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Marketing

Marketing Strategy (Fall)

Target Audience

This course is for students who enjoy case discussion and active class participation in the strategic planning process as it relates to consumer analysis and the cause and effect of business decisions. The course will appeal to business generalists who wish to supplement their marketing skills, or to those seeking a marketing career. The backdrop is that we live in the “right now” generation, and yet aging boomers outnumber teenagers two to one. Add in stressful competition, and a changing and far more demanding consumer, and these serve as challenges for creating strategies with meaningful differentiation. Students will need to shift their thinking about developing marketing strategies in a world that values ethics, and socially responsible leadership. 

Course Mission

This course uses the case study method from the text and casebook, supplemented by special handouts and guest speakers, to teach marketing strategy as an organizational decision-making process. Students will gain an understanding of and be able to put in practice the processes used to make informed decisions, learning to what works in varied industries and scenarios. We quickly move from theoretical analysis to a detailed dialogue of practical decision-making and the implications arising from those decisions - one in which management commits people and cash to compete effectively in markets which they choose to serv 

  • To develop thinking and analytical skills in strategic marketing in order to assess markets and create value.
  • To develop skills in defining business drivers, and the factors influencing strategic and tactical decisions.
  • To develop an understanding of the critical success factors that make the strategic planning process effective – beginning with development of brand image, assessment of competition, creating a customer value proposition, relating to the importance and relevance of customer satisfaction, to the meaning and role of high performing teamwork, and how these factors influence the bottom line.
  • To appreciate the use of marketing strategy for new products and technology in our current environment both domestically and globally.

Course Scope

This course examines the processes by which businesses decide how to compete in the markets they choose to serve. The emphasis is on the analysis of market opportunities and sources of competitive advantage. The course also looks at the strategic implications of market evolution and methods of allocating resources to new and established products. Take this course if you want to make money. Use the processes to sharpen your consulting skills. 

Marketing Strategy (Spring)

Target Audience

Marketing Strategy is an integrative course in marketing dealing with strategic issues in marketing. It is intended for students interested in marketing, consulting, and entrepreneurship. The subject matter of the course is how to develop sustainable competitive advantage through marketing means. 

What the Course is About?

As alluded to above, it is about “marketing” and “strategy.” Thus it is a natural follow-up to the first-year marketing and strategy courses. This course will teach you how to develop unique value propositions for consumers, backed up by assets that are hard to replicate by competitors. These are the sorts of decisions CMOs, and even CEOs, get involved in.

This is essentially a case course, supplemented by lectures and guest speakers. The cases have been chosen to cover a wide range of marketing strategy issues, in a variety of product and geographical settings. The variety is part of the design: you will learn from comparing cases, and figuring out how the similarities and differences between them map into strategy.

A key feature of the course is “live cases”—i.e., cases involving actual companies based in Toronto. (The 2013 edition of the course featured live cases from Canadian Tire Retail and Kraft Canada.) These live cases will involve student teams interacting with company executives to understand the real issues facing these firms and developing recommendations to address those issues.

 

Consumer Behaviour

Target Audience

Students interested in investigating social and psychological foundations of consumer thought and behaviour. Course content is oriented toward basic principles of psychology and other social sciences and their application to a wide range of consumer activities. 

Course Mission

Successful managers have the ability to design and deliver unique consumer value in ways that efficiently utilize the company’s resources. This course focuses on the analysis of consumer thoughts, feelings, and behaviours by providing a detailed account of the theory of consumer behaviour. We will examine the personal, psychological, social, and cultural aspects of the marketing environment, and explore the nature of these influences on the buying behaviour of individuals and groups. This course has four overarching objectives: 

  • To encourage appreciation for the value of consumer behaviour in determining successful marketing strategies.
  • To review recent conceptual, empirical, and methodological developments in research on consumer behaviour.
  • To provide a coherent framework for interpreting consumer reactions to marketing stimuli.
  • To provide experience in applying behavioural principles to the analysis of marketing problems and the design of marketing strategy.

Classes will use a variety of methods: readings, lectures, application exercises, and class discussions.

Course Scope

The primary goal of this course is to enhance understanding of consumer behaviour, from determining consumer needs to building customer relationships. Behavioural concepts from various social science disciplines are used to examine consumer motivations, perceptions, attitudes, decisions, and actions. The emphasis is on using this knowledge to capitalize on marketing opportunities.

