This course investigates the dynamics of human behavior and how it relates to decision making in the global marketing environment.
We explicitly will discuss:
1. The perceptions of marketing in management, society, and the boardroom, leading to a definition of marketing deriving from the students.
2. The move from a goods-dominated, over a service-dominated, to-wards an experience-dominated economy.
3. From this evolutionary viewpoint we will discuss the role of the customer, and managing the customer experience (CX), for the or-ganization.
4. Next, we discuss practical applications of this shift towards cus-tomer-experience-centricity and its challenges from both, scholarly, and managerial perspectives.
5. We then convert these discussions and focus on omni-channel management, and the challenges it triggers on both, a strategic, and operational level, highlighting the different phases of customer inter-actions (pre, during, after purchase/consumption) and how the em-phasis on different stages influences performance.

There are many different perspectives on brands and branding. To establish successful brands, managers need to understand the impact of these perspectives on brand building processes. This course will introduce you to the most widespread and some very recent ideas concerning the nature of a brand and their impact on branding.

The course will combine brand management knowledge with practical application, and develop a framework for understanding the essential ingredients of effective branding. The course covers topics such as brand positioning, architecture, extension, monitoring, image building and change, brand personality and identity, internal branding, and brands as social processes. We will discuss how to analyze, to design and to influence brands and branding processes.

• Get acquainted with the opportunities and limitations associated with innovation methods, especially from a marketing perspective
• Learn about how companies are rethinking their business models and which methods they use
• Work on hand-on case studies and get inspired by top brands around the globe how they master the challenges (Siemens and Swarovski Optik)
• Identify mechanisms and potentials of consumer focused strategies and learn more about strategic management and its value for marketing
• Identify and discuss mega, macro and micro trends and what they mean from a marketing perspective
• Collaboratively work in groups on current business decisions as well as challenges and develop own strategies and present them in elevator pitches

The sessions’ foci are:

1. The perceptions of marketing in management, society, and the boardroom, leading to a definition of marketing deriving from the students.
2. The move from a goods-dominated, over a service-dominated, to-wards an experience-dominated economy.
3. From this evolutionary viewpoint we will discuss the role of the customer, and managing the customer experience (CX), for the organization.
4. Next, we discuss practical applications of this shift towards customer-experience-centricity and its challenges from both, scholarly, and managerial perspectives.
5. We then convert these discussions and focus on omni channel management, and the challenges it triggers on both, a strategic, and operational level, highlighting the different phases of customer inter-actions (pre, during, after purchase/consumption) and how the emphasis on different stages influences performance.