Marketing is not just an important business function, but it is in many cases the key driver of a business. Its role is to create, communicate, deliver and exchange offerings that have value for consumers. This comprehensive and practical introductory course deals with the principles of marketing, with a focus on developments in digital marketing. Major topics covered in this course are buyer behavior and customer decision-making, marketing strategy (segmentation, target market selection and positioning), marketing mix decisions, branding, and digital inbound marketing. Students will work on several practical cases throughout the semester and complete one team project. There is one guest speaker session. 

Upon completion of this course, students will learn how to:

• Analyze customers and markets
• Understand how to develop an effective marketing strategy and design a strategy implementation program (marketing-mix decisions)
• Understand how marketers can win the long game (e.g., branding, inbound processes)
• Apply concepts and theories to solve practical marketing problems
• Strengthen their written and oral communication skills in English and work in international teams

Full participation is highly recommended.

You need to attend at least 60% of all modules in order to pass the course successfully. If you fail to complete an online pre-module assignment (you complete it by submitting it in time and in an acceptable quality), this counts as absence. If you fail to participate in a class session, this also counts as absence. You are allowed max. 5 absences in total. For example, you if miss 4 pre-module assignments and 1 class session, you can still successfully pass the course.

Students who cannot attend the exam because of illness or another well-founded reason can re-take it at a later date. Importantly, please contact the lecturer in advance.

There are seven live sessions of 2 hrs, and seven pre-module sessions that are expected to take 2-3 hours to complete (with the exception of the first pre-module task that only takes max. 1 hr to complete).

Class modules: These modules are a mix of short teacher-centered lectures, discussions, and short student presentations. While you are expected to familiarize yourself with basic concepts and theories during the preceding pre-module tasks, class sessions will be used for recaps, to answer questions, discuss more complex matters, and apply your theoretical knowledge to practical examples and exercises. We will hardly cover any new content, but instead use the session to review and deepen the contents of the pre-module assignments by applying it to practical examples. Students are expected to actively participate in discussions and exercises during class.

Pre-module readings and assignments (to be completed before class): The goal is to introduce you to key concepts and theories in marketing management. Contents will be taken up in the subsequent class. Each pre-module consists of a mandatory reading list ('readings' include different formats such as articles, videos, lecture casts, etc.) and a set of open-ended questions to self-assess your learning progress. You receive one participation point for completing a pre-module assignment. The pre-module assignments will be published on Wednesday morning (9 am) in the week prior the class session. You can submit the pre-module assignment until the evening prior to the class session (deadline: Monday 11.59 pm). In other words, you have a six-day window to complete each assignment and familiarize yourself with the mandatory readings. Please note that if you fail to submit the assignment in time and in an acceptable quality, you will not only loose participation points, but this also counts as absence.

In addition to completing all modules, students are required to work on a team challenge. Students will not only work on their own group project, but are also required to comment and reflect on the group work of their peers.

At the end of the course, there is a final written exam (60 minutes).

There are three grading components:

• Group project: 30 pts (25 pts for your own project, and 5 pts for commenting on your peers' presentations)
• Participation points: 6 pts (1 pt in each module)
• Final written exam: 64 pts

Grading:

90 pts or more: 1 (excellent), 80 pts or more: 2 (good), 70 pts or more (satisfactory), 60 pts or more: 4 (sufficient), 59.5 pts or less: 5 (fail).

Optional bonus points by participating in lab studies:

Students can earn up to 3 bonus points if they voluntarily participate in a research study series organized by the Department of Marketing. The studies can be taken online and take about 60 minutes to complete. The invitation to participate in the study will be sent out via e-mail. (In addition it will be announced in class).

Please contact me by email: ulrike.kaiser@wu.ac.at, or write a message via MS Teams.