Course list

In this course, you will evaluate your brand and define actions you can take to enhance your brand's performance. You will start by exploring the elements that make some brands great, why some brands garner premium consideration, and, as appropriate, how to improve a brand. You will work to create a great brand purpose and learn how to monitor the market to support the longevity of your brand by analyzing the impact of trends on your brand. You will also assess and strengthen your brand's mission, vision, and values. By the end of this course, you will have a strong vision, mission, a list of values for your brand and strategies to propel your brand forward.
In this course, you will focus on how to optimize a brand's strategy approach to the market. By identifying opportunities and threats to a brand using Porter's Five Forces model, you will analyze how you can strengthen a brand's position. You will then take this analysis a step further with “Z-SWOT”, where you will identify the brand's opportunities and threats in relation to its strengths and weaknesses. You will then create an action plan where you will prioritize strategies that can enable the brand performance to be maximized. By the end of this course, you will have clear strategies on how a brand can best capitalize on its position in the market.
In this course, you will assess the market to identify opportunities for a brand, determine a strategy to best position the brand, and draft a strategy to achieve the brand's goals. You will then apply this information to a brand of your choice. You will start analyzing the competitive space by identifying the brand attributes most important to your end users. You will use this customer focused analysis to create a positioning map that includes competitive brands. You will then create an opportunity space strategy and a brand positioning strategy to penetrate the market. By the end of this course, you will optimize a brand's position in its brandscape by completing a brand positioning mapping.
Brand planning is the process of devising the specific actions needed to enable the brand to attain brand performance goals.The process of developing the brand plan helps to identify opportunities to grow and create value for your brand. In this course, you will refine your ability to create a brand plan by investigating each step of the process and developing a plan for an existing brand of your choice. You will start by completing a situation analysis for your chosen brand. You will then draw conclusions from the analysis and determine objectives and strategies for the brand. Finally, you will develop an executional roadmap to deliver on at least one of your identified strategic directions for your brand.

In this course, you will see that brand activation is much more than clever communications or perfectly placed messages. You will begin developing your skills in brand activation by identifying and analyzing a brand target market and determining consumer insights that will prepare you to create an activation plan. You will then define the brand values, personality, and purpose, and craft a brand positioning statement for your selected brand. These elements help ensure the activation plan aligns with the brand. You will also write key elements of a communication brief to ensure that all messaging and communication pieces align with the brand and with each other. Finally, you will outline a marketing communications approach specific to your brand and your target market that will lend itself to successful brand activation.

In this course, you will determine which data sources and types of data are needed to assess your brand's performance against your brand's objectives and determine where adjustments are needed. You will practice identifying trends and analyzing the potential effect of these trends on the brand. You will use these insights to identify options to adjust your brand plan to help your brand attain its objectives. By the end of this course, you will be able to confidently analyze and assess the health and progress of your brand strategies.

Symposium sessions feature two days of live, highly interactive virtual Zoom sessions that will explore today’s most pressing topics. The Marketing Symposium offers you a unique opportunity to engage in real-time conversations with peers and experts from the Cornell community and beyond. Using the context of your own experiences, you will take part in reflections and small-group discussions to build on the skills and knowledge you have gained from your courses.

Join us for the next Symposium, in which we’ll share experiences from across the industry, inspiring real-time conversations about best practices, innovation, and the future of marketing work. You will support your coursework by applying your knowledge and experiences to some of the most pressing topics and trends in the marketing field. By participating in relevant and engaging discussions, you will discover a variety of perspectives and build connections with your fellow participants from across the industry.

Upcoming Symposium: March 11th – 12th, 2025: 

  • Tuesday, March 11, 2025 11AM – 1PM ET
  • Wednesday, March 12, 2025 11AM – 1PM ET

All sessions are held on Zoom.

Future dates are subject to change. You may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete any certificate program. Once enrolled in your courses, you will receive information about upcoming events. Accessibility accommodations will be available upon request.

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