Question: SOLO: CMO 'CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER' ASSIGNMENTS
There are three, multiple-part essay assignments through which you can demonstrate application of class learning, reference a multitude of readings, and apply attributable research persuasively through professionally-presented narratives. As the author, you write from the perspective of the CMO, or Chief Marketing Officer. Content will be assessed for:
• Direct responses to the scope of questions; be complete but concise. Assign length commensurate to the points allocated.
• Thoughtful, incisive analysis and well-conceived ideas.
• Cogent narrative with focus on entrepreneurial marketing techniques.
• Quality: Technical writing and presentation. Is the document logical, clear, concise, interesting and is research appropriately cited?
• On-time completion in the required format. A 5-point deduction will be assessed for every day that it is late. A day is defined by the date on the calendar, not hours.
• Thoroughness: Did you address all of the required information and analyses?
• Analyses: Did you smartly evaluate the situation with an abundance of non-obvious and pertinent inferences? Solid papers have great insights.
• Recommendations: Were they specific, comprehensive (not lengthy), practical and realistic?
CMO FORMAT + SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS:
• Excessive crowding as makes reading difficult may result in point subtractions; use 12-pt. font please and reasonable spacing with bullets, subheads and charts as appropriate.
• Not to exceed 4 pages. That would be long in itself, so feel free to be more economic with your language.
• Document label: Last Name_CMO# _Date.PDF
• Submission: Upload to Blackboard by COB deadline stated.
Note: Brevity need not compromise content or technical quality. Two seminal writing reference books: ‘AP Stylebook' and ‘The Elements of Style by Strunk & White. Ample spaces between labeled sections is requested, numbering will keep you on track.
CMO #1 - COB: USA Olympics + Corporate Social Responsibility ('CSR')
Brand alignment to an event that brings billions of eyeballs, as is the marketing magnet of the Olympic Games, is the ultimate platform through which to promote a brand's distinctive corporate social responsibility ('CSR') messages. More than a logo on custom patriotic sportswear, Global Olympic and Team USA sponsors can be touting their records for multiculturalism, community impact, environmental technology, etc. Sports and event sponsorships are typically cost-prohibitive for a bootstrapped or early-stage business. That isn't to say that Team USA sponsors wouldn't benefit from an entrepreneurial marketing approach to extract the most of this rare and extended campaign opportunity for their brand. In your first CMO assignment, you will be examining and contrasting brand marketing via the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Games and the use of entrepreneurial marketing techniques. Questions will invite your comments as to marketing that seems rudimentary, and that which is more imaginative and entrepreneurial. Then you will be invited to outline your guidance to a start-up in how to attach a brand to the audiences drawn to the Olympics-affordably but still effectively. You will need to do research and reference our books.
1. IOC Sponsorships: What do IOC sponsorships cost? Indicate three (3) tiers of Olympic sponsor packages and how they differ, noting the Games' years with the costs that you are citing, and the source of your information. Do you feel the Olympic Games are a viable marketing activity for an early stage entrepreneurial marketer? Please back up your answer.
2. Are Entrepreneurial Marketers and Olympic Games Good Teammates? Achieving brand sustainability through an entrepreneurial approach to marketing is a foundational theme of the Lodish text. Please name three (3) US brands that have maintained multi-year Olympic marketing commitments and what you find to be the most creative, even economical ways that these companies have leveraged the Olympic Games to build favorable brand reputation and visibility. Specify the target markets to which these brands are focused. This is a multi-part question so be attentive to answering completely.
3. Boston 2024: Boston won the IOC's award of 2024 Summer Games, and then declined the host city invitation. What was the crux of that decision? How would this lesson affect your approach to creating partnerships for a brand that you are marketing?
4. Team USA 'Ambusher': What is an 'ambusher' and how would it relate to leveraging the Olympics as a CMO? Have the Olympics ever had an ambusher? Please describe your findings. Applying this strategy, how would you create a Team USA-themed marketing campaign for a small business (SpinGig or otherwise) that connects with the energy and messages of 'competition,' 'teamwork' and 'accomplishment' that permeate the Olympic Games? Consulting the Lodish and John books for ideas, please list three (3) ideas and how they would fit with the company you are marketing. Pictures to illustrate your idea are welcome.
5. McDonald's: Last spring McDonald's Corporate announced the termination of the conpany's IOC sponsorship contract. Having been a stalwart Global Olympic partner for more than 40 years, this was big news across the advertising trades. As CMO, briefly explain two (2) entrepreneurial marketing activites for McDonald's to maintain its brand influence to core customer targets, particularly those inspired through global sports marketing? Please connect your ideas to specific demographics and indicate how you would measure the performance of your ideas.
