Brands are everything – from commercial brands to political to personal branding. But how to build a brand, in your first Brand Manager role or for your startup? How to develop your personal brand - to be successful in interviews and in your career?
That’s what this course is all about. It helps students to better understand the process and techniques used by brand managers when building and leveraging their brands as the company’s strategic assets. This course is designed to develop students’ understanding of the importance of brand equity as well as how to build, measure and manage brand equity. Topics will include understanding brands from the consumer’s perspective, building brand equity, measuring brand equity, leveraging brand portfolios and managing brands over time and in different marketing contexts.
As this is an SMU-X class (no, they are not harder or more work-intensive – just more real), we will be developing a brand strategy for a real client in groups and present it to the client for their feedback towards the end of term. Many previous clients have executed strategies developed by this class!
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- Explain the key concepts and frameworks used in brand management decisions
- Understand the elements that comprise brand equity and how brand equity is built and managed
- Describe the key stages of the brand management process
- Apply the use of brand audits to evaluate brands
- Understand the behavioural dimensions of brand relationships with customers
- Analyze and evaluate brand strategies used in different contexts covering consumer, business-to-business, services and non-profit organizations.
- Understand the challenges and opportunities of extending the brand in international marketing environments