Zicklin School of Business

Baruch College

Department of Marketing

INTERNET MARKETING AND GLOBAL BUSINESS (MKT 9764) Section TR73

Fall 2007 - Tuesday, Thursday, 4:10-5:25pm, VC 9-175
Updated 9/20/2007

INSTRUCTOR: Chris Gadomski

http://www.smidirect.net/

OFFICE: 12-211S

OFFICE HOURS: 3:00 to 4:00pm, Tuesday & Thursdays, or by appointment

OFFICE PHONE: 646-312-3336 858-750-0043

E-mail: dell300@smidirect.net

Course OBJECTIVES

This course addresses both Internet Marketing and Global Business—two dynamic and rapidly changing topics. I have framed our approach along both tactical and strategic views. We will attempt to weave all of them together. This is an immense area and by necessity we need to be selective in what we cover in this class.

From a strategic perspective, we will examine the changing global social and business environment--initially through Thomas Friedman’s book, The World Is Flat—and the evolution and maturation of Internet Marketing practices through a variety of online resources and the cases we will explore. For those of you who have already read Friedman’s book, reread it. We will rethink global strategy and product innovation through our reading of Blue Ocean Strategy, a book that takes a new view of how corporations should address new product development and cope with global competition by entering uncharted waters where no competition exists. Nowhere is a blue ocean strategy more appropriate than on the Internet. We will also read The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine. Chris investigates how the interent has changed the marketing and distribution of products.

Finally getting down to tactics, we will read Avenue A Razorfish’ Digital Outlook Report 07 and Boris Mordkovich’s Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing Handbook

Hopefully, this look at our “flat world”, a new understanding of the best practices in Internet Marketing, and a look at a new strategy for giving customers what they want, and hopefully with a high margin, will fulfill our course objective of making us more adept at marketing in the first decade of the 21^st Century.

I will be as “hands on as possible” and give you opportunities to not only develop internet marketing strategies but to also implement and watch the results during the course of the semester.

Course Structure

How business uses the Internet and new media marketing solutions changes weekly, if not daily. Even the most recent textbooks and cases are soon out of date, consequently, I have abandoned the use of a text book in this course and we will rely instead on several online media sources and a few selected cases and short books. In this constant stage of flux, our learning experience will begin each class with a daily review of online media, the daily business newspapers, the cable news networks and prime time media. Through these filters, we will note and observe the transforming global marketplace and the emergence of new media and the marketing best practices that emerge. We will overlay these applied stories on our discussions of actual topics like search engine optimization, yield management and pay per click advertising that encompass some of the fundamentals of internet marketing.

Although I will cover specific topics each class, I start each class with a discussions on new developments you describe to me as reported in the media and relate them to past, current or future topics covered in the text. As this discussion will drive the class, be prepared for a more fluid rather than a structured class environment, and be prepared to contribute to each class.

Through several Harvard Business School case studies we will examine the Google phenomenon, Dell’s online approach to international markets, and discuss their continued relevance in developing cohesive integrated internet marketing strategies in today’s global marketplace. We will complete our course with a semester-long, hands-on group project designed to simulate the real decision making issues you will face as global marketing managers expert in the art of Internet marketing.

I have invited, will invite speakers from Google, Dow Jones Interactive, and Mordcomm.com to address the class.

REQUIRED READING

q OnlineSpin, www.mediapost.com

q Online Media Daily, www.mediapost.com

q The Wall Street Journal, orThe Financial Times, orThe New York Times, or online media and cable network news reports. Bring relevant articles to each class for discussion.

q The Harvard Business School cases/articles supplementing the text are:

Product #: CMR258: Unleashing the Power of Yield Management in the Internet Era
Product #: 9-806-105: Google Inc.
Product #: HKU069: Dell: Selling Directly, Globally

Product#: HKU356, Lenovo:Countering the Dell Challenge

Product#:9-707-458, How Media Choices are Changing Online Advertising

The course reference code is c16978. You will need to register with Harvard Business Online. Go to: http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/relay.jhtml?name=cp&c=c16978

This url lists the required materials for use in this course. The downloaded course materials are encrypted using SealedMedia. You can download the plug-in from http://download.sealedmedia.com/unsealer/index.asp

I hope you find this a convenient way to access your course materials. It is certainly the least expensive way to supplement our course. Please hold of buying the PayPal case, I may revisit our use of it.

If you have any questions or need technical assistance, please contact Harvard Business School Publishing at 1-800-810-8858 or 617-783-7700. They are open 8am-6pm Eastern Standard Time. They can also be reached at techhelp@hbsp.harvard.edu. If all else fails, they will mail you the cases.

