Brand Management (BMK)

Strategic brand management is at the core of developing and maintaining a successful brand. This course continues to build students’ understanding of and skills with the complete strategic brand management process. Students learn to create effective strategies and tactics to build strong performing brands that resonate strongly with consumers, deliver on company objectives, and continue to be relevant in an ever-changing environment. The course will include, but will not be limited to, brand vision, image & equity, customer management, loyalty, pricing, marketing channels, business models, growth & competitive strategies and brand repositioning & relaunch. BMK810 (Brand Strategy II) is taught as an integrated course with BMK811 (Brand Metrics II) where students acquire the quantitative skills to support the development and assessment of company and brand strategies and tactics and determine brand equity and brand valuation.

Brand strategies and tactics have a significant impact on a firms overall financial performance. In this course, students will use marketing and financial metrics to evaluate the relative attractiveness of different brand and marketing strategies and tactics, and the management systems required for effective implementation. They will develop the acumen to interpret and analyze financial models, statements and ratios. The course teaches how to build and measure brand equity as well as measuring and understanding a brands financial value. BMK811 (Brand Metrics II) is taught as an integrated course with BMK810 (Brand Strategy II) where students learn to identify, qualitatively assess and recommend effective company and brand strategies and tactics to drive brand financial performance, brand equity and brand value.

This advanced course examines the multiplicity of integrated communication concepts, theories, and practices, and continues to build students? knowledge of strategic brand building activities, plans and programs that join brands and their stakeholders in long-term profitable relationships. Students will discover why industry leaders consider total integrated brand communications to be a dynamic, powerful driver of brand strategy when marketers and agencies ensure the marketing communications plan is well-orchestrated, and consistently executed and managed. The course will focus on the integrated management processes and frameworks to conceptualize brand level marketing communications decisions and the desired outcomes from those decisions. Students will develop the fundamental skills of integrated marketing communications planning and implementation, objective setting, media strategy planning, scheduling, budgeting, and analysis. The course teaches the role of persuasion in integrated brand communications, the value of public relations and relative attractiveness of cause-oriented and event-oriented investment partnerships.

Digital Marketing II Digital Marketing II builds on prior learnings through a detailed investigation of digital marketing platforms and activities. Theoretical and applied exercises will emphasize the practical use of digital marketing and its ability to connect brands with audiences. Students will practice strategic thinking by deconstructing brand marketing strategies and applying their knowledge to the development of evidence-based digital marketing recommendations. Students will conduct comprehensive analysis of digital marketing platforms and practices and use learnings to build detailed strategic and tactical plans for each platform. During these exercises, students will gain hands-on experience with best-in-class industry tools. Students will understand the features and benefits of various digital marketing platforms, the application of ethics and critical thinking in digital marketing, and how digital marketing can be used to accomplish brand marketing objectives.

Marketing Enabling Technologies New technologies are having a significant impact on what brand marketers engage with consumers and how they develop and implement marketing strategies and tactics. This course will expand student knowledge to strategically apply new and emerging technologies to deliver better consumer insights and marketing solutions. The course design will provide a foundational knowledge of these technologies that includes both practical and theoretical underpinnings of each technology, how and when it can be used, and discussion of the ethical considerations, privacy and legal implications in professional conduct. The course will include but will not be limited to technologies such as artificial intelligence, facial recognition, wearables, virtual & augmented reality, big data, predictive analytics, data visualization, and customer relationship management systems including Salesforce.