Strategic Marketing Communications

Target Audience

This course is for students who are intrigued by the impact that technology and the changing face of the Canadian market is having on evolving traditional marketing disciplines to engage audiences. The course will present new perspectives to those already in or interested in pursuing a marketing career either on the side of a marketing company, advertising agency or specialized marketing related service, e.g., media, social engagement, research, etc., or even entrepreneurship that involves customer engagement. 

Course Mission

This course uses the case study method and expects high class participation. There will be a primary textbook reference and supplemented by industry expert guest speakers. The focus will be to teach marketing communication as a decision-making process in real market cases. The course aims to help broaden a marketers thinking and provide tools to explore business opportunities using consumer insights and techniques facilitated by technology. 

 

Course Scope

This course has been designed to provide you with the strategic thought process and the tactical tools for making marketing decisions; specifically in the area Marketing Communication. You will learn how to create marketing programs that effectively engage your audiences and build brand value. With real life projects, you will be guided to come up with solutions to the unique challenges you’re your brand poses. The course will help you sharpen your creative abilities to explore ideas that build brand equity and business.

Marketing Research

Target Audience

This course is relevant for students interested in general management, marketing, market research and innovation in businesses that are fundamentally consumer or customer centric. The course emphasizes the pivotal role market research has in supporting decisions at all levels and stages of business management. Students will learn how to design market research studies and interpret the findings to support the most common and important business decisions. The course will also expose students to emerging areas of market research and consider how they are reshaping business practice. 

Course Scope and Mission

  • To give students experience with the most frequently used market research methods that guide business decisions in consumer or customer markets today.
  • To equip students to answer complex business questions by integrating data on consumer behaviour with market structure information to identify opportunities and evaluate alternatives.
  • To provide a business application context for the development of skills and knowledge of foundational research methods.
  • To expose students to emerging areas of market research that are shedding new light on how consumers/customers make decisions in complex markets.

Fintech Marketing: Innovation in the Marketing of Financial Services
 

Target Audience

Students who plan to work in financial services, consulting, venture capital or strategy roles, as well as those generally interested in the startup space, digital disruption and innovation.  

Course Mission

Fintech Marketing explores the number one issue for CEOs of every successful player in financial services: the onslaught from a wave of well-funded, disruptive startups looking to carve out their most profitable lines of business. The course addresses this from the perspective of disruptors, established financial institutions and venture capital firms, looking at issues of customer segmentation, positioning, product development (including minimum viable products), pricing, distribution, customer acquisition, scaling of offerings and competitive insulation.  The case features guest talks by fintech founders, senior decision makers at banks and VCs, supplemented by case discussions and lectures.

Course Scope

12 regular sessions – 2 hours in length, incorporating a guest speaker, discussion of articles and cases and a lecture. There will also be optional out of class meetings with senior decision makers at banks and venture capitalists 

Design Research and Data Storytelling
 

Target Audience

This course is aimed at students with prior experience or coursework with business design and/or marketing research. 

Course Mission

  • The learning objectives are to:

    Learn and practice the fundamental principles of design research for business innovation
    Learn how to design, plan, and executive a field-based qualitative research study
    Learn how to apply ethnography (observation, interviews, and analysis) to a real business challenge
    Learn how to apply visual analytics techniques to synthesize data into powerful narratives

Course Scope

In this course, you will learn how design research helps to uncover patterns, develop insights and inform strategies. Design research is a sub-set of qualitative research methods that focuses on studying people through rigorous observation, in-depth interviewing and collaborative co-design. Design research methodologies help us uncover deep actionable insights that de-risk the launch of new products, services and technologies.

You will learn and practice ethnographic techniques to develop compelling insights, co-design solutions and apply visual analytics to tell data-rich stories. Design research and data storytelling are used extensively in management consulting, product and service design, marketing strategy, sustainability, communications, organizational development, etc., as deep insight into people’s real-world behaviour is fundamental to business success.

Service Design: Innovating Service-Based Organizations
 

Target Audience

This course is aimed at students with prior experience or coursework with business design and/or service operations. 

