Survey of Marketing

Marketing 170

Fall 2004

Professor: Dan Toy

Office: 473 Tehama

Phone: 898-4823

Email: WebCT email for MKTG 170 or in emergencies; dtoy@csuchico.edu

Office Hours: Tuesday 5:00 – 6:15 and Thursday 2:00 – 3:15 or by appointment

The purpose of this course is to help you understand how the marketing process affects businesses, society and you as an individual consumer. You may be surprised at the extent of the marketing activities that occur in the world around you. Since Marketing 170 is a survey course, it is designed to provide you with an overview of marketing concepts and strategies rather than an in-depth study of any particular topic.

Course Objectives

"The road to success is always under construction." (origin unknown)

Businesses in today's competitive environment expect you to have a variety of skills when you graduate. Employers consistently say that they are looking for employees with the following abilities: 1) good problem-solving and critical-thinking skills; 2) exposure to current technologies (e.g., email and the Web); and 3) good listening skills and a willingness to understand the opinions of others.

This course was designed to help you develop these skills and to increase your knowledge of marketing so that you will be more prepared to meet the needs (and hopefully even exceed the expectations!) of your future employers. We'll use lectures, class discussions, films, and web-related activities to explore marketing concepts throughout the semester.

Materials (Hard Copy)

Kotler and Armstrong, Principles of Marketing: activebook (Prentice Hall, 2004)

This is the primary text for the course. It is one of the two most widely used introductory marketing texts in the country. You may want to keep this book even after the semester is over. The College of Business recommends that “students not sell, at least until graduation, the textbooks they are required to purchase for their lower-division and upper-division core courses. They will be needed for the purposes of review and/or further development and discussion of material covered in the business curriculum, which culminates in a multidisciplinary capstone course.”

Mason and Perreault, The Marketing Game (McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2003; Third Edition)

This text and software allow you to participate in a marketing simulation where you will run a firm and make marketing decisions. You will run this business with the help of other students in your team and you will compete against other student teams for profits and market share. The Marketing Game provides a “hands on” experience to practice your marketing skills.

Materials (On-Line)

The text by Kotler and Armstrong is called an “activebook” because the hard copy textbook is accompanied by an on-line book that contains “active” learning materials. In essence, the hard copy book is a condensed version of the on-line text. You might think of the hard copy text as the “core” material of the overall textbook. The on-line activebook includes all of the hard copy material plus a wealth of additional resources (exercises, powerpoints, streaming videos, graphics, quizzes, real world examples of concepts, etc.) that help bring the subject to life. We will use the “activebook” for class discussions, assignments, quizzes, etc. It is also a very good source of self-testing material to use in studying for the exams in this course.

You can access the on-line activebook at www.prenhall.com/kotler. (Note that there is also a link to this website on the Marketing 170 WebCT homepage.) You will need the six digit access code that is included with your book to get into the Prentice Hall website for the first time. Follow the site’s directions for setting up your account. After that, you will have access to all of the material mentioned above.

Supplementary On-Line Materials

The web site for the CSU, Chico library contains most of the information on business periodicals and papers that the University has on-line and available to you. The best of these for general business research is the Dow Jones Interactive Database. It includes up to date information that is readily available on papers like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post. It also has complete electronic copies of many business magazines like Business Week, Forture and Forbes.

Here are some additional on-line resources:

http://www.fastcompany.com/homepage/ This is one of the best electronic (and hard copy) sites for information about marketing and business in general. You may be asked to read material from this e-zine during the course to supplement your marketing knowledge with current examples.

http://www.business2.com/ This is another excellent e-zine for finding current information about marketing and other business topics. In fact, a very influential author has called for the demise of Marketing as we know it today. Good reading, and also available in hard copy format.

http://www.inc.com/ Inc. is yet another excellent business magazine that is available on line and in hard copy. It tends to focus on small business issues, but has excellent articles on marketing.

http://www.tompeters.com/ This is a very interesting site. Tom Peters has been a revolutionary thinker in business. Starting with his book In Search of Excellence, Tom has been writing, making films and giving seminars for close to two decades. You can always find something of interest on Tom’s web site. In fact, one of Tom’s most important articles (now is book form) is something called Brand You. It is must reading for any business student. You can find it on Tom’s web site.

WebCT

Technology is becoming an increasingly important element of the business landscape. It has changed practically every aspect of how people conduct business. WebCT is a very good example of how technology is changing the educational environment. We will use WebCT as a major means of communication in this course. In essence, WebCT is the technological backbone of this course in much the same way as an ERP or CRM system is for a business.

