Notre Dame MBA Marketing Courses

Marketing Course Highlight... B2B Marketing I & II Sequence

MBA MARKETING – Core Courses

MBA MARKETING – Elective Courses

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Course Descriptions 

MARK-60100 Marketing Management (Fall):
This course is designed to provide students with a systematic approach for making marketing decisions and to give students practice in the analysis, design, implementation, and control of marketing strategies. It is an operationally oriented course in which the application of marketing concepts, principles, strategies and methods is emphasized. 

MARK-60500 Promotion Strategy (Fall):
This course focuses on the strategic use of marketing communications to build and maintain brand equity. Effective integration of marketing communication elements including advertising, sales promotion, public relations, event sponsorships and direct marketing is emphasized. Analysis centers on topics such as: selecting among alternative promotional tools; communication market analysis; budgeting and allocation decisions; determining appropriate message strategy; media selection and social and regulatory issues. This course is structured in a seminar format. Class meetings are focused on discussion of academic articles and the current business press as well as the strategic analysis of business cases. As part of the course, students work in teams to develop a marketing communications program for a new brand. 

MARK-60550 Seminar: Consumer Behavior (Spring):
Permission Required 

MARK-70100 Marketing Research (Spring):
Business is the art and science of decision-making under uncertainty. This course is a managerial introduction to marketing research that examines how additional information can be obtained and how to incorporate that information into decision-making. The role of "uncertainty" will be highlighted throughout the course and how marketing research can decrease or increase the amount of uncertainty facing the decision maker. 

MARK-70150 Qualitative Market Research (Spring):
Qualitative research methods are spreading rapidly among firms across industry boundaries, in recognition of the fact that marketers often have no systematic intuition about or affinity for the segments to which they cater. As managers are exhorted to "get closer" to the consumer, they must divine unarticulated needs and anticipate intersections of their own industry with others. This course is designed to help you distinguish the actual lived experience of consumers from the assumptions of the firm. That is, you will seek authentic consumer insight. Our emphasis is on the managerial implications of prolonged engagement with consumers. You will analyze and interpret the experiential and functional dimensions of product/service/brand essence. You will learn to conduct rapid appraisals using qualitative methods, and to supervise diagnostic research into marketing problems. The class will observe a seminar-workshop format, and depend for its energy upon discussion of ongoing field research projects that student teams will conduct in naturalistic settings. This course will be immediately useful to careers in consulting and entrepreneurship, technology, category and brand management, new product development, advertising and marketing research.  

MARK-70200 B2B Marketing I (Fall):
Designing and Financially Assessing B2B Market Solutions
Integrating Finance and Marketing – In B2B Marketing I (Mark 70200), students study how to build, assess and refine attractive marketing offers centering around high valued, innovative B2B market solutions. In teams, students select B2B market solutions of professional interest, identify key generic and brand advantages and then systematically sort out and assess related financial benefits of these advantages for target customers. Using templates and tutorials provided, the emphasis of this course is on learning to build convincing, financially focused ‘Business Cases’ for relevant market solutions.

Course Focus – The material covered focuses on helping students in three ways: (1) to learn to develop ‘business cases’ centering about providing substantive proofs of incremental financial value provided for target customers; (2) to learn how to translate proven superior financial value directly into premium, more profitable pricing strategies and (3) to learn to transparently and convincingly communicate to target customers the business case (‘financial vision’) for higher valued as well as higher priced B2B market offers.
In B2B Marketing I, among other topics, MBA students will study:

• How to identify generic and brand advantages of high value, complex B2B market solutions;
• How to translate generic and brand advantages into realistic and convincing estimates of financial benefits for the target customer;
• How to derive, justify and communicate the financial value of B2B market solutions to target customers – with a focus on constructing financially focused, convincing business cases for specific B2B solutions;
• How to enrich a market solution with highly valued, sustainable brand advantages, thereby setting the stage for setting and holding a premium, more profitable price position in the marketplace;
• How to leverage identified generic and brand advantages into premium, more profitable prices;
• How to delay commodity drift – maintaining premium pricing strategies, even when industry-wide price margins are collapsing.

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MARK-70220 B2B Marketing II (Fall):
Accessing B2B Customers & Building Solution Visions
Bringing Top Line, Profitable Growth to Your Company – This second B2B Marketing course is independent of the first B2B Marketing course and students taking the first course have no advantage over those opting only for this second course.

