Marketing 139
This course provides a decision-oriented overview of marketing in modern organizations. The basic objectives of the course are: to provide you with a broad introduction to marketing concepts, to familiarize you with the role of marketing in society and in the firm, and to help you understand the various factors that influence marketing decision making. This course emphasizes understanding and using important marketing concepts and jargon, not memorizing facts. You will be active participants in the learning process. Teaching methods that expand and reinforce communication, critical thinking, and interpersonal skills will be used.
Some of the major topics we will discuss this semester are:
Method of Teaching:
The course will use a combination of lecture, discussion, exercises, and hands-on-projects to expand and reinforce your marketing knowledge as well as strengthen your communication skills, critical thinking skills, and team building skills. Lectures are designed to elaborate on the concepts developed in the text and discussions are designed to encourage you to reflect on the topic at hand.
Required text:
Richard D. Irwin, Inc., Illinois, 1992.
Recommended Reading: Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Fortune, Forbes, Advertising Age
During the semester readings will be assigned on a "ad hoc" basis from the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, the Journal of Marketing, Marketing News, the Annual Editions, Harvard Business Review, etc. In addition, each student will be required to give an informal, three to five minute oral presentation on a recent marketing related article from the popular business press (Advertising Age, Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Fortune, Forbes), that the student has selected.
COURSE OUTLINE
Grading Your grade will be based upon how you perform on
your three hourly exams, course project, article
write-up, article oral presentations, team assignments(
including a peer assessment) and class attendance and
participation as follows: Team Assignments Projects for Marketing
Test I
Test II
35% Combined
Test III
Course Project
25%
Article Summary & Reflections
5%
Article Oral Presentations
5%
Attendance & Participation
10%
Team Assessment
20%
Each student will complete a semester-long project. You have three choices of project type; selection must be made by fourth week of class, make your selection carefully. Notice that choice 1 & 2 are projects that can be done by up to 3 students; choice 3 is a project to be done by one student.
The choices are:
1. Develop, with a partner(s), a new product and create a marketing strategy for the product. Emphasis is on picking a target market(s) for that product and then developing an appropriate marketing mix. You will need to do some basic marketing research on your selected target market(s) to effectively develop and refine your marketing mix.
2. Develop, with a partner(s), a marketing plan for a small firm (choose either a firm that you are familiar with or from a list that I have of several local firms). A marketing plan consists of a situation analysis section (describing the present target market(s), marketing mix, and uncontrollables of the firm), objectives section, and a strategy section outlining how you will accomplish those objectives.
3. Describe the marketing strategy of an existing firm. Discuss, in detail, the target market(s), marketing mix, and uncontrollables of firm. This project is done by one student.
The benefits of doing this type project are: hands on experience in marketing management; opportunity to apply a variety of skills; opportunity to work with a partner(s) (very important in work environment); opportunity to make concrete connection between classroom theory and real world work situation, and, finally, you will have a document to share with potential employers when you interview in the future. I have prepared detailed handouts further explaining each of these projects. The handouts will be given to you in about two weeks, at that time we will further discuss the final project.
Article Summary & Reflections:
You will be required to formally summarize and give your written reflections on one article during the semester. During the semester, I will inform the class of which articles are eligible to satisfy this assignment. Most articles assigned during the semester are for class discussion only and do not satisfy this requirement.
Article Oral Presentation:
You will be required to give an informal, three to five minute oral presentation on one article, of your selection, from the popular business press on a m arketing related topic, to the class. One to two article presentations will be given each Friday during the semester, by different students.
Team Assignments: (separate from project partner(s)):
In assigned teams, you will prepare five assignments throughout the semester. The assignment topics will be: a computer exercise, an ethics exercise, a pricing exercise, a library exercise and an internet exercise. Instructions for completing each designated assignment will be given at the time the assignment is made. Although the assignments will be turned in and reviewed by me at various times during the semester (announced during class), one overall team grade will be given to the entire portfolio of work at the end of the semester. Designate one team member to maintain the portfolio and turn it in at the end of the semester.
Peer Assessment:
You will evaluate each member of your assigned team on such criteria as: quantity of work, quality of work, cooperation, dependability, initiative, and an overall assessment. The evaluations will be confidential. I will not share others' evaluations of you with you, nor will I share your evaluation with others. This will be turned in to me by the last day of class.
Attendance Policy:
You are expected to attend class regularly, complete reading assignments, including having read the assigned text chapter, and actively participate in class discussions.
Office Hours:
I encourage all my students to seek my help outside of class as needed. I will, or course, try to answer your questions in class. However, if the questions do not occur to you in class, or if you believe that the questions are too involved to be properly taken care of in class, then you are welcome to stop by my office during my regular office hours or by appointment. If you have any special needs that require my attention, please discuss that with me in my office.