Product Management is a marketing elective that is designed
to improve student's marketing skills and understanding
of specific marketing topics, as well as "big picture"
issues of how various aspects of marketing "fit together,"
all from a brand equity perspective. Accordingly, Product
Management is organized around the product and brand management
decisions that must be made to build and manage brand equity.
Specifically, the course is organized in three sections:
a) describing the brand and product management system, b)
managing a brand and c) extending brand management across
products and geographies. In the first section, we overview
the course and discuss i) how to organize the firm to manage
the brand asset and ii) the concept of brands and a framework
to provide insight into how brands are built. In the second
section, we articulate the product strategies that can lead
to enduring brand advantage. In the last section, we look
at marketing decisions that extend beyond the core brand
and market.
Each section of the course employs an amalgam of cases,
lecture, article discussions, videos, and guest speakers
in order to lend perspective to the brand management problem.
The frequent use of guest speakers, typically drawn from
the area of the cases they will attend, will help you to
understand the implementation issues associated with managing
a brand and ensure that the discussions reflect the most
contemporaneous management practices.
