Strategic Brand Management
MKTG 532, Section 201
Fall, 2006 Professor Ralph Oliva
>>Course Assignments/Grading; Principles of Integrity and Conduct
Brands and Branding is an exciting topic, and one whose state-of-the-art is constantly changing. We’ll be learning together as we go through this class, and your grades will be based on the level of insight you bring, and how much thinking you’ve done enabling us all to learn more about key brand concepts.
In a seven-week format, course design and class size interact with one another. This may necessitate some shifts in approach once we see the size of our group, and we’ll adjust the number of cases and assignments as necessary.
This class should be fun…
But it does involve some work – please be forewarned.
Good solid work will net a B+ to A-, following the guidelines below:
Your grade will be based on:
· A team “BrandScape presentation” – 40%
· Four (4) individually written “case insights” – 20%
· A team “Case presentation” – 40%
· Class participation plus or minus – 20%
Important note on submitting assignments electronically: Please send them directly to me by e-mail to roliva@psu.edu. Please do not use an Angel “drop box” or other method.
In the subject line of the e-mail, name of the PowerPoint file or name of the Word file, please be sure to include:
- The name of the assignment
- The name of the team/or person who is submitting the assignment for a grade, as well as the names of all team members if appropriate.
- Be sure to put this information in the body of anything you send me: please don’t make me search for who you are as I grade the material.
Assignment: BrandScape – 40% of your grade
As part of our work in this class, we’ll be immersing ourselves in the exciting world of brands. Working together we’ll probe way beyond our normal, conscious, experience of brands in our life. We’ll be working to develop a “clinical and critical” understanding of brands, how they’re constructed, and how they work as the key integrating ingredient in all market communications.
In our time together we’ll be discussing primary framework for understanding how brands work at different levels in the customer mind. The framework we’ll use comes from the noted consumer brand corporation Reckitt & Coleman, and the world renowned advertising agency McCann-Erikson. Together this team manages such popular brands as Lysol Disinfectants.
Reckitt & Coleman, working with McCann developed a framework for understanding how brands are made up, and how they work in the customers mind.
- The brand “footprint” which in turn is made
up of three components.
- The brand’s core values
- The brand’s personality – three one to two word traits that would describe the brand if it were a person.
- The brand essence or brand mantra: the essential point of the brand’s relationship with the customer.
- Positioning: The brand in a competitive frame of reference: the unique benefits the brand intends to own relative to competition, in the mind of a well understood customer/segment,
- The brand Capsule: a simple phrase at the very top of a mind – with one key idea, relevant to our need, that’s triggered when the brand is triggered.
- Brand Elements: these are the trademarks, logos, colors, shapes, which “trigger” the brand response.
Your team will be asked to select a brand of choice: either business-to-business (selling products up the value chain, raw materials for a subsequent process such as Dow Chemical, Texas Instruments, Goodyear); or a consumer brand (Crest, Lysol, Tide, Heineken) to analyze.
Special note: Some brands will be “reserved”, or not allowed as topics for BrandScapes by teams, because they will dissected and used as examples in class. Coca Cola, Pepsi, and any of the brands discussed in our cases should not be chosen for a BrandScape assignment.
On days in which brandscapes will be presented, we’ll begin the class with a brief 15-20 minute presentation, where the team will dissect the brand and each of the pieces of the BrandScape as described above. We’ll than discuss your team opinions on how well the brand is being managed as the key element in the firm’s communication process, working from what students can find in public literature and on the web. Finally, teams will be asked to present what they have learned about this brand and about brands in general through the BrandScape exercise.
Assignment: Case insights – 40% of the grade
As in any course with heavy emphasis on cases, each student is expected to read each of the cases that will be covered in class, before the session in which the case presentation is made.
For 40% of your final grade, please select four cases – cases where you are not presenting – and prepare a short (one page or less) e-mail on each of them, sent to roliva@psu.edu, which simply answers the following questions:
- The most important consideration in this case is:
- The key question I would like to ask the management of this business or the presenting team is:
Please make your e-mail brief – one page or less, and stick to these key issues.
Case insights are due by 6:00 am on the day the case is being discussed in class. Case Insights received after class discussion might be considered, by in fairness they’ll be graded way down. Each case insight you submit will be graded – and the top four will be selected for your final grade. You may choose to omit some case insight assignments, but be sure to turn in at lease four for your grade.
