing Management and Strategy
Examines how firms make decisions about pricing, product design, product introductions, distribution and advertising. Also discusses strategy, competition, market structure, information signaling and reputation, technology, and research and development.
 
291-MK3 PhD Seminar in Consumer Behavior
Examines seminal and emerging theories of consumer behavior. Reviews research from the basic disciplines (psychology, economics, sociology, anthropology) and the applied disciplines (marketing, consumer and organizational behavior, communications).
 
291-MK4 PhD Seminar in Marketing Models of Perception, Preference and Choice 
Overviews the fundamentals and development of marketing models of perception (e.g., perceptual mapping), preference (e.g., conjoint analysis) and choice (e.g., multinomial logit models).
 
291-MK5 PhD Seminar in Marketing and Culture
Focuses on cultural practices and behaviors in the marketplace both across and within cultures. Discusses rapid globalization and the increasing role of culture. Ethnographic methods will be employed.

291-MK6 PhD Seminar in Perception, Judgment and Choice
Examines key underpinnings of consumer decision-making including individual- and situation-specific variables that influence perception, judgment and choice. Emphasis will be on theories and methods that can guide managerial decisions.

291-MK7 PhD Seminar in Marketing Theory and Foundations

The PhD seminar will address theory and foundations of Marketing discipline with readings from well-known scholars and academics dating back to the 1970s. Building on previous work and more recent developments, the seminar provides fresh insights and applications.

291-MK8 PhD Seminar in Models of Consumer and Managerial Decisions (2 units, first taught in Spring 2014, Currim)

291-MK9 PhD Seminar in Affect and Cognition (2 units, first taught in Winter 2014, Lau-Gesk)