GRA 6440 Marketing Innovation Management
GRA 6440 Marketing Innovation Management
Every year companies across the globe spend billions of dollars developing and marketing innovations to improve the way we work, live, and play. The vast majority of these innovations fail when introduced to the market. This course is about learning how to create innovative solutions that are likely to succeed in the market.
Marketing innovation is defined as the implementation of new marketing practices involving significant changes in the design, packaging, distribution, promotion or pricing of a product or service. This course will focus on the product-related marketing activities involved in the marketing innovation process, and cover topics such as understanding customer needs, creative idea generation, concept testing, and effect estimation.
This course will focus on the logic and structure of an innovation process, the way it typically takes place in organizations. It starts with an identification of unmet customer needs. The next stage is creative idea generation, wherein a number of ideas are identified, and a sub-selection of them selected for further concept development. The selected concepts (prototypes) are then shown to potential customers for estimating the market potential involved with the concept/s. The course culminates in a business case where the financial potential of the new concept is estimated based on estimated costs and revenue.
The objective of this course is to provide students with the capabilities to create innovative product concepts and to make smart bets – knowing which product concepts are worth investing in. The aim is to combine the insights provided market research with the strategic considerations involved in the development of a new product. The students will learn how to present and argue for their business case, both in oral presentations and in a written term paper.
The course is designed to provide students with a comprehensive overview of the marketing innovation activities involved in launching a new product and achieve familiarity with key concepts and theories related to marketing innovation.
More in detail, the course will provide students with:
- An overview of the marketing innovation funnel
- In-depth understanding of creativity and exposure to different idea generation techniques for new products
- Knowledge concerning concept development and concept testing
- The ability to estimate the potential effects of new products using financial data
- Insights into how to create a marketing innovation strategy for a new product
Upon successful completion of the course students will be able to:
- Critically analyze and interpret various sources of information (e.g., customer data, company information, trends, existing literature) and use them to structure and formulate a business case for a new product concept
- Link key concepts, theories, and methods to collect and analyze data to see if the new product concept is worth investing in
- Become aware of their creative capabilities and how they can apply them to business problems
- Develop communication, critical thinking, and collaboration/teamwork skills through group work and peer reviews
The general competence fostered by this course is reflecting on what separates a successful innovation from others and how to carry out a successful marketing innovation project.
The course will cover different stages of the innovation process such as understanding customer needs, creative idea generation, concept development and testing, and developing a business case for a new product.
The course will include lectures, workshops, practical exercises, student participation, and presentations.
For fulfilling the course assignment, the students will conduct a marketing innovation project. For the project, they will work on the steps involved in the process of new product development and develop a recommendation and product launch strategy for the product. The students will present their projects during the semester and get feedback from the lecturer and their peers. They will be graded on the term paper they write on their project.
Students will work in randomly assigned groups and are expected to equally contribute to the project. Grades will be given to the group. Specific information regarding student assessment will be provided in class.
Please note that while attendance is not compulsory in all courses, it is the student’s own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class.
This course and GRA 6428 New Product Development and Service Innovation both address various aspects of new product development and innovation management. Although learning goals and course substances intersect, the two courses offer differing theoretical approaches and practical applications, as well as teaching methods and assessments. Students are only able to select one of these courses and are advised to consult the entirety of the course descriptions before doing so.
The examination for this course has been changed starting academic year 23/24. It is not possible to resit the old version of the examination.
All courses in the Masters programme will assume that students have fulfilled the admission requirements for the programme. In addition, courses in second, third and/or fourth semester can have specific prerequisites and will assume that students have followed normal study progression. For double degree and exchange students, please note that equivalent courses are accepted.
Disclaimer
Deviations in teaching and exams may occur if external conditions or unforeseen events call for this.
This course requires students to have acquired basic knowledge in marketing management, consumer behavior and marketing research. At a minimum this knowledge should be at the bachelor level.
| Assessments |
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Exam category: Submission Form of assessment: Written submission Weight: 100 Grouping: Group (3 - 6) Duration: 1 Semester(s) Comment: Term paper presenting the development of a marketing innovation concept and a plan for implementation. Exam code: GRA 64401 Grading scale: ECTS Resit: Examination when next scheduled course |
GRA 6440 has overlapping content with the following course: GRA 6428 New Product Development and Service Innovation. Students can only choose one of these specialisation electives.
A course of 1 ECTS credit corresponds to a workload of 26-30 hours. Therefore a course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of at least 160 hours.