Who Will Benefit from this Course – The processes emphasized and learned in this course will be especially beneficial for anyone who envisions being responsible for top line revenue growth – especially those aspiring to positions where career success will be heavily dependent upon one’s proven abilities to bring in profitable new business on a regular basis. Thus, this course will be especially valuable for aspiring high level division, sector, regional or national Marketing executives, aspiring Chief Marketing Officers, aspiring partners in consulting, financial, accounting or legal firms, and aspiring entrepreneurs. Success in all of these careers will be largely dependent upon one’s proven ability to bring in substantial, profitable new business on a regular basis. Students in this course will learn proven, sound theoretical, yet practical processes for doing just that.
In B2B Marketing II, among other topics, MBA students will study:

• How to develop an overall Account Marketing Plan for specifically targeted customers;
• How to identify key initial players and to access and influence key decision makers (C-Level players) in the target customer company;
• How to prove market offer efficacy, through effectively building solution operating, transition and financial visions;
• How to close big new accounts expeditiously, while simultaneously negotiating premium, more profitable prices;
• How to implement solutions effectively, while closely monitoring implementation success;
• How to leverage successful implementations into additional business; and
• How to manage the overall B2B Marketing planning process.

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MARK-70300 Brand Strategy (Spring):
Brands matter. Companies that are adept at developing and managing them reap the rewards. (McKinsey Quarterly). In this course, students will play the role of strategist, running their own companies and living with the consequences of strategic and tactical brand management decisions. This is accomplished through a computer-based competitive simulation, which is supported by readings, cases, and exercises designed to provide insight into developing a customer-driven organization. The course will be organized around a framework for brand management, and will focus on research to uncover customer perception of value, segmentation, and the development of effective growth strategies. Emphasis will be focused through on conceptual frameworks for understanding marketplace phenomena, current practice, and fun. The course will involve participation by several former students who are now brand managers for companies such as Intel, Dell, and Nestle. 

MARK-70350 Customer Relationship Management (Spring):
In this course, students will examine how firms deal with specific elements that drive complexity in Customer Relationships Management (CRM) and related initiatives. Students will be encouraged to view CRM holistically by evaluating the impact of strategic, operational and analytical CRM initiatives on performance outcomes for both customers and firms. More specifically, students will focus on the impact of CRM, from the marketing manager’s perspective. The fact that CRM requires cross-functional coordination and integrated technologies expands the traditional domain of the marketing function, changes the role of the marketing manager and affects how the marketing manager interacts with other members of the organization. The course requirements and format include lectures, case analyses, student-led discussions and short papers. 

MARK-70360 Pricing Strategy (Spring):
TBD 

MARK-70450 New Product Marketing (Fall):
This course provides an opportunity to develop both conceptual and tacit knowledge of important methods and procedures used in the development and evaluation of new product concepts. The course is intended to serve students who anticipate careers in product management/product planning or who expect to be involved in the contribution of marketing expertise and insights to the development of new products. (Although the cases discussed are weighted toward firms and products in the consumer sector, most of the processes and issues discussed are generally applicable across all industries). 

MARK-70550 Culture Consumption Marketing (Spring):
Contemporary marketing requires a holistic understanding of fantasy and behavior as they interact in marketplaces around the globe. This course will help you comprehend, stimulate, manage and resist desire as you unpack the forces that shape and reflect the culture(s) of consumption. You will grasp the market as a complex system of material and metaphysical interactions, and learn to manipulate these interactions in a pro-social, ethical manner. Tempering interdisciplinary perspectives with a symbolic cast and combining the techniques of systematic introspection with participant observation, you will examine the many ways that consumption ramifies throughout daily life. Marketer and consumer misbehavior will also be probed. Cultural, sub-cultural, generational, class, life course and group influences on marketing and consumption will be investigated. Semiotic interpretation, cross-cultural analysis, scenario planning, trend projection and other frameworks are employed throughout the quarter. This course is especially useful if you want to comprehend the "human" aspects of marketing, especially as they influence the "technical", and if you seek insight into the deep structure of your own motivations. Its most immediate relevance is to careers in consulting and entrepreneurship, category and brand management, new product development, advertising and multicultural marketing.

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