Brand Management Marketing 325 Golden Gate University Professor: Marla Showfer
Voice: 415-332-4971 email: showfer@ggu.edu Class Meetings: 16 Sessions 1/5/011 – 4/26/011
Office Hours:
Feel free to contact me via email or phone, I am on Central Time. Course Description:
What do the brands Starbucks, Nike, Jeep, Toyota, Virgin Atlantic, Palm and Levi's mean to you? You can probably name hundreds of other brands that evoke thoughts, emotions, and actions in you (and everyone else) far beyond the value of a company's actual products or services. Brand management is one of the critical functions in the marketing of a company's products that builds brand image, brand and customer value and relationships between brands and consumers. Brand management strategy is the platform drives all other marketing functions within an organization, including product development, distribution and pricing strategies and marketing communications.
This course reviews the history of brands and branding, their importance, and the roll of brand equity in a firm. You will find out how to analyze brand management strategies. You will learn how to manage brand equity, create a brand identity and positioning; establish a competitive advantage; and capitalize on consumer insight. Product pricing, distribution strategy and measuring brand equity are also covered.
Course Objectives:
1. Provide you with an understanding of Brand Management and the concepts associated with building brand equity, managing brand identity and holistic business management.
2. Provide you with an in-depth understanding of how to formulate effective brand strategies to successfully compete in marketing consumer and business-to-business goods and services. 3. Give you practice developing a brand audit for a real company.
4. Further develop your management communication skills, by presenting and defending analyses of marketing situations through case studies and class discussions.
5. Provide you with an experience of participating in a team effort by working in a group. 6. Provide a base from which from which to start developing product strategies and Integrated Marketing Communications Plans.
Required Text:
Strategic Brand Management: Building Measuring and Managing Brand Equity, Kevin Lane Keller
Video Case Studies:
This course contains streaming video of the case studies. Viewing these cases is a required part of the course, they can be found under each Class Session indicated by an icon that says "Video". Other Recommended Reading on Brand Management
“Building Strong Brands” by David Aaker
“Managing Brand Equity” by David Aker, Free Press
“Kellogg on Branding by the Marketing Faculty of the Kellogg School of Management”, Published by Wiley.
“A New Brand World” by Scott Bedbury
Brand Asset Management, Driving Profitable Growth Through Your Brands” by Scott Davis, Jossy-Bass
“Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People”, by Marc Gobe Harvard Business Review on Brand Management (Harvard Business Review Paperback
Series) by Erich Joachimsthaler
“The Handbook of Brand Management”, The Economist Books Recommended Website: Brandchannel.com
Recommended Business Periodicals such as Business Week, the Journal of Brand Management, Brand Week, Business 2.0 and Advertising Age are recommended for keeping in touch with marketing developments.
Course Components:
Class Discussion: You will be expected to contribute to the class learning experience by actively participating in online class discussions. A substantial part of the benefit you will get from this class is a function of your willingness to share your viewpoints, as well as your ability to build upon and evaluate the judgments of your classmates. Class participation is a significant portion of your grade. You should be open about sharing your opinions, and responding to the opinions of others (in a constructive way).
Reading: You will be expected to have completed each session's reading assignment before each class so that you can fully participate in clas discussion.
Articles: all required articles for each session are listed under the “Lesson” each week. Articles can be accesses through the GGU Proquest through the GGU Online Library, using publication and article title and author name. There is also a list of articles compiled for MKT 325 in the online library, enter “Showfer”.
A Typical Week:
We do not have a set day for class meetings. There are 15 weeks in which we operate. Each week begins on Wednesday and ends on Tuesday.
All assignments and postings should be posted by Tuesday, 6pm Pacific Time of each week. This means that you have one week to prepare your work and respond and comment to your classmates' postings.
You will receive credit for postings and assignments for a specific session anytime between during the week. Remember, if you post all of your ideas about week 1 during week 2, you will get no participation points for week 1.
Class Participation: is graded based on your regular participation in message board discussions sessions each week. Your message board participation accounts for 25% of your final grade.
Participation is defined as actively adding information ideas and approaches to the subject under discussion, it does not mean repeating information from the chapters or articles.
Participation requires a minimum of 2 thoughtful postings each week on the discussion topics, and responding to your classmate's postings. This means that you should log on to the message board several times each week to allow discussions to build.
Your comments should be well-thought out quality comments, which are concise and to the point, directly related to the subject.
"Quality comments" does not simply mean "I agree" or I disagree", please feel free to encourage your classmates with this simple type of message, but this type of message alone is not considered to be your participation for the week.
Students should read assignments early in the week and start posting comments by mid-week.
Class Discussions will enable you to express your point-of-view and learn from others who have a different perspective.
Effective learning can come from looking at other people's perspectives, please be open to other ideas and solutions to problems you are studying, if you disagree, do so
respectfully. Case Study:
You will be assigned one case from the text to analyze and write up. Your analysis should be approximately two pages single spaced (no more than three pages). Each case write-up should include:
1) a background paragraph, with an update about where the brand is today 2) SWOT analysis
3) answers to each of the questions at the end of the case study.
Please follow a question and answer format in your write up. You will be graded on your
thoughtfulness and your ability to utilize the concepts we have been discussing in class. You will be expected to provide insights and to justify your answers.
