MKTG3120
Building and Managing Brands
1. Introduction
MKTG3120 Building and Managing Brands is a 3000-level elective unit in the Marketing major. In this unit, students explore the concept of brand equity and the management of brand assets by learning how to strategically create, position, develop and sustain brand equity. Students apply their learnings in a brand audit, in which they use their practical skills to conduct market research and analysis on a brand to inform creative and effective branding strategies.
Prerequisites: MKTG1001 Marketing Principles
2. Difficulty
Difficulty: Medium
This unit is content heavy, requiring students to revise terminology and concepts, and keep up to date with weekly content. In order to perform well, students must not only understand the unit theory, but they must also be able to apply this theory. The group assignment is quite difficult and can be hard to score highly in, and students are not told much about how to do well in both the individual and group assignments - which may increase the difficulty of the unit for some. The final exam is fairly time-pressured and requires students to recall a lot of content. Overall, this unit can be fairly hard to score highly in due to the difficulty of assignments, and demands that students know their content very well.
3. Workload
The workload includes tutorial preparation, an individual assignment, a major group assignment and the final exam. There is quite a lot of effort required for all, but the content is not too complex.
Weekly tutorial preparation and consolidating the lecture content takes roughly 45 minutes each week. Each tutorial has a preparation task that takes about 10-15 minutes to complete.
Work towards the group project takes up the greatest amount of time, requiring around 2 hours a week. However, this time is likely to increase towards the end of the project as the due date approaches.
4. Textbooks/Readings
All readings for this unit can be accessed through the Library eReserve, available on Canvas.
Textbook:
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Keller, K. L., & Swaminathan, V. (2020). Strategic brand management: building, measuring, and managing brand equity (5th ed.). Pearson. ISBN: 978129231496
5. Assessment Breakdown
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Participation and Involvement (20%): Based on preparation for and participation in tutorial and online Canvas discussions, and how thoughtful and insightful the contributions are. Participation also includes a Business Research Component (BRC) - either participation in a research study OR submission of a research paper review.
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Personal Branding Report and Reflection Essay (20%):
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Personal Branding Report: Students utilise theoretical frameworks from brand management to develop a self-positioning statement and personal branding strategy. (Week 7).
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Reflection Essay: Students reflect on the unit as a whole, as well as their personal brand (Week 12).
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Brand Analysis Report (30%): In groups, students undertake a brand analysis, and critically evaluate the positioning and branding strategies of an existing brand selected from a list provided by the Unit Coordinator. Groups must prepare a professional report that discusses the brand’s current equities, and the development of a new positioning statement and strategy for the brand.
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Final Exam (30%): Based on the topics covered in lectures, the textbook, and reading materials.
Please note that assessments may vary across semesters. This information was sourced from the Unit of Study Outline for Semester 2 of 2021, and may be out of date. For the most up-to-date information, refer to the Unit of Study Outline for the semester and year relevant to your studies.
6. Unit Highlights
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Learning the theory behind brand management - this is really helpful when conceptualising why brand managers make the decisions that they do.
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Understanding the importance of a brand and how this impacts sales.
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Being able to really get to know a specific brand in the project - this involves conducting a brand audit, performing research, and coming up with creative rebranding strategies. This project is super interesting and allows for some strategic creativity.
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The applicability and usefulness of the unit learnings to the real world. Understanding brand size is not only useful for Marketing, but also for wider business strategy, and even understanding people.
7. Skills Learnt
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Brand management theory and application
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Understanding how to conduct a brand audit
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Brand analysis - assessing the strengths and weaknesses of a brand, analysing customer’s brand associations, etc.
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Market research
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Creativity
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Industry jargon
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Presentation skills
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Report writing