CURRICULUM

MKTG 7110

Instructors: Annie Wilson

Marketing begins and ends with the customer, from determining customers' needs and wants to providing customer satisfaction and maintaining customer relationships. This course examines the basic concepts and principles in customer behavior with the goal of understanding how these ideas can be used in marketing decision making. The class will consist of a mix of lectures, discussions, cases, assignments, project work and exams. Topics covered include customer psychological processes (e.g., motivation, perception, attitudes, decision-making) and their impact on marketing (e.g., segmentation, branding, and customer satisfaction). The goal is to provide you with a set of approaches and concepts to consider when faced with a decision involving understanding customer responses to marketing actions.

MKTG 7250

Instructors: Herbert Kleinberger, Bryan Eshelman

Marketing begins and ends with the customer, from determining customers’ needs and wants to providing customer satisfaction and maintaining customer relationships. This course examines the basic concepts and principles in customer behavior with the goal of understanding how these ideas can be used in marketing decision making. The class will consist of a mix of lectures, discussions, cases, assignments, project work and exams. Topics covered include customer psychological processes (e.g., motivation, perception, attitudes, decision-making) and their impact on marketing (e.g., segmentation, branding, customer satisfaction). The goal is to provide a set of approaches and concepts to consider when faced with a decision involving understanding customer responses to marketing actions.

MKTG 7270

Instructors: Ron Berman

The effect of the Internet and related technologies on business and social institutions is more profound than that of any prior invention, including the printing press and the internal combustion engine. Furthermore, marketing plays a key role in shaping the modern consumption-led economies fueled by these technologies. MKTG 7270 provides a research-based and framework-driven approach to understanding digital marketing and electronic commerce. The course is organized into two sections and utilizes relevant theory, empirical analysis, and practical examples, to develop the key learning points. Guest speakers will participate as well, as appropriate.

MKTG 7390

Instructors: Elizabeth Johnson, Barbara E Kahn

As consumers, we are constantly exposed to advertisements and experience visual messages from product packages in stores, retail displays, and products already owned. In essence, visual marketing collateral is omnipresent and is an essential part of corporate visual identity, strategy, branding, and communication. Some of this is captured through creative graphic design, but advertising, design, and marketing can also be significantly enhanced by knowledge of how visual information and its presentation context can be optimized to deliver desirable and advantageous messages and experiences. This course will emphasize how to measure, interpret, and optimize visual marketing.

MKTG 8060

Instructors: Bryan Eshelman

As a follow-on to Principles of Retailing (MKTG 7250), this course delves more deeply into both the fundamentals and recent trends in the end-to-end retail merchandising process. The objective is to familiarize students with both the theory and practice of planning, buying, designing, pricing, and displaying merchandise to consumers. This knowledge will be fundamental to careers working for retailers themselves (e-commerce or omnichannel), but also in consulting to retailers, in banking or investing in the retail sector, or even starting their a brand or retail concept. Those seeking more depth in sourcing, distribution, fulfillment, and store/site operations should consider taking Retail Supply Chain Management (OIDD 6970).

MKTG 9870

Instructors: Barbara E Kahn, Catherine Lamberton

The luxury industry has been heavily impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, with some estimates suggesting a contraction of over 20%. Some of the changes in consumer behavior directly affected luxury in the short-term, but these changes in behavior may eventually revert to past history when the pandemic is over. Examples of these include the drop in tourism travel, work from home trends, reduced traffic to physical retail and malls, and the reduction of festive social activities (e.g., weddings). Other trends affected many industries and are likely to fundamentally change consumer behavior long-term: (1) net zero retail now, (2) digital by design, (3) thoughtful experience, (4) re-localization and (5) lead with purpose. This course explores the special challenges that are faced by luxury brands as they try to navigate rapidly evolving shopping behaviors in both the online and offline environments. In this course we will articulate the key principles for successful luxury branding & experiences and focus on the challenges and opportunities that luxury brands face. Although we will have some traditional lecture/discussion classes, the course is primarily experiential. We will explore luxury broadly across many product categories. We will learn from what we see on location, but we will also critically assess how companies are coping with the challenges of the post-covid retailing environment.

OIDD6110

Instructors: Simone Marinesi, Christian Terwiesch

Matching supply with demand is an enormous challenge for firms: excess supply is too costly, inadequate supply irritates customers. In the course, we will explore how firms can better organize their operations so that they more effectively align their supply with the demand for their products and services. Throughout the course, we illustrate mathematical analysis applied to real operational challenges--we seek rigor and relevance. Our aim is to provide both tactical knowledge and high-level insights needed by general managers and management consultants. We will demonstrate that companies can use (and have used) the principles from this course to significantly enhance their competitiveness.

OIDD 6970

Instructors: Marshall L Fisher

This course is highly recommended for students with an interest in pursuing careers in: (1) retailing and retail supply chains; (2) businesses like banking, consulting, information technology, that provides services to retail firms; (3) manufacturing companies (e.g. P&G) that sell their products through retail firms. Retailing is a huge industry that consistently been an incubator for new business concepts. This course will examine how retailers understand their customers’ preferences and respond with appropriate products through effective supply chain management. Supply chain management is vitally important for retailers and has been noted as the source of success for many retailers such as Walmart and Home Depot, and as an inhibitor of success for e-tailers as they struggle with delivery reliability.

OIDD6540

Instructors: Karl T. Ulrich

The course provides the student with a number of tools and concepts necessary for the contemporary practice of product management. The course is most relevant to those who hope to work as product managers, as well as for entrepreneurs who will typically serve as their venture's initial product managers. General managers and other functional managers may also find the course valuable to better understand the product management function. The key modules in the course comprise (a) creating something from nothing, (b) design and design thinking, (c) performance measurement and the communication of quantitative information, (d) agile development processes, and (e) managing growth. Alumni guest speakers in interesting product management roles will typically be scheduled weekly in the course. Many examples, tools, and methods will come from technology-based industries, but applications will also be drawn from financial services and consumer products. Most assignments will be completed for a focal product selected by each student, which could be an entrepreneurial project, something related to current or prior employment, or simply a product of personal interest. A recent Canvas site for the course is here, and should be viewable by the public.