ReQUIRED Books

Please visit: http://www.smidirect.net/Baruch/required%20textbooks.htm

RECOMMENDED Websites

We will visit these, and many like them during the semester:

www.mediumblue.com, www.akamarketing.com, www.majon.com,

www.clickz.com, www.wilsonweb.com, www.knowthis.com, www.addpro.com, http://www.bluefly.com, www.altoids.com, www.affiliatetips.com,
www. marketingsherpa.com

Class preparation

This is a large class. To get an A, be prepared for every class, as I will open each class by asking several students to summarize the topic of the day and to relate the news stories they have clipped to present or past discussions. If you are not prepared, letting me know ahead of time may save us both some embarrassment. 25% of your grade will be from class participation and discussion….it is important that you come to class and voice your opinions in class! Every semester students complain that I gave them too low a grade. Make sure I know who you are.

I intend to give a mid-term and a final, at least one interim test, and I will ask you to write-up summaries of the HBS Cases, other topics.

Your Grade

Class Participation 25%

Tests/Case summaries 25%

Group Project 25%

Final 25%

The GROUP Project

Please form into groups of four to six. Each group should identify an actual business or website that is not maximizing its web potential, or one that could improve its performance on the web. Importantly, one of the group must have access to the website and be able to make changes to web content and its advertising strategy. You are to develop an online/integrated marketing strategy to boost the company’s visibility and success in the global marketplace.

The site does not have to be an ecommerce site, we can test our internet marketing theories by monitoring site traffic. If you don’t have a suitable site, please see me right away. Ideally it will be a small website that you can change and manipulate and consequently follow the impact of the changes you make.

Using the web, complete marketing research assessments for your company/website and recommend an appropriate digital integrated marketing strategy for entering/expanding you regional/national/global brand as appropriate.

Each group will prepare a 20-minute oral/online presentation to be delivered to the class, that will identify internet marketing opportunities, a strategy for executing those strategies, and results following from actual execution of the strategy. Present site usage statistics to document your existing web visibility and how the actual strategies you executed impacted your site. You will present a one or two page summary to the class, and a written presentation not to exceed ten typed pages plus exhibits to be handed to me prior to your presentation.

Form groups by our fourth class.

Each of you will fill out a peer evaluation to value each individual member’s contribution to the group result.

Helpful Hints: The goals of this exercise is working together as a group and to devise and test different strategies by actually doing them during the semester. The purpose of this assignment is to replicate as much as possible the type of work you may be called on to do when hired, and to focus on identifying online opportunities and crafting an integrated strategy to capitalize on them.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material will be posted to the blackboard. Please check regularly.

GETTING IT DONE

There is no textbook for this course. That does not mean that there is no reading. We will spend a lot of time reviewing the online newsletters we receive during the week, plus we will review and write up several case studies and work on several actual websites. I intend to run the class as a discussion seminar, not a lecture, so come to class prepared to participate.

It is the express policy of the class that no late assignments will be accepted under any circumstances. I expect each student to bear individual responsibility for his or her work and to uphold the ideal of academic integrity.

See http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/academic/academic_honesty.html regarding academic integrity. Make sure not to plagiarize anyone else’s work either intentionally or unintentionally. Plagiarism is defined as using someone else's words or ideas without proper attribution. The proliferation of Web pages and electronic publications makes it easy for plagiarism, accidental or otherwise, to occur. When in doubt, make sure to include a full citation either as a footnote or as a reference at the end of the paper.

For example, the above three sentences was excerpted from the course syllabus of Masaaki Kotabe, The Washburn Chair of International Business and Marketing, Temple University, International Marketing (MKT 514).

GETTING OUT OF THE FINAL

There is a wide variety of students in this class. Some of you know a lot about the Internet, some know less. In an effort to promote your communication skills, both written and verbal, if there is an area of Internet Marketing that you feel comfortable presenting to the class, please let me know. If you present, I will excuse you from the Final.

Past students have presented on Second Life, E-mail marketing, Web Site design, SEO, Viral marketing. For examples, please see: http://www.smidirect.net/Baruch

PROBLEMS/QUESTIONS/SUGGESTIONS

Please do not hesitate to call me or schedule an appointment during my office hours or after class to discuss anything regarding the course. I welcome your comments and suggestions particularly regarding areas of interest for which you would want further investigation.

I look forward to having fun and to learning a lot with you this semester.

CRG