Course Mission

The learning objectives are to: 

  • Learn and practice the human-centered principles of service design for business innovation
  • Practice how designers research, prototype and iterate a new service offering
  • Learn and practice how to map existing service experiences (journey mapping) and co-design future state experiences (service blueprinting)
  • Learn how to integrate digital/AI/ML with traditional channels to create a seamless end-to-end experience that delights customers

Course Scope

In this course, you will learn how service designers take a human-centered approach to researching and designing solutions. Service Design is a subset of design disciplines that takes an action-oriented approach to co-design solutions with customers, citizens, or end-users. Service Design methodologies help us understand key pain points and preferences and prototype solutions based on the needs of actual consumers.

You will learn and practice service design techniques on an applied team project, developing compelling insights, co-designing and implementing an omni-channel solution. Service Design methods are being rapidly adopted by technology start-ups, management consultancies, governments, software developers, AI/ML, marketing, sustainability, communications, organizational development specialists, as designing desirable and usable services is fundamental to business success.

Branding      

Target Audience

The course is intended for second-year MBA students interested in branding issues, and should appeal to many students. Students interested in a career in marketing will find the material essential. Students interested in financial careers should feel at home with the idea that products become brands through marketing investments. Brands are financial assets that can be leveraged, bought, and sold, just like any other asset. Students interested in management consulting should appreciate that brand strategy is an important sub- practice at most strategy-oriented consulting firms. Students interested in legal careers will find the material on brand equity relevant to cases involving trademark infringement/deceptive advertising. 

Course Mission

  • To develop an understanding of the strategic importance of brands in creating value for customers and firms.
  • To appreciate the nature of the challenges in planning, executing, and controlling branding strategies.
  • To develop a customer-based view of brand equity that explicitly addresses the role of cognitive, emotional, behavioural, social, cultural, and economic factors in creating brand equity.
  • To gain familiarity with some of the tools and tactics that firms use to create, sustain, leverage, and defend brand equity.
  • To refine analytical and decision making skills and the ability to express conclusions orally and in writing.

Course Scope

Brands are defined by a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors.  However, brands are valuable because those distinctive elements mean something to consumers.  Sometimes they make a product more memorable; sometimes they carry rich and powerful associations; sometimes they evoke feelings and emotions; sometimes they perform important social functions; and, sometimes they carry significant cultural meaning.  Consumers may even form relationships in which the brands help to define who they are and communicate this self-image to others.  The varied meanings and functions of brands for consumers create enormous challenges and opportunities for marketers. 

The value that brands can create for consumers also makes the valuable assets for organizations.  Brands represent valuable assets that must be created, sustained, leveraged, and defended. Students will assume the role of senior marketing managers responsible for the design, implementation, and evaluation of branding strategies.  This course will use case analysis, lectures, discussion, and a group project to reinforce successful decision making and communication skills for students who are interested in developing expertise in managing brands.

Pricing      

Target Audience

This course is appropriate for anyone who expects to be involved in the determination, execution and communication of a price. This includes students who plan careers in general management, marketing, sales, strategy, and customer services. The course is not restricted to any particular industry or vertical, and is appropriate for both B-2-B and B-2-C, and for both products and services applications. 

Course Mission

After taking this course, you will be able to:

1)    Understand the importance of the demand curve and customer willingness-to-pay in pricing strategy, and learn methods of estimating the demand curve.

2)    Learn how to calculate profit-maximizing prices.

3)    Calculate expected value to customers (EVC) and develop the concept of value based pricing.

4)    Understand relevant costs in determining prices, and develop a cost-based framework for pricing.

5)    Understand the effect of non-price factors on price image and perceived value.

6)    Be sensitive to consumer behavior factors that play a large role in pricing effectiveness

7)    Analyze a distribution channel in terms of impact of margin changes on channel value

8)    Understand innovative pricing strategies like bundling and price customization.

Course Scope

Price setting is one of the most important marketing mix decisions. It involves an understanding of both supply side factors (e.g. costs) and demand side factors (e.g. consumer willingness to pay). While traditional approaches to pricing theory have revolved around an economic and financial framework, a broader and more pragmatic view entails a comprehensive understanding of the demand side, both at the level of individual customer values, and the more aggregate level of price sensitivities of the market. Using product categories as diverse as financial services, healthcare, industrial products and consumer packaged goods, we will study economic and behavioural approaches to pricing, value pricing, price customization, price bundling and multi-part tariffs, revenue management, and retail pricing strategies, amongst other topics.

