Marketing Strategy (MKTG 6815-01)

Fall 2014
Instructor: Jack Wei, Ph.D.
Office: RCOB - Room 2307
Telephone: (678) 839-5026 (Office); (404)-452-4119 (Cell)
E-mail: jwei@westga.edu
Class Schedule:Wednesday 7:00 p.m. 9:30 p.m.
Classroom: Miller Hall 2201
Office hours: Wednesday 1:00-7:00 p.m. or by appointment
Required Text:
The required text for the course is Aaker, David A. Strategic Market Management, 9th
Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010.

The case and articles can be purchased from the site. You can click the link below.
https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/access/27886968.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will provide frameworks and tools to solve strategic-level marketing
problems. Taking the viewpoint of the general manager and the senior marketing
executive, the class will focus on marketing strategy design, implementation, and
evaluation. Our focus will therefore go beyond marketing tactics for a single product or
service offering. Instead, we will examine the strategic-level management of a firms
marketing resources and capabilities in order to maximize long-run customer value and
to generate the greatest financial return for the firm. The course will cover the issues of:

Formulating segmentation and targeting strategies

Understanding, attracting and keeping valuable customers
Positioning the business to achieve an advantage over competitors

Identifying and exploiting growth opportunities

Allocating resources across businesses and segments
Managing the channels for gaining access to the served markets, and
Aligning the organization to changing market requirements
Ethnical issues

OBJECTIVES
Your objective is to develop your own understanding and management skills from this
course. My primary objective is to provide a learning environment and stimulate the
process. Generally, the course will attempt to help you build your knowledge base and
sharpen your skills in the application of advanced frameworks, concepts, and methods
for making strategic choices at the business unit level. At the end of the course, you
should demonstrate a working knowledge of the marketing strategies that organizations
employ in various stages of marketing management.
Specifically, after completing the course, students should be able to:
relate marketing strategy to the environmental constraints and opportunities with
which managers must deal including diversity, ethical decision making and
leadership, social responsibility, globalization, and multicultural considerations (LG
4, LG 5)
apply a problem-solving model to identify problems and generate alternative ethical
actions in complex business scenarios (LG 4, LG 6);
assess marketing problems utilizing an analytical framework that incorporates
qualitative and quantitative rigor and appropriate related tools (LG 2, LG 3);
identify and explain appropriate ethical strategic marketing decisions in various
situations and provide reasoned support in oral and written form (LG 1, LG 5, LG6);
summarize and ethically apply, through oral discussion and written documents,
marketing strategy theory(s) and concepts (LG 1, LG 5, LG 6).
TEACHING METHOD
The course will use a combination of cases, lecture/discussion, videos, group projects and
exams. The classroom environment will be very interactive, so prepare to get involved.
Students come from a variety of backgrounds with a large and diverse knowledge base.
Therefore, my primary role will be to facilitate discussions that bring out pertinent issues
and to better frame the analyses of these issues.
The class will be divided into about ten teams for group work including case analysis
and marketing project. Each team consists of 3-4 members. Please try to form your own
teams in the first week.
1. Class Contribution (10%)

Class attendance is required and taken at each class. You will have one excusable
absence during the semester and please inform me before you miss a class. After the
excusable absence, you will lose five points for each day you are absent from class.
Students will also lose two and half points for each day they are late to class. A student
who arrives in class more than ten minutes after the start of the class would be considered
late to that class. Two latenesses will be equivalent to one absence.
Because of the commitment to class discussion, learning hinges on your constructive inclass contribution. By constructive contribution I mean comments and questions that help
advance everyones learning, including mine.
2. Group Case Discussion (25%)
The case method is essential to developing the kinds of problem-solving and
communication skills highly valued in marketing managers. The ability to generalize
from the specific case situations discussed in class to new situations that you may
encounter is one of the foundations of general management education. There is one case
for class discussion (the case title is Bluefin Labs, The Acquisition by Twitter?). The
case and articles can be purchased from the website of Harvard Business Publishing
(https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/access/27886968). I created the course account for this
class on their website so you can purchase the case and articles for less than $4 each.
During the discussion, you will be expected to analyze the situation, identify the
central problems, propose and evaluate alternative solutions, and recommend courses of
action or defend a final decision. Teams will present their analysis collectively using PPT
slides and other useful technologies (e.g., YouTube). Highly valued discussion include
those asking insightful questions about the case, providing an appropriate qualitative
analysis, highlighting pertinent environment issues, offering alternative solutions,
providing with corresponding criteria for evaluation of solutions and recommendations,
summarizing and/or reconciling previous comments, and drawing generic learning points
from the case.
The grading criteria include:
Original thought and fully elaborated ideas in situation audit.
In-depth analysis of the problems.
Strategies are based on the strategic framework and well developed.
Criteria and analysis are complete and reasonable.
Implementations are detailed and strictly consistent with strategies.
Each team will have 20-30 minutes to present their case analysis in class. Prior to
the presentation, each team will prepare a one-page summary or an outline and email it to
me for feedback.
3. Group marketing strategy project (25%).
Each team will be required to work on a marketing strategy project related to the
content of the course and providing a significant learning experience for all members of
3

