Marketing & Strategic Communic (EMSC1-GC)

Central to marketing and communications is a deep understanding of consumer behavior and the factors that influence and inform consumer decision making. This course provides professionals with tools to translate customer insights into actionable plans that drive loyalty and advocacy. The course reviews the concepts and theories of psychology and behavioral economics that can be used to understand and predict behavior in the marketplace, and to help drive engagement and response. Beyond the fundamentals, this course addresses the value of data-driven insights, the rise of social-listening tools, and the learnings from neuroscience. The course provides a framework for analyzing different consumer segments, their values, beliefs and behaviors, as well as establishing the nature of demand for products and services. Through recent case studies, and real-time business challenges, the course demonstrates how the theory and practice of consumer behavior can be applied in marketing management.

Identifying “where to play” and “how to win” are central questions that drive business strategy and ultimately shape marketing and communications plans. This course helps marketing and communications leaders understand how an organization’s business strategy influences marketing and communications strategy, and what role these disciplines play within an organization to help define and achieve business goals, and to identify profitable new business development opportunities. This course analyzes the strategy formulation and decision-making process for successful growth strategies built around well-defined target markets and value propositions. Core skills developed include strategy planning, formulation, translation of strategy to goals, engaging feedback, evaluating success, identifying and assessing growth options, developing mitigation strategies and methodologies to ethically pre-empt or neutralize potential negative growth factors, as well as planning for effective strategy implementation along with the process of making effective decisions for near-term and long-term brand and organizational growth.

Big data has far-reaching implications for every business, and the effective application of data to problem-solving and growth requires executives who can ‘translate’ from the syntax and grammar of data to the language of business. This course examines the process of data collection, analysis and modeling, enabling students to build better customer insights and extract the greatest value from the data a company has access to. Students build a working knowledge of the relevant sources of data, tools for the aggregation and analysis of data, and the statistical approaches to exploring the data and building predictive models. Students identify approaches to enable them to build analytically-driven teams and to foster an analytical culture that uses and applies data effectively and ethically, and to provide a platform to collaborate effectively with data science teams.

The ecosystem of vendors, tools and software applications now available to marketing and communications professionals to plan, execute and measure campaigns has grown exponentially over the last decade. This course provides students with an in-depth understanding of key MarTech, AdTech and CommTech applications, including AI, providing a framework to evaluate the capabilities each application delivers, to identify how these capabilities align with business needs and to choose between multiple offerings to build a “technology stack” that fuels sustainable growth. Students learn to collaborate cross-functionally to analyze, select, and implement technology offerings. Through case studies, guest speakers and technology demos, students will explore various platforms and the ecosystem of “apps” that have been developed. students will review lessons-learnt from case studies analyzing the implementation of new technology systems, and identify key success factors in building a capability that supports a data-driven and digital approach to the management of marketing and communications.

Quantifying and analyzing the impact and value of marketing and communications has become more sophisticated than tracking media mentions, impressions, unique visits, clicks, and likes. Students learn how to evaluate, choose, and track the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), associated with their business, marketing or communications objectives. This course provides the student with the latest quantitative and qualitative techniques for identifying consumer insights, quantifying market potential, measuring relevance, assessing the health of customer relationships, and maximizing growth. Students develop approaches to monitoring and dashboarding, evaluate how to integrate the measurement of communication into the broader marketing framework, and measure the impact from marketing on overall business results using Customer Lifetime Value and Return on Investment techniques. Students also learn how to implement select analytical, data visualization, and presentation software to help integrate and transform data, analyze the data, visualize the results and insights, and translate these into strategic, actionable recommendations.

Technology has rendered the distribution channel landscape almost unrecognizable from just five years ago -- mattresses can be delivered by mail, movies, books and news can be streamed through personal devices, food can be ordered and delivered by apps, and all types of goods can be delivered via drones. This course provides an in-depth review of recent and emerging innovations disrupting traditional distribution channels across different industries. students compare and appraise several case studies to evaluate which drivers of value have been impacted, or created, with the recent developments. Students assess which channels are fit for purpose, given a company’s strategy and operations, and analyze the implications of channel distribution choice on growth and profitability. Students in this course formulate strategies to respond, as an existing business, to the changes in distribution channels and evaluate when and where to launch in retail or direct-to-consumer, or switch between brick-and-mortar and e-commerce.

