BA3365 Principles of Marketing

Term: Spring 2011 Professor: Dr. Upender Subramanian

Section: 502 Email: upender@utdallas.edu
Class Hours: Thursdays Phone: 972-883-6525
7:00 – 9:45 PM Office: SM 3.706
Location: SM 2.801 Office Hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays
2:00 – 3:00 pm
(by appointment only)

Recommended Text
Marketing, by Roger A. Kerin, Steven W. Hartley and William Rudelius, McGraw Hill-Irwin, 8th
/ 9th / 10th Edition

Course Description
This course provides an introduction to marketing concepts, frameworks and methods that are
necessary to create, evaluate or implement marketing and market-oriented strategies in today’s
competitive business environment. The course is designed to help develop your market and
marketing intuition when tackling business problems as or along with marketing managers.

Student Learning Objectives / Outcomes

Upon completion of the course, students will be able to understand / define / apply / implement:

1. Segmentation-Targeting-Positioning framework
2. Marketing mix using the 4P framework: Product, Price, Promotion, Place.
3. Pricing strategies such as markup pricing and target pricing.
4. Ethical constraints when making marketing decisions.

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Class Schedule (Tentative and subject to change)

Date Topic

January 13 Course Overview & Introduction to Marketing

January 20 Strategic Planning & Marketing Environment

January 27 Consumer Behavior

February 3 Marketing Research

* Project Groups Finalized *

February 10 Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning

February 17 Product Strategy

February 24 Ethical Issues in Marketing & Project Proposal Presentations

* Project Proposals Due (2 pages) *

March 3 Pricing Strategy

March 7 To be announced

March 17 Spring break

March 24 Channel Strategy

March 31 Promotion Strategy

April 7 Group Project Presentations

* Presentation Slides Due *

April 14 Group Project Presentations

* Marketing Plans and Peer Evaluations due *

April 21 Review for Final Exam

April 28 FINAL EXAM

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Grading Policy
Homework (Best 4 of 5) 40%
Group Project 30%
- Proposal 5%
- Marketing Plan 15 %
- Final Presentation 10 %
Final Exam (Apr 28th) 30%
TOTAL 100%

Class Participation Bonus 5%

Your final grade will be based on your total score (including the class participation bonus). The
grading will be based on the relative performance of the class. In previous years, approximately
the top 30% of the class received an A- or higher, the next 40 – 50% received a B- to B+, and the
next 20-25% received a C- to C+, and the remaining (up to 10% of the class) received a D+ or
lower, including an F.

Homework Assignments

Homework assignments will constitute forty percent of your total score. There will be five
homework assignments, approximately one due every two weeks. The due dates for each
assignment will be announced sufficiently in advance in class. Assignments may consist of short
discussion questions, short case analysis or short numerical problems. Each assignment will be
for ten points and the best four of your five assignment scores will be considered for your total
score.

Group Marketing Project

The Group Marketing Project accounts for thirty percent of your total score. Each group consists
of four to five students. You may form these groups yourselves. If you do so, you must inform
the instructor about your group by February 1st. Those who have not formed groups and
informed the instructor by this date will be randomly assigned into groups by the instructor on
February 3rd.

Each group will choose a company/service/product to research and then develop a marketing
plan. You can choose: a national/local business/organization, a new product or service, or an
existing product or service that is in trouble. You will be provided with an outline for the group
project and examples from previous years within the first few weeks of the course.

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Each group will submit a two-page proposal for their project on February 24th at the end of the
class and will also be asked to make a mini-presentation of the proposal on the same day. This
proposal will be graded and will account for five points. In the proposal, you should include a
statement of the problem/opportunity and a situation analysis. You should also give an idea
about how you plan to address this problem/opportunity. You will be provided an outline and
examples for the proposal within the first few weeks of the course. The presentation should last
about 3 minutes.

Each group will formally present their marketing project to the entire class at the end of the
semester. The amount of time permitted for this presentation is 23 minutes / group. Each group
must submit the final version of their presentation slides on April 7th no matter when you
formally present your marketing project. The final marketing plan write-up is due on April 14th.
The presentation will account for ten points and the write-up for fifteen points.

Group Participation

Team work is an important component of the learning process in this class. Your contribution to
the group’s work will be assessed by each member of the group at the end of the semester. In
order to prevent free riding, your grade for the group project will be weighted by your group
contribution score. So you should make every effort to contribute to your group project.
Final Exam

The final exam accounts for thirty percent of your total score. The exam will be closed-book and
will consist of a combination of multiple-choice and short answer type questions. The exam will
take place on April 28th during regular class time. The venue for will be our regular classroom.

Important Note: No make-up exams will be allowed. Please plan your schedule accordingly.

Class Participation Bonus

Your participation in class discussions is an important part of your learning. To encourage

participation, up to five bonus points will be awarded throughout the term for effective class
participation. There will be ample opportunities to participate in class discussions.

There are several ways in which you can participate, such as (but not limited to):
- asking questions
- sharing your observations
- embellishing the class discussion with examples

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You can participate effectively by a) reading the assigned materials prior to class, b) thinking
about the concepts, and c) paying attention to various marketing activities while you are
shopping, watching television, reading newspapers and business publications.

Your class participation will be evaluated not only on the basis of volume or extent of
participation, but also on the basis of quality. Quality will depend primarily on whether your
comments are pertinent to the topic or question being discussed in class.

Course & Instructor Policies

All deadlines are to be strictly followed throughout the semester. Submissions after the
assigned due time will not be accepted. Make up exams will not be allowed.
For other standard UT Dallas syllabus policies, refer to http://go.utdallas.edu/syllabus-policies

The course descriptions and timelines are subject to change at the discretion of the instructor.
In case you are not sure about any aspect of the syllabus, please do not hesitate to contact the
instructor.