People often define "marketing" as advertising. While advertising is a highly visible activity by which organizations provide information and try to persuade customers to buy, marketing is much more than just advertising. Even the most skillful advertising cannot make people buy things that they don't want. Rather, marketing involves identifying customer needs, then satisfying those needs by offering the right product and/or service at an acceptable price, making it available to customers through appropriate distribution channels, and promoting it in ways that motivate purchase as much as possible. These decisions – product, price, distribution, and promotion – comprise what is known as the “Marketing Mix.” Together with rigorous and complete analysis of the environment, customers, and competitors, they are the key activities of marketing management, and they are crucial ones: failure to find the right combination of the “mix” may result in product (or service) failure.

This course will provide a broad understanding of marketing concepts that will be useful to managers in a variety of applications. Particular attention will be given to vocabulary. By the end of the course, each student should have an understanding of the framework from which marketing strategies can be developed and be able to make decisions in a simulated environment.

 

The objective of this course is to:

 a) introduce students to the concepts, analyses, and activities that comprise marketing.

 b) to provide practice in assessing and solving marketing problems.

 c) to serve as a foundation for marketing knowledge in general.