Analytics Driven Brand Management

1.5 units

In the current big data era, brand managers with an analytics-bent face a competitive advantage in successfully managing their brands against competing brands. This course will cover decision support tools that can be effectively used by brand managers to improve the quality of their marketing decisions, such as pricing, advertising, promotions, etc. These decision‐support tools typically rely on market‐based estimates of demand and competitive conditions, which are often obtained by analyzing historical transactions data (which is the focus of MKT 5550/6555: Data Analysis for Brand Management) and sometimes using consumer surveys (which is the focus of MKT 5710: Marketing Research). The focus of this course will be on the optimization of marketing resources and budgets given such a quantitative understanding of the marketplace. While the focus will be on fast‐moving packaged goods categories (coffee, laundry detergents, carbonated beverages etc.), the course will also deal with durable goods (automobiles), entertainment products (movies) etc. Microsoft Excel will be used for analysis. This course emphasizes analytics‐driven situations that students are likely to face in marketing and consulting jobs. Since the course borrows heavily from the analysis expertise of the instructor, which has informed both their academic research publications and their brand management‐related consulting work, class attendance is important from the standpoint of getting the most out of this course. Students may not take both MKT 5551 and MKT 6551 for credit.