Marketing and Behavioural Economics

Target Audience

This highly interdisciplinary course will be particularly relevant to students with interests in Marketing, Design, Strategy, Behavioural Finance, Policy, and General Management. 

Course Mission

By the end of this course, you will:

1. Master the basic principles of behavioural economics

2. Know the application of the principles to various aspects of business and policy

3. Be able to design products and programs that are behaviourally informed.

Course Scope

The field of behavioural economics couples scientific research on the psychology of decision making with economic theory to better understand what motivates economic agents, including consumers, investors, employees, and managers.  In this course, we will examine topics such as the role of emotions in decision-making, “irrational” patterns of how people think about products, money, or investments, self-control, and how expectations shape perceptions. Topics covered will include: Individual and group choice, choice complexity, intertemporal choice, emotional influences on choice, the role of behavioural economics in marketing, spending and savings behaviour, social welfare (e.g., health apps), decision engineering and choice architecture (e.g., in the field of debt or tax collection). 

Sales Management

Target Audience

All students who intend to lead a business, be accountable for overall revenue or expect to interface with the sales function should take this course to be able to provide more effective oversight and guidance for the sales function. This would include prospective CEOs, entrepreneurs, marketing executives and line managers. In addition all students who see selling (products, services, ideas, yourself) as a core skill in their chosen profession should take this course to sharpen their personal selling tools. 

Course Mission

  1. Provide holistic approach/toolkit to developing optimal sales forces & revenue creation strategies
  2. Deliver an enhanced executive ability to manage your sales teams
  3. Enhance your personal selling capabilities (to sell products, services, ideas and yourself)
  4. Build appreciation for various approaches for maximizing return on sales investment
  5. Develop visibility into the inter-relationship of buyer and seller and how this plays out in the market
  6. Develop an understanding of how buyers buy

Course Scope

“Nothing happens until something is sold”

This course is intended to develop your ability to manage your most critical business resource – your revenue generators. We will study the intersection of individual selling, sales management and sales strategy (theory and current practice). We will develop an integrated toolkit that will give you a competitive advantage in managing your future companies toward maximum value creation and give you the personal skills to sell your products, services or ideas to your target buyer.

By the end of the course students will have a holistic overview of the concepts and tools available to the sales professional and strategic sales manager. The three essential building blocks of a successful sales organization will be covered in detail:

  1. Strategic sales planning
  2. Best practices in sales force management
  3. Personal selling

One to One Marketing

Target Audience

Students who want to improve their networking and written and verbal communication skills.

Course Mission

Doing great work and having terrific ideas are of little value if you can’t sell that work and don’t get buy-in to your ideas. In this course, you’ll learn about leading edge research on building relationships and the principles of effective persuasion. You’ll practice presenting and get feedback on your presentation skills. Finally, weekly assignments, small group meetings and journals will help you build new habits to incorporate the insights from each class into your daily routine.

Course Scope

12 regular sessions – 2 hours in length. Classes will consist of lectures, small group exercises and one on one role plays. Short videos before classes will deliver content. As well, each student will get feedback on videos of one minute  and three minute presentations and will be expected to meet each week with a small group, as well as to submit a short weekly journal.   

Digital Marketing

Target Audience

Students interested in the impact of technology on business, including digital marketing and technology entrepreneurship.

Course Mission

For each technological innovation, we will emphasize what is different, and what is not, for consumers, and for the production, distribution, and communication of goods and services. Students will:

  • Be able to understand how digital channels affect the nature of competition, the products offered and the prices charged
  • Be able to leverage digital advertising and social media to better communicate with customers
  • Know how to respond to new digital marketing tools as they arise
  • Develop tools for understanding website design principles
  • Be able to leverage Google, Facebook, and other online advertising platforms
  • Understand how trends like social and mobile media affect company strategies

Course Scope

Social media, search engines, mobile commerce, digital advertising, and online marketplaces are impacting competition for all firms, large and small. Drawing on some common themes across digital marketing platforms, we examine (i) how companies find and serve customers using digital tools, (ii) the kinds of digital products that companies offer, (iii) the role of distance in the customer-company relationship when information is digital, (iv) the locus of control of brand-related messages, (v) the concept of privacy, and (vi) the digital targeting of marketing tactics.

