NATIONALUNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

NUS BusinessSchool

Department of Marketing

BMA5506 Product and Brand Management

Lecturer:Prof Trichy V. Krishnan

Email:

Phone: (65) 6516 3008

Session:Semester II, 2009/2010

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

This course is about Marketing of Products. I will start off with New Product Marketing where we will cover topics including different types of new products, consumer-level adoption process, market-level diffusion models, forecasting, pioneer advantage, etc. I will then focus on what companies do when a category moves to the growth and maturity stages. Here I will discuss topics such as Product Line Extension Decisions, Product Portfolio Management, and Brand Management. We will explore the issues a product manager typically faces, and analyze them. I will be using cases (which give a strategic perspective),quantitative models (which will help you to quantify the issues and arrive at a decision), a simulation game(which will help you in learning as a team about handling a portfolio of products) and a few research papers (that will give you an idea of the cutting-edge findings in this area). The cases have been carefully chosen so that during the discussion the relevant marketing principles are expected to spring out. I intend to invite a couple of guest speakers from the industry as well. The course schedule is given on the next page.

GRADING

The case reports (team-work) will constitute 30% of the grade, the game will carry will carry 25 % of the grade (team work), and theresearch paper presentation carries 5% (team-work). There will be 10 % (individual performance) to be obtained from peer review[1]. The final take-home case report carries the rest 30 % (individual performance). You will be given a week to handover the case reports.

OFFICE HOURS

You can reach me any time by email () or 6516 3008 and let me know a day in advance if you want to meet in my office. If you have a documented disability that will impact your work in this class, please contact me to discuss your needs.

ABOUT ME

I graduated with Honors in Bachelor of Engineering from MadrasUniversity in India and worked for 6 years as a Marketing Executive with a leading automobile company in India before enrolling in the Ph.D. program at the University of Texas at Dallas in 1989. After obtaining my Ph.D. degree in 1994, I worked as a tenured marketing faculty for three years in the Netherlands, with Rice in Houston for next 5 years, and joined NUS in Jan 2003. I have published research papers in top marketing journals (many on new product growth area) and have written two award winning case studies. I also do consulting on marketing of new products, pricing and channel issues.

COURSE SCHEDULE

Week

/ Topic of Discussion / Cases to Prepare[2]/ Research Articles[3]
1 / Introduction
New Product Marketing
2 / New Product Marketing
(First mover advantage) / Synthes, TiVo,Cumberland
3 / New Product Marketing
(Diffusion) / Aqualisa, Cumberland, TiVo
4 / New Product Marketing
(Marketing power, Positioning) / Nestle, Sanex
Markstrat – Decision 2
5 / New Product Marketing
(Uncertainty, Risk) / Sensor, Zenith HDTV, Toyota Prius
Markstrat – Decision 3
6 / Product Line Decisions
(Trade-off analysis) / Dell, Clark
Markstrat – Decision 4
7 / Product Line Decisions
(Price-performance, Competition, portfolio management) / Barco, American Airlines
Markstrat – Decision 5
8 / Channels and Pricing issues in product management / GoodYear(Aquatread)
Markstrat – Decision 6

9

/ B2B Prod/Customer management / Sealed Air, CRM
Markstrat – Decision 7

10

/ Brand Management / Markstrat – Decision 8
Heineken, Intel Inside

11

/ Brand Management / Markstrat – Decision 9
Gucci
12 / Product line and Brand Management / BRL Hardy
Markstrat – Decision 10
13 / Other issues / Dupont Teflon in China
14 / Student-team presentation[4] / Markstrat

The list of topics is not exhaustive, but is wide enough to cover a broad spectrum of issues typically faced by product managers in a company. The marketing strategic elements such as advertising, positioning, channel management, pricing and market research will be discussed briefly as and when appropriate.

Students are strongly encouraged to tell about their own industry experiences with respect to marketing strategy. They are also encouraged to talk about interesting and relevant bits of information they may have access to in other countries such as China and India.

BMA5506 Product & Brand Management1

Semester II, 2009/2010 Prof Trichy Krishnan

[1] Working as a team is very critical for every MBA student. If any member of a team is not contributing to the team or not being a good member of a team, please let me know ASAP so we can set things right immediately. Do not wait till the semester is over, and then hand that person a poor peer review score in the end. Remember that with action taken early, his/her contribution might help the team secure a higher score in the team assignments.

[2] Cases are team-based. Submit the case reports before the beginning of the class-concerned. Read all the cases thoroughly, but you need to prepare a 2-page report only for those cases in bold-face. During case discussion in the class, I will ask any team randomly to lead the discussion.

[3] I will give a list of articles sometime in February.

[4] Of the research articles that I will give you, every team needs to present one paper.