Mr Guido Van Garderen

This course is available on the BSc in Management, International Exchange (1 Term) and International Exchange (Full Year). This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

This course is not available for postgraduates.

This course has a limited number of places (it is capped). Students who have this course as a compulsory course are guaranteed a place. Places for all other students are allocated on a first come first served basis.

The most valuable assets that firms have are the products/services that they offer and the brands that are associated with them. Managing Products & Brands is a rigorous examination of the theory and corporate practices relevant to product and brand management. Its core objectives are to provide an understanding of the important issues in planning and evaluating product/brand strategies, to provide the appropriate theories, models, and analytical tools that enable managers to make well-informed product/brand management decisions, and to provide a platform for students to apply these principles. The critical approach adopted will blend theory and practice so as to promote effective managerial decision making on a short as well as long term basis.

Teaching hours in the LT will be commensurate with a usual half unit undergraduate course.

This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of Lent Term, in line with departmental policy.

Students will work during class in groups, where they will do exercises and receive immediate feedback. The groups will use the same exercises to create their final group project. Detailed guidelines on the group project will be provided in the course syllabus and sample projects will be available.

• David A. Aaker (1996) Building strong brands. New York: The Free Press.

• Byron Sharp (2010) How brands grow - what marketers don’t know. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

• Youngme Moon (2010) Different, Escaping the Competitive herd. New York: Crown Business, Random House.

• Kevin Lane Keller, Brian Sternthal and Alice Tybout (2002) Three questions you need to ask about your brand, Harvard Business Review, volume 80, issue 9, page 80-86.

• Lodish, Leonard M, and Carl F Mela (2007), “If Brands Are Built Over Years, Why Are They Managed Over Quarters?”, July/August, Harvard Business Review, 85, 7/8 (July-August), 104-112).

• Rangaswamy, Arvind, Raymond R Burke, and Terence Oliva (1993) “Brand Equity and the Extendibility of Brand Names”, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Special Issue on Brand Equity, Vol. 10, p. 61-75.

Exam (50%, duration: 2 hours) in the summer exam period.
Project (40%) and class participation (10%) in the LT.

The Group Project will be completed during the course in groups.