BU.450.710.

XX Marketing Strategy Instructor Name Page 1 of 10

Marketing Strategy
2 Credits

BU.450.710.XX
[NOTE: Each section must have a separate syllabus.]

[Day & Time / ex: Monday, 6pm-9pm]

[Start & End Dates / ex: 3/24/15-5/12/15]

[Semester / ex: Fall 2016]

[Location / ex: Washington, DC]

Instructor
[Full Name]

Contact Information
[Email Address]
[Phone Number, (###) ###-#### (Optional)]

Office Hours
[Please specify the day and time of the 2 hours that will be dedicated to office hours each week. For
evening classes, faculty may wish to hold their office hours by phone or email. While faculty are permitted
to state and by appointment, office hours should not be held exclusively by appointment.]

Text(s) & Learning Materials

1. Required HBS and INSEAD Cases

Case Title Reference #

Marketing Strategies in the Competition between Branded and Generic
503-048-1
Antibiotics
Product Team Cialis: Getting Ready to Market 9-505-038

The Evolution of the Circus Industry BOS007

Crafting Winning Strategies in a Mature Market: The US Wine Industry in 2001 BOS018
LOral in China: Marketing Strategies for Turning around Chinese Luxury
INS291
Cosmetic Brand Yue Sai
Unilever in Brazil: Marketing Strategies for Low-Income Consumers 504-009-1

Renova Toilet Paper: Avant-garde Marketing in a Commoditized Category INS131

Diesel for Successful Living: Strategies for an Up-market Line Extension in the
504-007-1
Fashion Industry
Russian Standard Vodka: Strategies for Global Branding and Expansion into
502-080-1
the US Market
Branding in an Emerging Market: Strategies for Sustaining Market Dominance
INS6192
of the Largest Apparel Brand in India
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Please register with Harvard Business Publishing and place your order well in advance, as it
may take days to register and receive cases. You need to have all the cases before the first day
of class.

2. Background Reading Materials

This course is case focused. Relevant conceptual frameworks will be discussed in class.
However, students are recommended to read the assigned chapters from the following textbook:

Aaker, David A. (2014), Strategic Market Management, 10th Edition, New York: John Wiley &
Sons.

Students should also go through the recommended articles to broaden their understanding of
marketing strategy. Please refer to the course schedule for details.

Course Description
This course provides students an in-depth understanding of marketing strategy. It is designed to help
students experience the role of senior business executives in formulating, implementing, and evaluating
marketing strategies for a variety of complex, real-world business scenarios. Students will analyze and
learn the key factors underlying the successful and lackluster marketing strategies of both major
corporations and smaller firms across different industries, across different tiers of brands and products
(luxury versus mass-market), and across the globe. Topics covered include industry and market analyses,
dynamics of competition, value creation, branding, segmentation, targeting, positioning, product
development, pricing, distribution, and promotion. Through case analyses, in-class discussions, course
assignments, and a research project, students will develop skills in devising, executing, and evaluating
marketing strategies, as well as working in teams on complex business projects.

Prerequisite(s)
BU.410.620 OR BU.911.610

Learning Objectives
By the end of this course, students will:
1. Sharpen critical thinking skills in analyzing complex, real-world business problems, and identifying
solutions.
2. Acquire an in-depth, integrative understanding of marketing strategy topics including industry and
market analyses, dynamics of competition, value creation, segmentation, targeting, positioning,
pricing, branding, distribution, and promotion.
3. Develop skills in devising, executing, and evaluating marketing strategies for current and
emerging business situations.
4. Develop a strong international perspective of marketing and understand how social and cultural
diversities impact marketing strategy.
5. Improve their ability to work in teams on complex business projects.
6. Improve business communication skills including face-to-face discussion, presentation, and
writing.

To view the complete list of Carey Business Schools general learning goals and objectives, visit the
Carey website.

Assignments
[Note to Instructors: Rubrics are provided in the Instructor Notes for this course.]

Course Learning
Requirements Weight (%)
Objectives
Attendance and Contribution to Class Discussions 1-6 21%
20%
Case Opinion Polls 1-4
(2% per case)
 BU.450.710.XX Marketing Strategy Instructor Name Page 3 of 10

Final Exam 1-4 15%

Marketing Strategy Research Project
(1) Project Proposal 6%
(2) Research Progress Presentation 8%
1-6
(3) Research Project Report 15%
(4) Research Project Presentation 10%
(5) Teamwork Evaluation and Reflection 5%
TOTAL 100%

Attendance and In-class Discussion Policies

1. Full attendance and active participation are required to successfully complete this course.
Attendance and class participation are an important part of each students course grade. You
are expected to attend every session and make meaningful contributions to in-class
discussions.

