Course Description:     Brand Management oversees all aspects of a product, from marketing, packaging, sales & distribution strategies, pricing, overseeing the P&L, manufacturing and product improvements. It includes interface with all aspects of the organization: Finance, PR, Manufacturing, Product Development, Sourcing, Sales, Market Research, Advertising, etc.

Dynamic market positioning is a strategic process designed to build awareness of companies and their products. Through lecture, case-histories and discussion, students examine the step-by-step process used to position companies and their products. Topics include:

• Assessing and analyzing markets based on benefits and features
• Competitors in the market
• Developing positioning statement
• Organizing and managing firm’s activities to reinforce the positioning statement
• Understanding and developing brand values, touch points and personas
• Assessing brand equity and the drivers
• Establishing brand management throughout a company
• Devising methods to preserve and enhance the brand as an asset

This class is designed for marketing-communication and product-marketing managers at small, medium and large firms who are planning to launch new products and/or services, or need to reposition existing products/services, and is of equal benefit to business owners and CEOs and marketing managers who want to understand how to leverage their marketing dollars by establishing powerful brands and positions in the market.

Course Objectives:     Some of a firm’s most valuable assets are the brands that it has invested in and developed over time. Although manufacturing processes can often be duplicated, strongly held beliefs and attitudes established in consumers’ minds cannot. This mini-elective provides students with insights into how profitable brand strategies can be created. It addresses three important questions. How do you build brand equity? How can brand equity be measured? How do you capitalize on brand equity to expand your business? Its basic objectives are to (1) provide an understanding of the important issues in planning and evaluating brand strategies, and (2) provide the appropriate concepts and techniques to improve the long-term profitability of brand strategies. The course consists of lectures, exercises, and case discussions. The course content has relevance to students pursuing a variety of different career goals in virtually any type of organization (public or private, large or small, etc.).

Brand Positioning

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Positioning Approaches

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Cultivating Brand Loyalty