Team Final Project Due at the end of Session 15:
Each student will be assigned to a project team. Each team will prepare a brand audit of a company of your choice. The analysis is to be shared with the class in a 45 minute to one hour, oral presentation during the last class meeting. A Powerpoint is the final deliverable, a white paper report is not required.
All students on the team will share the same grade on their written presentation. A team evaluation form will be distributed so that you can evaluate the performance of your team members, if 2 or more people on the team feel that another student deserves either a higher or lower grade on the written portion of the plan than the rest of the group, this will be taken into consideration.
Examinations:
Mid–term Quiz (Session 8, online)-multiple choice, short answer and essay Final Exam -- multiple choice, short answer and essay
Grading:
Your grade will be determined through the following weighting of the course's components:
% pts
Class Participation: 10% 50
Individual Case Study 15% 75
Midterm Quiz 15% 75 Team Project 25% 125 Final Exam: 25% 125 450 Grading Guidelines: 90% = A Range 80% = B Range 70% = C Range
If you Experience Technical Difficulties
Toll Free: 1-800-GGU-4YOU (press 4 and then press 1), 24 hour support, 7 days a week Local: 303-873-0005 (Denver, CO)
Email: helpdesk@ggucybercampus.org
For questions about your username and password please contact GGU's Cyberhelp at: Phone: 1.888.874.2923
Email: cyberhelp@ggu.edu
Instructor's Biography:
Marla Showfer has 20 years of marketing experience on both the advertising agency and client sides. She has worked with leading global marketers including Proctor & Gamble, United Airlines, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, American Express, Dell Computers, Sears, Toys R Us and Levi Strauss & Co. developing marketing strategies to build brands and drive sales. Professor Showfer earned a BA in Advertising from Michigan State University and an MS from
Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She currently consults with companies in developing Brand Strategy, IMC, CRM programs.
Brand Management Course Schedule:
Session 1,
Jan 5: Introduction
Cyber Café introductions Read: Keller Chapter 1
All articles can be found in the online course under Assignment View Starbucks case study video
Discussion: Starbucks
Session 2, Jan 12:
Customer Based Brand Equity"
Read: Keller Chapter 2 " Customer Based Brand Equity"
All articles can be found in the online course under Assignment Discussion: Consumer Centric Read Keller chapter 9, "Measuring Sources of Brand Equity: Capturing Consumer Mindset"
All articles can be found in the online course under Assignment View P&G case study video
Discussion: P&G the Consumer Mindset Session 4: Jan 25: Brand Positioning and Values
Read Keller Chapter 3 "Brand Positioning and Values"
All articles can be found in the online course under Assignment Discussion: Saturn
Session 5, Feb 2: Choosing Brand Elements to Build Brand Equity
Read Keller, chapter 4, Choosing Brand Elements to Build Brand Equity
View Accenture case study video All articles can be found in the online course under Assignment Discussion: Accenture
Session 6, Feb 9: Designing Pricing and Distribution Strategies to Build Brand Equity Read Keller, Chapter 5 “Designing Marketing Programs to Build Brand Equity” All articles can be found in the online course under Assignment
Discussion: Palm, Pricing and Distribution strategies
Session 7, Feb 16: Integrating Marketing Communications to Build Brand Equity
Read Keller, Chapter 6; Integrating Marketing Communications to Build Brand Equity All articles can be found in the online course under Assignment View Mazda case study video Discussion: Mazda Protege
Session 8, Feb 23: Leveraging Secondary Brand Knowledge
Read Keller, chapter 7, Leveraging Secondary Brand Knowledge Mid-term Quiz to be taken online any time during the week Read Dupont Managing a Corporate Brand, Case #7
All articles can be found in the online course under Assignment
Discussion: No discussion this week focus on studying for the quiz, be sure to read all articles and the case study on Dupont
Session 9, March 2: "Designing and Implementing Branding Strategies"
Read Keller, Chapter 11 "Designing and Implementing Branding Strategies" All articles can be found in the online course under Assignment
View Nivea case study video Discussion: Nivea
Session 10, March 9:
"Introducing and Naming New Products and Brand Extensions" Read Keller, Chapter 12 "Introducing and Naming New Products and Brand Extensions" All articles can be found in the online course under Assignment View Levi’s/Dockers case study video Discussion: Levi Strauss & Co.
Session 11, March 16: "Developing a Brand Equity Measurement and Management System"
Read Keller Chapter 8 "Developing a Brand Equity Measurement and Management System"
All articles can be found in the online course under Assignment Discussion: Levi Strauss & Co.
Session 12, March 23: "Measuring Outcomes of Brand Equity: Capturing Market Performance"
Read Keller, Chapter 10 "Measuring Outcomes of Brand Equity: Capturing Market Performance"
All articles can be found in the online course under Assignment Discussion: Measuring Brand Equity
Session 13, March 30: "Managing Brands Over Time” Read Keller Chapter 13, "Managing Brands Over Time
All articles can be found in the online course under Assignment Watch MasterCard, Hush Puppies and Mt. Dew Videos
Discussion: Managing Brands Over Time Session 14 : April 6: Closing Observations
Read Keller Chapter 13, "Managing Brands Over Time
All articles can be found in the online course under Assignment Watch MasterCard, Hush Puppies and Mt. Dew Videos
Discussion: Managing Brands Over Time
Session 15: April 13 Team project Due
Read Keller, Chapter 14 "Managing Brands over Geographic Boundaries and Market Segments"
Study for Final
Discussion: Share Experiences Session 16: April 20 Final Exam Week