2. Absence can be excused only in the case of jury duty, medical emergency, or other
uncontrollable circumstances (e.g., extreme weather conditions). Any absence must be
validated with official documentation. If you are absent at a class, it is your responsibility to
consult with your peers and make up whatever you may have missed in the session.

3. You are expected to attend each session on time. Being late or leaving early will disrupt the
lecture, negatively affect other students learning, and reduce your attendance and
participation points.

4. You are expected to thoroughly prepare for each session. You will be cold-called to answer
questions in class. Inability to respond to cold-call questions can negatively affect your
participation points.

5. You are expected to pay attention to other students / the professor when they are presenting /
lecturing. Behaviors that disrupt other students learning (e.g., mobile phone usage, texting,
eating) will negatively affect your attendance and participation points.

Case Opinion Polls

You need to answer all the opinion polls, which will be posted on Blackboard one week before
each session. You will be asked to indicate your opinions on a variety of marketing strategy
issues pertaining to the cases of the coming session. Please submit your answers by 6PM on the
day BEFORE the session. Late submission will not receive credit.

Final Exam
You will take a final exam at the 8th session. You will be asked to analyze local and/or global
business scenarios and respond to a set of marketing strategy questions pertaining to those
scenarios.

Marketing Strategy Research Project

1. This is a group project. You need form a research team with 3-5 members. Each team should
appoint a team representative who will submit the composition of her/his team to the
professor by midnight on the day of the 1st session. Each member is expected to contribute
equally to the project, and will be evaluated by her/his peers at the end of the semester.

2. Each team needs to identify a firm (or an organization) and conduct in-depth analyses of its
marketing strategy. The firm you select can be a local company or a major U.S. or foreign
corporation. However, you must be able to collect sufficient information about the firms
industry, competitors, consumers, products/services, brands, segmentation, targeting, pricing,
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distribution, promotion, sales/profits, and other aspects of its business pertinent to the
analyses of the firms marketing strategy. You might want to consider choosing the firm you or
your team members are currently working for or have worked for.

3. To truly benefit from this project, you should avoid choosing firms whose marketing strategies
are very well known (e.g., Apple). Successful research projects have focused on such topics
as how a firm in a dire situation strategized to turn around its business; how an underdog
firm successfully challenged the dominant players in the market; how a firm fundamentally
changed or reinvented an industry; how a firm achieved success in a brand-new or shrinking
market; or how a firm sustained success or achieved exceptional growth over extended
periods of time. While you are not required to use one of these themes, please keep in mind
that projects that illustrate interesting marketing strategy problems (such as these) and reveal
novel new insights tend to receive higher scores.

4. Your team representative should submit a one-page research project proposal by midnight
on the day of the 2nd session. Late submission will not receive credit. In addition to providing
basic information about the firm your team plans to research on, this proposal needs to
answer the following questions:
Why do you think this firm or this business situation is interesting to research on?
Why do you want to study it?
How will you collect information about the firm and its marketing strategy (e.g.,
industry, competition, consumers, marketing mix, etc.)?
How do you know whether the firms marketing strategy is effective or ineffective?
How will you evaluate it?
How will you function as a team? Who will be responsible for what? How will you
collaborate throughout the project?

The proposal should be a Word document with 12-point Times New Roman font, single
spacing, and 1-inch page margins. The file should be named using the following format:
CourseSectionNumber_ProjectTitle_Proposal

5. After your proposal is approved, your team should immediately start working on the research
project report. This report will be scored based on your ability to dissect the situation the firm
was facing, think systematically and critically about the strategic decisions the firm made,
evaluate the outcome objectively and accurately, and articulate your line of reasoning clearly
and concisely. The quality of the writing will also affect the points you receive.

The report should have a structure similar to the following:

I. Cover Page (Course Section Number, Project Title, and Members)

II. Executive Summary (300-500 words)
III. Current Business Situation
IV. Firms Objectives
V. Marketing Strategy and Implementation
VI. Analysis and Evaluation of the Marketing Strategy
VII. The Future
VIII. Appendix
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In Section II, you should provide a concise summary of your project, highlighting the key
findings of your research. Section III of the report should have a structure like one of the
cases you studied in this course (e.g., L'Oral, Renova); you need to describe the market,
industry, competition, target firm, its products/brands, consumers, and all other aspects of the
firm pertinent to formulating the marketing strategy. In Section IV, you need to lay out the
objectives of the firmwhat the firm aimed to achieve through the marketing strategy.