Grading for case insights will be based on a thoughtful analysis of the case and key issues, and how focused your answers are to the questions presented above.
Assignment: Case team presentations – 40% of your grade
Because of the compact seven-week structure of MBA elective courses, our time for case presentations will be shorter than usual:
- 20 minutes for team presentation
- 10 minutes for Q&A
- 10 minutes for key take away/wrap up
It’s exceptionally important that case teams are well prepared and to deliver the case questions, and their key recommendations in no more than 20 minutes. We’ll need to hold the clock time fairly tight to allow us to cover the appropriate amount of material in the class.
Presentation Format:
The case team can present as a team or with a leading spokesperson. The case team should cover their overall recommendation – where one is asked for – first, as well as address each of the issues raised on the case discussion questions provided for each case.
Assignment Deliverables:
Each team should provide a hard copy of any visual materials, PowerPoints, as well as write-ups they’ve prepared in summarizing the case – and send an electronic copy to roliva@psu.edu .
A suggested method will be to use the “notes format” in PowerPoint to embellish and expand on your presentation, although separate PowerPoint and word presentations or other formats are fine – this will be up to the team.
Case Evaluation – Grading Template for Class Presentations.
Content:
· Actionable recommendations
· Rationale for recommendations
· Key lessons learned/insights
Presentation:
- Used course templates/concepts/tools
- Focused
- Well structured
- Captured audience attention
- Questions answered with an open mind and well
- Overall quality of report/chart/presentation materials
Class Participation: Plus or Minus 20% of Grade
We’ll be looking for insight vs. “air time”. Please your name tents to help the process and be sure to add insights, ideas, questions, and texture to the class.
Class participation can provide a “plus up”, be neutral to your grade, or knock down your grade depending on your performance in class.
Grading:
A+ Really outstanding. Only one group in the whole class may get this
through the course of the semester. Totally new insights, frameworks for thinking, or tools for brand analysis reflected.
A Great work. Obviously well thought through, recognized key insights in lesson, brought new knowledge to bare on the problem, internally consistent, great presentation.
A- Very good work, beyond what was expected.
B+ Thorough and solid work, perhaps a bit beyond what was expected. Covers most important insights, work through most important issues.
B Just what was expected. Basically good work, possibly some flaws in the overall approach.
B- Barely covered the basics. Spent too much time rehashing the case. Reflected some honest work on the problem, summarized the basics, generally hit the key points – but missed one or more of the key lessons to be learned in the case.
C/D Blew it. Didn’t turn in the work, shoddy work. Cursorily covered the basics.
Principles of Conduct:
(Note: I’ve replaced a whole bunch of boiler plate here with the essence of the situation. It’s important that you read through this carefully.)
First of all, on assignments, we suggest attaching the student integrity pledge, brought forth by your class:
“I/We ______________________ have neither given, utilized, received, nor witnessed unauthorized data on this deliverable and have completed this work honestly and in accordance to the professor’s guidelines.”
· As in business we counting on us all to bring our own principles and moral compass to the world and to class. My assumption if that all Penn State MBA’s bring very high standards to their practice now – and will do so in the future.
· Academic Integrity:
o We’re all here together to learn, work, share. “Free riding”, and sitting back and letting others do the work, reflects lack of integrity and engagement with the class. If I hear complaints – which are rare – as in business, I will try to take fast, prudent, confidential action in line with the new honor code process.
o But note: most everyone I’ve worked with in business throughout 30 years is ferociously honest and of very high integrity. You need to be as well. Cheating, plagiarism, all of the things listed in many pages of legal sounding policies on the subject – is simply dishonest and not good business. We need to hold one another accountable for not doing these things. Acts of support, team play, enabling diverse points of view, and mobilizing special creativity in each of us fun, honest, and good business.
· We should together tolerate no sort of discrimination or harassment.
· Students with disabilities are invited to take this class, and if you need any special accommodation, please see me directly or call me at (814) 863-2782. We’ll do what we can to make our time together pleasant and productive.
This site is for educational purposes and for the advancement of Business to Business Practices. © Ralph Oliva, 2003