the team. The handout on the project will be distributed in the first class when each
team will pick up a company for itself. The project will be based on field research of a
real company in the U.S. Each team will submit a three-page typed proposal with the
name of the company and names of the team members in the second class. The proposal
should explain the major reasons that your team chose the company for the project and
how your team will conduct research to gain the information.
The final paper should be between 10 and 15 pages, excluding any charts,
graphs, and figures. This paper is due on the last day of class. It should be singlespaced, 12 Time New Roman font with 1 inch right and left margins and 1 inch top and
bottom margins. Please use sections, subsections, bullets and the like to enhance
readability. Neatness, grammar, punctuation will be evaluated in addition to content
when determining the final grade.
The group project is due at 7 p.m. (EST) on 12/3. Please note that NO later
submission is accepted. A class presentation of your project will be scheduled for the
last class as well.
The group project will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
The quality of teamwork.
The quality of the data collection and analysis
The evidence that the frameworks, concepts, and methods have been applied
properly and creatively.
The feasibility of the conclusions or recommendations
The quality of the written and verbal presentation of the project.
4. Exams (40%)
Both midterm exam (20%) and final exam (20%) cover the chapters and articles. Exams
may consist of multiple choice items or short answer questions or essay questions
designed to measure your understanding of general concepts and details you learned in
classes and your ability to critically evaluate situations and solve problems. Early or
make-up exams are allowed only in the most extreme cases and never without prior
arrangements. Please contact the professor before the exam in order to be considered for
any rescheduling.
Grading Scale
Your grade for the course will be calculated according to the following.
Class contribution
10
Group case analysis
25
Group marketing strategy project
25
Mid-term exam
20
Final exam
20__
Total
100
Your final letter grade for the course will be determined using this scale:
A= 90 and above
B= 80 89.99
C= 70 79.99
D= 60 69.99
F= below 60
4

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY
It is the philosophy of The University of West Georgia on that academic dishonesty is a
completely unacceptable mode of conduct and will not be tolerated in any form. All
persons involved in academic dishonesty will be disciplined in accordance with
University regulations and procedures. Any forms of cheating will result in a zero grade
for this course. Discipline may also include suspension or expulsion from the University.
STUDENT RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Please carefully review the information at the following link:
http://www.westga.edu/assetsDept/vpaa/Common_Language_for_Course_Syllabi.pdf
The document at this link contains important information pertaining to your rights and
responsibilities in this class.
Credit Hour Policy (3 credit hours): For approximately fifteen weeks, students in this
class will generally spend 150 minutes with direct faculty instruction (either face-to-face
or online) and work about 360 minutes outside of the classroom each week. This out-ofclass work may include, but is not limited to, readings, assignments, projects, group
work, research, and test preparation.

TENTATIVE CLASS SCHEDULE

Date
8/27

Topics and Assignments

Introduction to the Course
Chapter 1: Strategic market management
Article-1: What is a strategy? (M. Porter)
Team formation
Case Analysis Guideline (Handouts)
Group Project Guideline (Handouts)

9/3

MODULE I: EXTERNAL /INTERNAL ANALYSIS

Chapter 2: Customer Analysis
Chapter 3: Competitor Analysis
Articles for discussion:
Article-2: New Dynamics of Competition

9/10

Chapter 4: Market/submarket analysis

Chapter 5: Environmental Analysis
Articles for discussion:
Article-3: Unleashing the Power of Marketing

9/17

Chapter 6: Internal Analysis

Case Discussion:
Case: Bluefin Labs, The Acquisition by Twitter?
(Situation audit)

9/24

MODULE II: BUILDING STRATEGIES: PHILOSOPHY

Chapter 7: Creating Advantages, Synergy, and Strategic Philosophies
Case Discussion:
Case: Bluefin Labs, The Acquisition by Twitter?
(Problem Statement)

10/1

Chapter 8: Alternative Value Propositions

Chapter 9: Building and Managing Brand Equity
Articles for discussion:
Article-4: Break free from the Product Life Cycle

10/8
10/15

Mid-term Exam
Case Discussion:
Case: Bluefin Labs, The Acquisition by Twitter?
(Strategy development)

10/22

MODULE III: GROWTH STRATEGIES

Chapter 10: Energizing the Business
Chapter 11: Leveraging the Business

10/ 29

Case Discussion:
Case: Bluefin Labs, The Acquisition by Twitter?
(Criteria and analysis)

11/5

Chapter 12: Creating New Business

Chapter 13: Global Strategies
Articles for discussion:
Article-5: Blue Ocean Strategy

11/12

MODULE IV: IMPLEMENTATION

Chapter 14: Setting Priorities for Business and Brands
Chapter 15: Organization Issues (Business Ethics)
Articles for discussion:
Article-6: How to Embed Innovation into Your Organizational Culture
Article-7: Bringing Customers into Boardroom

11/19

Case Discussion:
Case: Bluefin Labs, The Acquisition by Twitter?
(Implementation)

11/26

Thanksgiving Holiday. No class!

12/3

Group Presentations

12/ 10

Final Exam: 7-9:30 p.m.