Creativity and Innovation
 

Target Audience

This course is aimed at students who are interested in understanding how creativity is learned, developed, and applied to business innovation activities. 

Course Mission

The learning objectives are to:

  • Demonstrate creative potential; how to unlock it, express it, and foster it
  • Recognize that creativity is a process, not a flash of blinding light
  • Understand and practice divergent and convergent thinking
  • Learn and practice the five critical characteristics of innovators
  • Gain experience using creative thinking tools to solve business problems and create new product, service, or process innovations

Course Scope

This intensive course will challenge students to develop their personal and professional creativity. Current research in experimental psychology suggests that creativity can be developed and refined, albeit with effort and practice. Through a combination of lectures, field trips and immersive in-class activities, students will engage in creative ways to see problems and opportunities more clearly, and develop solutions unseen and unimagined by others. The goal of this course is to provide a variety of methods and experiences that focus on fostering each student’s own creative abilities and how to apply them in teams and as a leader.

Futures Thinking: Developing Business Foresight

Target Audience

This course is of direct value to the student who has elected to major in Business Design, Consulting, Brand Management or Innovation and Entrepreneurship. This course is also of value to students interested in design strategy, marketing, new venture start-up, or innovation/product development and who wish to develop an ability to imagine new possibilities and create high quality forward views. 

Course Mission

This course aims to prepare the MBA candidate for the ambiguous challenge of creating and supporting a culture of innovativeness, within the framework of an innovation creating enterprise. In content, manner and style, this course has been designed to focus on developing the candidate’s ability to inspire exploration, discovery and learning within teams,  as well as increasing the value of their own imagination and creativity.  Students will work with “pre-design” methods that will help them identify and validate ideas,  and transform these ideas into pre-competitive products, services and systems by using techniques designed to  identify significant strategic shifts at their early stages as well as tools to assess  the potential of these strategic shifts in technology and behaviour as potential markets before they can be measured. Finally, this course will explore how foresight informs strategic decision-making and aligns the desires of people with the potential of technology, into new business models. 

Course Scope

The primary goal of this course is to expand your decision-making data set by:

  • Enhancing your awareness of macro trends and global behaviour shifts, and discover the possibilities present at the intersection between latent needs and current technology.
  • Building unique new perspectives
  • Transform shifts in behaviour and technology into feasible, useful and desirable business model concepts for systems, communications, products and services.
  • Develop and execute methodologies leading to innovation outcomes that combine emerging technology research and foresight methods.

The coursework is designed to: a) Help students to unlearn in order to see from new perspectives. b) Recognize and assign meaning to local and global patterns of emergence in behaviour. c) Translate these behaviour signals into future opportunities. d) Explore the experiential value of these opportunities e) Describe the support structures required to deliver on these experiences f) Design business models that translate these experiences, into social and corporate wealth.

 

Business Design Practicum: Live Corporate Innovation Case

Format

This course is delivered as a 3.5 hr studio plus additional online tutorials (.5hrs) over two weeks.

Course mission

This course is aimed at students who are interested in understanding design’s role in business innovation and innovation development process management. This intensive course combines the intensity of a design sprint with a design case competition. The objectives are to:

  • Learn the fundamental principles and practices of Business Design: using design methods and techniques to find, frame and solve problems;
  • Learn how to conduct: customer-centred research, product & service design, business strategy and modeling on a real-world challenge; and,
  • Explore how empathy, creativity, prototyping and context informs your thinking and practice.

Course scope

The course focuses on using human-centred design methods and developing a strategic mindset to navigate the uncertainties of business innovation. This class offers a studio-learning experience with hands-on activities, discussions and field work and involves a real business challenge sponsor. It involves a combination of instructor-led, peer-to-peer and team-based learning and knowledge exchange. This course will challenge you to creativity and collaboratively solve real business challenges.

Required resources

Please note you are required to purchase a notebook (U of T Fabrizio Journal) for this class. Required readings and supplemental materials will be provided on RWorld and from the curated class lectures.