BUU44551 Advances in Marketing Theory and Practice

(5 ECTS)

Lecturer:

Dr. Radu Dimitriu & Laura Berry

Email: radu.dimitriu@tcd.ie berryla@tcd.ie

Office Hours: By appointment
Teaching Assistant: Chetna Johar

Pre-Requisite(s):

BUU33700 - Contemporary Marketing Management
BUU33710 - Consumer Behaviour

Module Description:

This module covers a variety of topical marketing issues including understanding and acting on customer journeys, delivering consumer value, branding, sensorial marketing, marketing on social media, or pricing. The course also centres you in the contemporary marketing challenges and introduces you to the high-level real world issues to the forefront of marketing practice. The module is designed for students who enjoy reading and applying marketing theory and frameworks to real-life case studies and situations. Students are encouraged to present their ideas on a continuous basis, and to get involved in class and tutorial discussions and debates.

Learning and Teaching Approach:

The module consists of lectures and tutorials running during Semester 1 2023-2024, arranged as follows:

Lectures: Tuesday 12-1pm – On campus in room B132, and Tuesday 5-6pm, B125 in Trinity Business School.
Tutorials: As scheduled in module schedule below on Thursdays 9-10am, in room 2034, Trinity Arts Block (2nd floor).

The first lecture of the semester sets out the expectations, assessment and logistics of the module. Subsequently, each lecture introduces and debates a current topic in marketing theory and practice, as detailed in the outline below. Material for each lecture (e.g., readings, recordings and portfolio task requirements/case studies) will be made available before each lecture, via Blackboard. Students must cover the material for each lecture in advance, and come prepared to contribute to class discussions. The on campus, face-to-face, lectures will have an interactive format, with discussions focusing on clarifying concepts from the lecture material. Students are also encouraged to discuss their planned work for the portfolio task assignments.

Later, the Monday tutorials will give students and their teams the chance to present their (closer to completion) portfolio task work with the Teaching Assistant. Please make sure to come well-prepared, and be ready to ask specific questions. It is expected that you have done the work in advance, and that you are prepared to have thoughtful and informed conversation with the TA on the assigned themes. For some of the Monday tutorials (please see below) the discussion will centre on assigned case studies, rather than on portfolio assignments; please make sure to prepare these case studies for discussion at the respective tutorials.

Learning Outcomes:

Having successfully completed this module, the student should be able to:

Acknowledge and use the different levers that marketers have in their repertoires;
Demonstrate the application of marketing theories and frameworks in front of colleagues and lecturers;
Understand and act on consumers’ behavioural drivers and on their decision journeys;
Analyse and critique companies’ current marketing practices and strategies, including from an ethics and sustainability standpoint;
Advise on appropriate marketing strategies to create customer value;
Discern the extent to which marketing theories, principles and tools can be applied in an environment becoming more and more digitalized;
Work and communicate effectively as part of a diverse-background team to conduct marketing research and apply marketing frameworks and tools.

Recommended Texts/Key Reading:

There are no required textbooks.

General Supplemental Readings:

Marketing Management, by Philip Kotler, Kevin Keller, Mairead Brady, Malcolm Goodman, Torben Hansen, 4^th European edition, Person, 2020.
Strategic Brand Management, by Kevin Lane Keller, 4th edition, Pearson, 2013.

To prepare for lectures, students will be required read the articles and documents posted on Blackboard. To prepare for and participate in the tutorials, students will be required to carefully read the portfolio tasks and case studies, as well as be ready to present their solutions in class together with the team mates.

Assessment:

Continuous assessment (including participation), as group work (50%)
- Students working in teams will be required to deliver 4 out of the 6 portfolio tasks during the semester. Only the first 4 submitted tasks during the semester will be graded. The requirements for each portfolio task will be shared before lectures, and the student group work on the portfolio tasks will be debated during the online tutorials. The groups will then submit their portfolio task work after the respective tutorials, to count toward the overall portfolio.
- Some tutorials will consist of tasks (such as providing solutions to case studies) which do not formally count toward the portfolio mark; however, students teams are encouraged to present their work and solutions in class during such tutorials, as active participation will provide student teams with a chance to increase the mark they receive for their portfolio submissions.

End-semester essay, as individual work (50%)
- Students will be required to deliver a maximum 1,500 (minimum 1,200) word individual essay on a focussed angle of a topic covered during the semester.

Supplemental assessment: Students who fail the course will be required the deliver a maximum 3,000 (minimum 2,500) word essay on a topic advised by the module leader, counting for 100% of marks