COURSE NUMBER: MBA 262.1

This is a first-year gateway course and is not available for second-year bidding. Second-years must wait until the add/drop process begins in January to add this class.

COURSE TITLE: Strategic Brand Management

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 units

INSTRUCTOR: Lynn Upshaw

EMAIL: upshaw@haas.berkeley.edu

PREREQUISITE(S): MBA206

CLASS FORMAT: Interactive discussions, cases, and guest speakers

REQUIRED READINGS: Cases and topical articles. There will be no text required for this course.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE’S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:

LEARNING OUTCOMES: Strategic Brand Management is a “gateway” course for other marketing electives. It has been specifically designed to complement the Core Marketing course in that it will be exploring more advanced brand management disciplines and provide students with the opportunity to develop five critical capabilities every brand marketer must master (see below).

COURSE ASSIGNMENTS: There will be three course assignments which will largely center on a real-time marketing challenge faced by our class brand consulting “Client”, specifically, Levi Strauss. Those team projects will be:

· Full market/competitive analyses of our Client’s “brandscape”;

· Brand consulting recommendations presented to marketing execs from Levi Strauss; and

· Comprehensive go-to-market plans for an existing or potential start-up brand of the teams’ choice.

In addition, throughout the semester students will receive marketing and career advice from marketing execs at leading companies, as well as discuss many contemporary “best” and “worst” practice brands and topical brand issues which have been “ripped from today’s headlines”.

COURSE ORGANIZATION: the Course modules will be based on the following five critical capabilities every brand marketer must master:

1. Identifying market opportunities (prepares students for the Market/Competitive Analysis assignment)

2. Developing powerful brand differentiators, brought to life through compelling strategies and contemporary outbound/inbound content marketing (prepares students for the Client Brand Consulting assignment and Final Go-to-Market Plan assignment)

3. Managing brand assets (prepares students for all assignments)

· Brand architecture planning and portfolio management

· Internal/external brand alignment

· Overseeing brand metrics and measurements

· Guiding agency partnerships to create powerful brand expressions, such as: logo design and naming

4. Constructing a brand from the ground up (prepares students for Final Go-to-market Plan assignment) for:

· An entirely new start-up venture; or

· An existing start-up whose brand has not yet been built or requires a full re-build and re-launch

5. Building a comprehensive Brand Go-to-Market Plan (provides students with evidence of marketing skills which they can make use of in future internships and full-time positions)

SUMMARY: All marketers must build, sustain, and curate the most valuable assets in their organizations, namely, their brands and brand portfolios. For those students who are serious about exploring marketing either as a career or as colleagues to marketers, Strategic Brand Management will provide the real-world tools and skills required to help students succeed in those future positions.