SEMESTER: Spring 2018

COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA 262

COURSE TITLE: Strategic Brand Management

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 Units

INSTRUCTOR: Judy Hopelain

EMAIL: jahopelain@berkeley.edu

PREREQUISITE(S): EWMBA206 Marketing

REQUIRED READING: No textbook; reading assignments will include selected chapters, cases, articles, and online sites.

CAREER FIELD: See below.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:

Brand...it's one of the last remaining legal sources of unfair competitive advantage. It's up to us as marketers to build brand strength and leverage our brand assets on behalf of our organization's growth objectives. Smart brand marketing is the underpinning of an extraordinary number of business successes the world over.

The creation and capture of value through branding is complex. Strong brands are carefully created, actively managed, and judiciously leveraged for growth. They require aligned business models and organizational cultures.

Brand and marketing are disciplines of ideas, their expression, and their ongoing relevance and value creation. Creativity, structured problem solving and analytics, critical thinking, and writing and speaking convincingly are all important marketing skills. You will have a chance to further develop all of them in this course.

Strategic Brand Management is an elective that will deal with exciting business issues that are continuously evolving. The primary goal of this course is to equip students with the tools brand marketers actually use and the knowledge to apply them on a range of brand marketing and business challenges.  By the end of the semester, students will understand how brands are built, know how to apply – and have experience applying – fundamental brand strategy concepts and principles to real-life brands, and recognize brand successes and failures, the specific challenges brand managers face and alternative approaches to addressing them.

Specifically, the course will include:

COURSE COMPONENTS

I believe students learn best through a variety of experiences. As a result, classes will be a mix of facilitated discussions, student presentations, practice sessions and guest lecturers. The course will include the following graded components:

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Judy Hopelain is a brand and marketing executive who has spent her career helping companies drive profitable growth through product/service offering, brand, and marketing innovation at leading consultancies and retailers. Her thought leadership and insight have driven top- and bottom-line impact for clients like McKesson, the US Oncology Network, Visa, and American Girl Doll.

She is the founder and managing partner at Pure Gravy LLC and a partner at Brand Amplitude LLC, two consulting firms that deliver practical recommendations to drive business results through go-to-market strategy, product and brand positioning, portfolio strategy and employee brand engagement.

Judy’s consulting experience runs the gamut from corporate strategy giants to specialty brand and strategy boutiques. She was a Partner and Managing Partner at Prophet Brand Strategy, an Associate Partner at Accenture’s Retail Practice, and promoted up the ranks from Associate to Manager at the Boston Consulting Group.

In addition to helping to grow three major consulting practices, Judy was SVP of Direct Channels (catalog and e-commerce) at Illuminations and Director of Corporate Strategy at Patagonia. She has been on the advisory boards of four Internet startups, and was on the Board of Directors of Sasa Designs, a non-profit committed to economic empowerment by providing reliable employment to deaf artisans in Kenya.

Judy joined the Berkeley Haas Marketing faculty in 2010 to teach UGBA162 – the undergraduate Brand Strategy & Management elective. She is the course manager for Principles of Business (UGBA10), the Haas feeder course, and teaches the Marketing module. She is on the IBD faculty in the full time MBA program, and mentors student teams working with consumer and retail clients. She also sponsors the American Advertising Federation's case competition team at UC Berkeley, and is the undergraduate faculty advisor for Marketing.

Judy earned a Master of Public Policy from University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and a B.A. in Political Science/Public Service from UC Davis. An empty nester, she lives in Mill Valley with her husband, Rick, and their dogs Barney and Rosey.

Consulting Experience
In her consulting work, Judy provides hands-on advice to senior management on driving business growth through customer insight, brand and marketing. They also develop and deliver custom training for marketers as well as non-marketers interested in partnering more effectively with marketing at their companies.
She has served the following clients in a consulting, training and/or research capacity (alpha/abridged): Angie’s List, American Girl, Carhartt, Chevron, Concur, eHarmony, Foster Farms, Gap, Genentech, Guavus, Healthy Pet, Janssen, J. Crew, Jet.com, Kaiser Permanente, Madewell, Maple Leaf Farms, Mattel, McKesson, Phillips 66, TripIt, US Oncology Network, and Visa, among others.

Thought Leadership
Judy has written or been quoted in numerous articles and publications. Below are links to articles reflecting her perspective on a range of brand-related issues:

Using Brand Communities to Fight Low Cost Rivals

5 Ways to Exploit Amazon's Brand Weakness

The Trinity of Brand Strategy

Brand Identify Defined

Opnion Loyalty is More Than Points Programs

Engagement is the New Loyalty

Brand Thread: The Out of Touch CEO

How Retailers are Giving Men What They Way

The Indie Woman

Name Brands Embrace Some Less-Well-Off Kinfolk

Mobile Brands are in for a Thrill

Retail Hits and Misses Blog