IB 370 - Brand Management

As a powerful tool for creating lasting value for a company and its customers, the brand is one of a firm’s most important assets. ‘Brand’ plays a central role not only in defining a company’s market positioning but also in communicating its identity and differentiating it from competitors. To manage and leverage a brand’s force, companies thus must pursue, develop, and implement
branding strategies that allow them to successfully highlight and mobilize their values, core competences, and marketing capabilities.

This module explores brands from a cultural, social, political, and geographical perspectives. As we learn of key underlying ideas that underpin branding theory and how marketing professionals bring them to life, we will reflect on how brands partner with various cultural actors and adopt new methodologies to keep up with competition and stay relevant to their consumers. Most of all, this module focuses on a more critical approach to branding and aims to highlight the ethical issues that dominate corporate decisions and how they affect brands and their perception.

This course will provide an overview of brand management in an international context by exploring the key concepts and definitions of branding and by introducing students to branding strategies that foster growth and competitive advantage, even in fast-changing industries and markets. Real-world cases and local field studies, as well as investigation of the wider global and local cultural contexts, will allow us to outline best practices, while hands-on assignments and workshops will help us put this knowledge into practice.