COURSE NUMBER: MBA263.1
COURSE TITLE: Information- and Technology – Based
Marketing
UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 Units
INSTRUCTOR: Minjung Park
E-MAIL ADDRESS: mpark@haas.berkeley.edu
CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION: http://bspace.berkeley.edu
MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30 –
11:00 AM
PREREQUISITE(S): MBA 206
CLASS FORMAT: Mixture between lectures, cases,
projects, and exercises
REQUIRED READINGS: Cases, course reader
BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Mixture between exercises,
project, and class participation
ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
"Information- and Technology-based
Marketing" addresses how to use customer information and the technology to
process it (i.e. databases, analytics, computing systems) in order to learn
about and market to individual customers.
Advances in the technology to process individual-level
customer information have had major effects for Marketing. Many firms now possess much more information about
consumers' choices and reactions to marketing campaigns than ever before.
However, few firms have the expertise to intelligently act on such information.
The goal of this course is to help students develop this expertise. Specifically,
the course will teach what it takes to collect, analyze, and act on customer
information. For example, we will use sophisticated targeting models to
increase marketing ROI in direct marketing campaigns. While we will use many
quantitative methods in the course, the goal is *not* to produce experts in
statistics. Instead, the goal is to train students to be able to comfortably
interact with and manage a marketing analytics team.
Marketing is going through an evolution from having
been primarily an art to becoming a science. This course teaches students a
crucial part of the "science" approach to marketing. We will use a
combination of lectures, cases, projects, and exercises to learn the material.
This course takes a very hands-on approach and equips students with tools which
can be used immediately on the job.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: "How does "Information- and
Technology-based Marketing" differ from "High-Tech
Marketing"?"
A: The courses have no overlap. 'High-Tech Marketing'
is about marketing high-technology products. "Information- and
Technology-based Marketing" is about using customer information and
"technology" (i.e. databases, analytics, computing
systems) to market to consumers.
Q: "How does "Information- and
Technology-based Marketing" differ from "Marketing
Research"?"
A: "Marketing Research" is a broad course
that introduces students to a variety of research methods, such as
psychological measurement, research design, survey methods, experimentation,
etc. In doing so, Marketing Research focuses strongly on collecting data about
consumers to understand their overall preferences. In contrast,
"Information- and Technology-based Marketing" starts with the idea
that you have a (potentially huge) database containing each individual customer
and teaches you how to market to these customers using sophisticated
techniques. The two courses complement each other very well. However, you don't
need one to take the other.
Q: "Do I have to know a lot of statistics to
succeed?"
A: Absolutely not. While we will use statistics to
analyze customer information and many of the assignments require you to use
statistical techniques, all you need will be
introduced in class with plenty of opportunity to get familiar with it.
MODIFICATIONS TO COURSE FROM ITS MOST RECENT OFFERING:
No major change
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:
Minjung Park is Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Haas
School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. Prior to her appointment at UC Berkeley in 2010, Professor Park
was on the faculty of the Department of Economics at the University of
Minnesota. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in
2007.
Professor Park is an empirical microeconomist
with specialties in industrial organization, marketing and microeconometrics.
Her main research interest lies in firm behavior in a competitive marketplace
and various strategies used by firms to attain the competitive edge. In her
studies, she is keenly interested in learning how firms respond to
institutional and market incentives and how the strategic interactions
influence market structure and consumer welfare. Recently, Professor Park has
studied the effect of wireless number portability on wireless carriers’ pricing
behavior. The policy enabled wireless customers to retain their phone numbers
in case of switching carriers, reducing consumer switching costs and
accordingly giving more power to consumers. Her studies found that wireless
carriers responded to this change in the market environment by lowering their
prices. The price decline was especially large for high-volume consumers, such
as business users, for whom the costs of losing phone numbers were particularly
large when numbers were not portable.