In Section V, you should explain in detail the marketing strategy the firm decided to pursue
(e.g., STP, 4Ps), how the firm made the decisions, and what were the rationales behind
these decisions. You will then explain, in Section VI, how and why the strategy is effective or
ineffective (what worked and what didnt), and, if appropriate, how and why the firm should
have done it differently. In Section VII, you should discuss what might be the future
challenges and opportunities for the firm, as well as what you think the firm should do next.
You can provide charts, diagrams, photos, tables, and other supplementary materials in
Section VIII.

6. Your team needs to prepare a 3- to 5-minute research progress presentation showcasing

your research project idea and the progress your team has made to other teams and the
professor. You need to send the PowerPoint slides to me by 6PM on the day BEFORE the 4 th
session. The PowerPoint file should be named using the following format:
CourseSectionNumber_ProjectTitle_Midterm

Late submission will not receive credit. The presentation should include the following
information:
An overview of your marketing strategy research idea
What have you done thus far for the project?
What else is needed to complete the project?
How you have functioned as a team? How have you collaborated on the project thus
far?

After your presentation, the audience (including the professor) will be given time to ask
questions and offer suggestions.

7. The final research report must be submitted in a Word document with 12-point Times New
Roman font, single spacing, and 1-inch page margins, and should be within 15 pages
(excluding the Appendix). The report should be named using the following format:
CourseSectionNumber_ProjectTitle_Report

The research report must be submitted by 6PM on the day BEFORE the 8th session. Late
submission will not receive credit.

8. Each of you will be asked to evaluate other team members contributions at the end of the
course. You will also be asked to report how you have contributed to the project and what you
have learned from the teamwork experience. See the end of this syllabus for a sample
evaluation form.
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Final Research Project Presentation

1. Each research team needs to deliver a 15- to 20-minute presentation in the last session of
the course. Team representatives should submit their teams slides to me by 6PM on the day
BEFORE the 7th session. The slides should be named using the following format:
CourseSectionNumber_ProjectTitle_Final

2. Your presentation should have a flow similar to the way your report is structured. You can,
for example, first present the business situation the firm was facing, then describe the firms
objectives, explain the formulation and implementation of the firms marketing strategy, and
discuss the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the strategy as well as future opportunities and
challenges. After each presentation, the audience (including me) will be given a few minutes
to ask you questions about your research.

3. Your presentation will be evaluated based on the extent to which it helps the audience
understand the content and insights of your research, and the extent to which you are able to
address the audiences questions and concerns.

Grading
The grade of A is reserved for those who demonstrate extraordinarily excellent performance. The grade
of A- is awarded only for excellent performance. The grade for good performance in this course is a
B+/B. The grades of D+, D, and D- are not awarded at the graduate level.

Please refer to the Carey Business Schools Student Handbook for grade appeal information.
 BU.450.710.XX Marketing Strategy Instructor Name Page 7 of 10

Tentative Course Calendar*

*The instructors reserve the right to alter course content and/or adjust the pace to accommodate class
progress. Students are responsible for keeping up with all adjustments to the course calendar.

Sessio Due
Focus Background Readings (Unless otherwise noted, assignments
n are due at 6PM on the day
BEFORE each session)
1 Introduction to the * Strategic Market Management * Group Composition
(due at midnight on the day of this session)
Course Chapter 1-6

Fundamentals of * Christensen, Clayton M., Scott Cook,

Marketing Strategy and Taddy Hall (2004), Marketing
Malpractice, Harvard Business Review,
83 (12), 74-83.

* Levitt, Theodore (2004), Marketing

Myopia, Harvard Business Review, 82,
138-149.

* Porter, Michael E. (1996), What is

Strategy?, Harvard Business Review, 74
(6), 61-78.

2 Dynamics of * Strategic Market Management * Case Opinion Poll

Competition Chapter 7-9 (Generic Antibiotics)

* Boulding, William and Markus Christen * Case Opinion Poll

(2001), First-Mover Disadvantage, (Cialis)
Harvard Business Review, 79 (9), 2021.
* Research Project
Suarez, Fernando, and Gianvito Lanzolla Proposal
(due at midnight on this day of the session)
(2005), The Half-Truth of First-Mover
Advantage, Harvard Business Review,
83, (4) 121-7.

* Hoch, Stephen J. (1996), How should

National Brands Think about Private
Labels? Sloan Management Review,
Winter, 89-102.

* Quelch, John A. and David Harding

(1996), Brands Versus Private Labels:
Fighting to Win, Harvard Business
Review, 74 (1), 99-109.