Building, managing or growing a portfolio of products or services requires mastery of a different set of capabilities, frameworks and tools than those required to manage a single brand. Students in this course learn how to explore and evaluate the adjacent and “white” spaces that lie within, or beyond, a narrowly defined product or category. Students use recent case studies as the basis for examining how to apply frameworks and models to industry specific situations. Students evaluate the logic and value-creation behind different portfolio decisions. In this course, students evaluate various analytical and revenue modeling frameworks that support decisions about which products/services to invest in, and how to ensure there is a balanced approach to growth across all the brands in the portfolio. Students will develop lifecycle and line-extension plans and evaluate the necessary resource allocation and optimization requirements.

Long considered a pillar of Marketing’s “4Ps”, pricing has become a specialized discipline with significant analytics supporting sophisticated strategies and tactics. This course begins with a review of pricing strategies and approaches taken to capture value created through price metrics, price fences., etc. Students review traditional and emerging business and pricing models, analyzing how new digitally-enabled revenue opportunities e.g., freemium models, on-demand or subscription services, alongside shared and gig economy solutions, impact top-line and bottom-line growth. Students practice research and analytical methods to establish consumer’s willingness to pay, calculate elasticity, and assess the tradeoffs consumers make. Students also examine how value and pricing decisions are communicated and reinforced in the marketplace through more traditional techniques of marketing and communications. Given the critical function of price in top-line revenue growth, students evaluate different approaches to enterprise-wide governance, implementation, and controls around pricing to ensure a more active role in pricing decisions.

Critical to the success of most senior marketing and communications leaders is the ability to communicate and build cross-functional consensus around new directions or unpopular decisions, supported by analysis and recommendations, at pivotal, highly visible, high stakes situations such as analyst calls, investor road shows, Board meetings and press conferences. This course engages students in evaluating and role-playing a series of worked examples of successful and less successful presentations, including growth strategies, new product launches, as well as crisis communications and turnaround situations. students learn and analyze different approaches to synthesizing data and insights and framing key messages appropriately to support effective storytelling to a range of situations and audiences. Media training and simulations will be provided to help students practice and internalize the approaches and techniques to best prepare for these situations.

Determining the optimal growth strategy for brands or portfolios often requires strategic internal and external negotiations and dispute resolutions, which need to be based on ethical and thoughtful analyses of risks and returns. Students in this course learn to anticipate and quantify the magnitude and probability of risks using available data, in order to effectively and ethically defend against or take measured risks. Frameworks and techniques will be introduced to guide disciplined risk-taking and decision-making, as well as minimizing risk and decision avoidance. Students will also learn to contextualize risks and recognize and detect spurious risks from actual risks. This course includes an examination of major negotiation theories, strategies and tactics as applied to relevant situations, as well as case studies of recent marketing decisions in critical business development negotiations, and promotional messaging review and product development committees. Simulations will be used to help students practice and embrace such situations.

Students will deepen their knowledge in a specific industry by taking an asynchronous online course that provides an intensive primer of key concepts, trends, issues and applications for a specific industry. These courses are ideal for industry-switchers or those working in adjacent functions, or those who just want a deeper understanding of other industries. Courses will include a review of the fundamentals specific to each industry including terminology, key operational processes, consumer/market dynamics and a historical review of developments that have shaped and transformed the industry’s business model(s). Students will be provided a holistic overview of the current state of the industry, as well as the latest thinking on future trends and issues. Content will be developed by leading industry and academic experts and feature perspectives from current and former CMOs and CCOs. Students will be able to choose initially from the following concentrations: Healthcare/Pharma, Travel/Tourism, Luxury/Fashion, and Media/Entertainment.