Icon information for resources on the Marketing 170 WebCT page:

· For syllabi, assignments and the schedule for the semester use “Course Information” on the home page

You should be able to open and print the MS Word files (e.g., the syllabus and other assignment descriptions) in WebCT. However, depending on your computer setup, you may need to download the PowerPoint files to your computer to open and print them. You may want to create a folder on your computer titled “Marketing 170” so that you can download the files into a place where you can locate them easily.

If you need help with anything related to WebCT, you can stop by the help desk in the first floor computer lab in Meriam Library or call the Student Computing Help Line at 530-898-HELP (4357). You can also access help through the Student Resources link on the WebCT homepage for this course.

Course Policies and Expectations

Prerequisite Requirements and Disenrollment Policy

Students who miss the first class meeting without prior notification may be disenrolled to create space for students who are trying to add the course.

Academic Honesty

Honesty and integrity are critical attributes in both our professional and personal lives. As recent events in the corporate world have shown, unethical behaviors have high societal and individual costs. I expect you to maintain a very high standard of academic honesty (as discussed on pages 154 and 595 of The 1999-2001 University Catalog.) This means doing your own work on quizzes, exams and written assignments, contributing your fair share of work to the team projects, and signing only your own name on the sign in sheets. Dishonesty may result in a grade reduction or other penalties described in Section IV-A of the University Code.

In-Class Behavior

Most of you will be graduating soon and taking a job in a corporate setting. It may be helpful in preparing you for that experience to think of class as a business meeting. If you needed to miss a business meeting, you’d inform your manager (or boss) in a courteous manner and make arrangements with a colleague to fill you in on what you missed. You wouldn’t ask if anything important were likely to happen at the meeting you are not attending. To do so implies that you believe meetings with your manager and colleagues are generally unimportant. You would use the restroom before the meeting. You would avoid being late, walking out in the middle of the meeting for any reason, or leaving early. You would avoid whispering and laughing with the person sitting next to you. You would listen attentively, probably take notes, and manage your face and posture to convey interest and competence. You would turn off your cell phone, beeper or pager to avoid disturbing the meeting. You would not read a newspaper or work on tasks unrelated to the meeting. You would avoid interrupting people or being rude in any way. You would wait until after the meeting to discuss special accommodations for your personal situation. Why? Because doing any of these things reflects badly on you.

As a member of this class, you are invited to think, question, disagree, and offer alternatives. However, my expectation is that you will behave professionally. Failure to do so may result in disenrollment from the class. Your enrollment in this course indicates your agreement to follow the class rules, which are based on Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers’ motto for success: “Treat people like you like to be treated yourself.” This means specifically:

· Be on time to class and don’t leave early

· Be quiet when someone else is “officially” speaking

· Don’t read newspapers or do outside work in class

· Leave the classroom (our work environment) as clean -- or cleaner-- than you found it

Grading Criteria

CSU,Chico Academic Policy re. Grades

A = Superior Work: A level of achievement so outstanding that it is normally attained by relatively few students.

B = Very Good Work: A high level of achievement clearly better than adequate competence in the subject matter, but not as good as the unusual, superior achievement of students earning an A.

C = Adequate Work: A level of achievement indicating adequate competence in the subject matter. This level will usually be met by a majority of students in the course.

D = Minimally Acceptable Work: A level of achievement which meets the minimum requirements of the course.

F = Unacceptable Work: A level of achievement that fails to meet the minimum requirements of the course.

Performance Evaluation

Your final grade in Marketing 170 will be a function of:

(1) Three exams based on primary text (20% each)

(2) One exam on the Marketing Game (15%)

(3) Performance on the Marketing Game (20%)

(4) Attendance* (5%)

*The class attendance grade will be determined in the following way:

· Perfect attendance 100% - A+

· One missed class 95% - A

· Two missed classes 85% - B

· Three missed classes 75% - C

· More than three missed classes 0% - F

**Note that if you are late to class, your attendance grade may be decreased accordingly.

All short assignments are due on the date assigned and must be typed and professionally presented. No late work will be accepted without a valid excuse. In general, the maximum credit for an assignment turned in 1 day late = 80%, 2 days late = 70%, etc.

Final grades will be determined by the following distribution:

A = 92.6-100	B+ = 87.5-89.9	C+ = 77.5-79.9	D+ = 67.5-69.9
A- = 90-92.5	B = 82.5-87.4	C = 72.5-77.4	D = 60-67.4
	B- = 80-82.4	C- = 70-72.4	F = Below 60

There is in every part of life a distinction between effort and achievement. This is true in sports, musical and theatrical settings, academics, the business world and virtually every setting where performance is evaluated. It is very hard to assess effort, so your grade in this class will be based entirely on the outcomes of your work (your actual achievements). However, it is typically true that increased effort leads to higher achievement!