Our focus is on the question, "When launching a product, what are the framing issues that will help determine success?" In particular, we will provide you with tools to analyze market situations and determine whether it makes sense to launch a product or engage in a marketing-related investment. The course is not designed to cover issues such as execution of a strategy (although we will touch on this a bit), but on whether to enter a market to begin with. Thus, the course is decision oriented; we want you to think about market entry decisions and how you would make them. The tools that you will be provided won't consist of equations; instead, we'll arm you with a set of questions to ask, whose answers will help you make better decisions.This course is an advanced applications marketing course. Unlike the base core course that is designed to cover every basic topic in marketing, here we focus on a number of basic questions and explore them in depth. Although we will have some lectures for background, the bulk of this endeavor will be accomplished through case discussions. In other words, we can't and won't cover everything, as this course is not designed to be comprehensive. We are going to rely on your academic background in marketing to cover the basics; here and there, it is possible that some material will be a review of what you've done before (there's nothing wrong with a little de ja vu). Unfortunately, due to the tight schedule we will not be able to cover any of the basics that are not already included in the course material.The course includes, cases, lectures, and guest lectures.
2 units · GSB Letter Graded
Our focus is on the question, "When launching a product, what are the framing issues that will help determine success?" In particular, we will provide you with tools to analyze market situations and determine whether it makes sense to launch a product or engage in a marketing-related investment. The course is not designed to cover issues such as execution of a strategy (although we will touch on this a bit), but on whether to enter a market to begin with. Thus, the course is decision oriented; we want you to think about market entry decisions and how you would make them. The tools that you will be provided won't consist of equations; instead, we'll arm you with a set of questions to ask, whose answers will help you make better decisions.This course is an advanced applications marketing course. Unlike the base core course that is designed to cover every basic topic in marketing, here we focus on a number of basic questions and explore them in depth. Although we will have some lectures for background, the bulk of this endeavor will be accomplished through case discussions. In other words, we can't and won't cover everything, as this course is not designed to be comprehensive. We are going to rely on your academic background in marketing to cover the basics; here and there, it is possible that some material will be a review of what you've done before (there's nothing wrong with a little de ja vu). Unfortunately, due to the tight schedule we will not be able to cover any of the basics that are not already included in the course material.The course includes, cases, lectures, and guest lectures.
Offered in Winter 2026 at Stanford University.