Overview
Marketing 440: Marketing Strategy introduces important concepts in strategy formulation and implementation. The notion that organizations should strive to deliver superior customer value while achieving their own objectives in a socially responsible manner is the focal point of market-driven strategies. Despite the fact that many successful organizations now embrace this market orientation philosophy as a way of doing business, delivering superior customer value and creating long-term, mutually beneficial exchange relationships with customers is seldom easy, even when buyer needs are known and the external environment is stable and predictable. With the rapid and unpredictable environmental changes observed in today’s markets, marketing managers have to put in place mechanisms of continuous learning and develop superior skills and capabilities to be able to respond quickly to strategic changes with effective marketing strategies. Integrating the analysis of complex and unfamiliar strategic situations with knowledge about target market and positioning strategies permits marketing managers to anticipate and exploit changes that are largely beyond the control of any single organization.
MKTG 440 is designed to help you develop analytical and decision-making skills, both of which are critical for becoming a successful marketing manager in this era of global competition, continuous emergence of new technologies, and fast changing markets.
After successful completion of this course, you should be able to do the following:
- discuss the foundations of strategic marketing management
- assess and identify market opportunities
- apply the concepts of segmentation, targeting, and positioning
- identify key strategic marketing issues related to branding, pricing, distribution, communications, people, processes, and physical evidence
- write a marketing plan
Evaluation
Your final grade in Marketing 440: Marketing Strategy will be based on your participation in five learning forums, and on your work in two assignments and a final examination. The passing grade for the final exam is 50%. To receive credit for the course, you must pass the final exam and achieve an overall course grade of D (50%) or better. The following chart indicates the credit activities and their weighting toward the final grade.
| Activity | Weight |
| Assignment 1 | 20% |
| Assignment 2 | 30% |
| Learning Forum Participation | 25% |
| Final Online Exam | 25% |
| Total | 100% |
The final examination for this course must be requested in advance and written under the supervision of an AU-approved exam invigilator. Invigilators include either ProctorU or an approved in-person invigilation centre that can accommodate online exams. Students are responsible for payment of any invigilation fees. Information on exam request deadlines, invigilators, and other exam-related questions, can be found at the Exams and grades section of the Calendar.
To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University’s online Calendar.
Materials
Digital course materials
Links to the following course materials will be made available in the course:
Hooley, G., Nicoulaud, B., Rudd, J. M., & Lee, N. (2020). Marketing strategy & competitive positioning (7th ed.). Pearson Education Limited. ISBN: 987-1-292-27655-7
Other materials
Students will access all other materials online.
Challenge for credit
Overview
The challenge for credit process allows you to demonstrate that you have acquired a command of the general subject matter, knowledge, intellectual and/or other skills that would normally be found in a university-level course.
Full information about challenge for credit can be found in the Undergraduate Calendar.
Evaluation
To receive credit for the MKTG 440 challenge registration, you must achieve a grade of at least D (50 percent) on the examination.
Online Exam
Challenge for credit course registration form