3 Market Driven vs. * Strategic Market Management * Case Opinion Poll

Market Driving Chapter 10-15 (Wine Industry)

* Porter, Michael E. (2008), The Five * Case Opinion Poll

Competitive Forces that Shape Strategy, (Circus Industry)
Harvard Business Review, 86 (1), 78-93.
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Sessio Due
Focus Background Readings (Unless otherwise noted, assignments
n are due at 6PM on the day
BEFORE each session)
4 Globalization and * Day, George S., and David J. Reibstein * Case Opinion Poll
Localization (2004), Managing Brands in Global (LOrals Luxury Chinese
Markets, The INSEAD-Wharton Alliance Brand)
on Globalizing: Strategies for Building
Successful Global Businesses, * Case Opinion Poll
Cambridge University Press. (Indias Largest Apparel
Brand)
* Gatignon, Hubert, and Christophe Van
den Bulte (2004), Global Marketing of
New Products, The INSEAD-Wharton
Alliance on Globalizing: Strategies for
Building Successful Global Businesses,
Cambridge University Press.

Research Project * Presentation on your research idea and * Slides for Research
Progress the progress you have made Project Progress
Presentation Presentation
* Q&A

5 The Tip vs. Bottom * Prahalad, Coimbatore K., and Allen * Case Opinion Poll
of the Pyramid Hammond (2002), Serving the World's (Renova)
Poor, Profitably, Harvard Business
Review, 80(9), 48-59. * Case Opinion Poll
(Unilever)
* Karamchandani, Ashish, Mike
Kubzansky, and Nishant Lalwani (2011),
Is the Bottom Of the Pyramid Really for
You? Harvard Business Review, 89(3),
107-111.

6 Product and Brand * Aaker, David A. and Erich * Case Opinion Poll
Portfolios Joachimsthaler (2000), The Brand (Russian Standard for the
Relationship Spectrum: The Key to the U.S. Market)
Brand Architecture Challenge, California
Management Review, 42 (4), 8-23. * Case Opinion Poll
(Diesel)
* Tybout, Alice M. and Gregory S.
Carpenter (2000), Creating and
Managing Brands, Kellogg on Marketing,
John Wiley & Sons.

7 Research Project * Research Project Presentation * Slides for Research

Presentation Project Presentation
* Q&A
* Research Report

* Peer Evaluation

8 Final Exam * A case analysis exam that assesses

your ability to dissect different aspects of
local and/or global business scenarios
and make strategic marketing decisions
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Sample Teammate Evaluation Form

Name: __________________________________________________________________

Project: __________________________________________________________________

Please evaluate each of your teammates in three areas:

Amount of effort put into the marketing strategy research project
Quality of contribution
Interpersonal skills in working with others

For each of the three areas, please provide a number (between 1 and 5) that most appropriately
describes the individuals contribution:

No contribution Poor Fair Good Excellent

1 2 3 4 5

Effort Quality Interpersonal

Skills

Teammate #1 Name: __________________________________ ______ ______ ______

Teammate #2 Name: __________________________________ ______ ______ ______

Teammate #3 Name: __________________________________ ______ ______ ______

Teammate #4 Name: __________________________________ ______ ______ ______

Teammate #5 Name: __________________________________ ______ ______ ______

Please briefly describe (1) your specific contributions to the group project and (2) what can you do to
improve your skills in collaborating with others on complex business projects in the future.

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________
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Carey Business School

Policies and General Information

Blackboard Site
A Blackboard course site is set up for this course. Each student is expected to check the site throughout the
semester as Blackboard will be the primary venue for outside classroom communications between the
instructors and the students. Students can access the course site at https://blackboard.jhu.edu. Support for
Blackboard is available at 1-866-669-6138.

Course Evaluation
As a research and learning community, the Carey Business School is committed to continuous improvement.
The faculty strongly encourages students to provide complete and honest feedback for this course. Please
take this activity seriously; we depend on your feedback to help us improve. Information on how to complete
the evaluation will be provided toward the end of the course.

Disability Services
All students with disabilities who require accommodations for this course should contact Disability Services
(carey.disability@jhu.edu or 410-234-9243) at their earliest convenience to discuss their specific needs. If you
have a documented disability, you must be registered with Disability Services to receive
accommodations. Please note that accommodations are not retroactive. Therefore it is strongly encouraged
that you identify your needs to Disability Services as early as possible.

Honor Code/Code of Conduct

The Carey community believes that honesty, integrity, and community responsibility are qualities inherent in an
exemplary citizen. The objective of the Carey Business School Honor Code is to create an environment of trust
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Students are not allowed to use any electronic devices during in-class tests. Calculators will be provided if the
instructor requires them for test taking. Students must seek permission from the instructor to leave the
classroom during an in-class test. Test scripts must not be removed from the classroom during the test.

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Students are strongly encouraged to consult the Carey Business Schools Student Handbook and Academic
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