Influenced by the disciplines of industrial design and software development, a new set of competencies are driving a profound change in how we think about work, and how new products and services get developed. Students in this course develop the core skills and approaches to design thinking and evaluate how this can be applied creatively to the process of problem solving - focusing on what is desirable from a customer’s point of view and how to quickly ideate and prototype technologically feasible and economically viable solutions. This course will introduce students to the creative tools that designers use to address a range of challenges, along with the core principles of Agile that enable software developers and other project managers to move programs rapidly forward to development of working solutions. students will have the opportunity to apply these design techniques and product management approaches to address their current business challenges.

The growth in the number of content sources and channels through which marketers and communicators can reach their target audiences has increased the complexity of communicating effectively and with impact. This course takes a broad view of engaging with media, with an emphasis on how to integrate broadcast, print, and other analog channels with digital media channels, alongside different forms of consumer engagement, including influencers, content marketing, personalization, AI, augmented and virtual reality, and messenger bots. students create media communications and purchase plans that resonate with customers at different points of the purchase journey, and leverage the new fulcrum points to maximize impact on brand/reputation, profitability and growth. Students will develop integrated plans to address the specific growth or positioning objectives in their chosen industry, that are responsive to the to the changing media landscape, shifting client needs, and the nature of the work that needs to be done.

Businesses often engage consultants for their expert opinions and advice at different junctures in the business cycle; ensuring how this process is managed and adds value is a critical leadership skill. Students in this course analyze the different roles and responsibilities of internal and external consultants and evaluate how and when to engage and manage them. In addition, students will review a series of salient techniques and practices typically used by consulting firms and individual consultants to effectively manage their work and generate actionable insights. Topics include: diagnosing business issues; identifying challenges with organizational culture; managing the ethics and tradeoffs in consulting assignments; evaluating how a consultant’s qualifications are presented and vetted; structuring an engagement and joint scope of work; managing client communications and reactions to consultants around key interactions, e.g. collecting data/discovery, accessing and assessing resources, monitoring progress and scope changes, reporting results, achieving engagement closure, and re-contracting.

CMOs currently have the shortest tenure in the C-Suite; 3.6 years vs. 5.3 years and 7.4 years for CFOs and CEOs respectively (Spencer Stuart, 2018 Survey). Two major factors of this dynamic are a CMO’s ability to translate the impact of marketing investments into financial terms and the degree of collaboration with other members of the C-Suite. In a recent Deloitte survey, CMOs cited demonstrating impact on financial outcomes as their #1 C-suite communication challenge, and only 17% of C-suite executives reported having collaborated with CMOs over the previous 12 months. This course closely examines these two critical success factors with an in-depth review of recent case studies, dialogue with the C-suite involved in some of these cases, and role-playing simulations that help students become more adept and effective at reframing how they engage and communicate with their C-Suite counterparts to drive investment and growth.

Managing an organization’s corporate reputation, a composite of how it views itself internally (identity) and how it is viewed externally (image), has grown increasingly challenging given the speed and amplifying power of social networks and online media. This course examines the complexities of managing this intangible asset in an environment where it is progressively harder to control the narrative, as well as the benefits of managing this well and the consequences of when it is not. Students learn how to cultivate tangible elements of corporate reputation such as corporate purpose, culture and stakeholder relations, and translate these into corporate narratives for a range of situations. This course also explores what is involved and expected of organizations and leaders who aspire to be thought leaders and take positions on social issues germane to their core business. Students learn to develop comprehensive corporate affairs plans that enhance corporate reputation and drive growth.

For the final Capstone course, students will be required to develop, pitch and defend an innovation that can be applied to drive growth in their industry/category of choice. The proposed applied innovation needs to be an idea or strategy/approach not currently in use in that particular industry and designed to solve a real problem and/or generate growth. This Capstone project will be featured as the epilogue of the e-portfolio students have been building over the entire course of the program, and serve as evidence of their ability to apply course learnings to solve real-world challenges and drive growth in a particular industry/category. Students will need to pitch and defend their applied innovation idea to a panel of faculty and external CMOs as well as CFOs during the Global Intensive Week at the end of the semester.