6. Metaphor Marketing: The conversation around Olympic-level competitiveness invites a variety of applicable metaphors to entrepreneurial marketing: teamwork, focus, goal, practice, and others. Pick three (3) words from this starter list, or select others of your choice, and briefly discuss how these metaphors will inform your thoughts about your TVP project and the work you'll be contributing as consultant to SpinGig.
7. Research: Use at least one source from each of these research categories:
- Sources: Fast Company, Inc., Business Insider, Entrepreneur, Wired, WSJ, New York Times, TechCrunch, Campaign
- Influencers: Seth Godin, Malcomb Gladwell, Laura Fitton, Carol Cone, Al and Laura Reis, other CSR and sports marketing opinion leaders
- Crowdsource: Quora, LinkedIn, Klout
CMO #2 - COB: The Entrepreneurial Edge of Fortune Brands
INSTRUCTIONS: Critique how a mature Fortune corporation that is headquartered in New England has adopted entrepreneurial business and marketing practices, what they are hoping to accomplish, and how doing so has repositioned their brand in today's innovation economy. Applying Lodish et al's premise that "entrepreneurial marketing can add sustainable value to any sized company," as the CMO, you are evaluating how they're doing. Your submission must answer all of the questions within each section for full point credits. Be careful not to use valuable space by restating the question; just declaratively present your answers, footnoting references as confirm your required use of primary and secondary research (Blackboard: Library Resources, plus list below).
Follow these content guidelines carefully, matching each Section's requirements to those shown in the Grading Chart.
1. Company Story: Introduce the corporation's product mix, target audiences, market position and competitive environment. Include the stock ticker, NAISC code and an analysis of its recent financial performance, noting any important product, market or organizational milestones that impacted those numbers. Briefly demonstrate your familiarity with its mission and the competitive and Federal regulatory environment within which it markets its business.
2. Internal Entrepreneurism: Name two (2) ways through which the corporation's executive leadership has set out to build and articulate an entrepreneurial or team culture. What is new, what is intended by these changes, and has there been any impact to the employee experience? Who evangelizes the brand personality and do you feelthat this executive inspires the workforce to feel empowered or to be inspired? As the CMO, what you do anything differently, if anything?
3. Business + Marketing Reengineering: Has the company restructured in order to be more streamlined or less hierarchical, changed its customer product direction, revamped customer-facing communications or improved its speed-to-market product R&D? Briefly bullet three (3) ways the company claims new agility to achieve sustainable growth. Perhaps it has a ‘hot' new division, R&D lab, partnership with a university, claims an innovation center, implements workforce development, embraced social media, made strategic acquisitions or has rebranded altogether. Be sure to include what is intended by these actions.
4. Employer Appeal: Comment on two (2) ways that this company's current story appeals to you as a prospective employee, or did not. Did anything you learned surprise or intrigue you? Consider in your analysis the corporate culture, diversity, company values, ability to innovate and the presence of a social impact commitment-any criterion important for them to hire you and for you to want to work there.
5. Customer Experience (UX): Name two (2) ways that the company had tried to redefine its customer experience in order to build and reward loyalty. Has it successfully reinvented its B2B/C product or service delivery, diversified into promising market sectors or otherwise changed the customer's experience? Does the company utilize a means of listening to customers?
6. BONUS Quote: Set up as one Q&A, report a direct interview of an executive from the company that you chose with a first-person quote. It should be the executive's response to an insightful question that explores any aspect of how the company has changed its marketing communication in an effort to convey new agility, inventiveness and relevance to customers or investors. It can also address how the company values bottom-up employee contributions. Be strategic: chose a company in which you have genuine interest (brand or category) for future internship or job prospecting! Include your source's contact info (name, title, email and LinkedIn). Please set the expectation that they could be contacted to verify your chat. Be sure to have connected with them on LinkedIn!
7. Research: Use at least one source from each of these research categories:
- Company Sources: Annual Report, website, social media, newsletters
- Direct: Employee executive reached through LinkedIn
- Online: Mergent, ProQuest Business Databases, Business Source Complete, Industry Report, US Census, Bureau of Labor Statistics
- News: Boston Business Journal, Providence Business News, Bloomberg, trade journals, regional or national business periodicals
CMO #3 - COB: ‘Power of Broke' Inspired
The final in the CMO essay trio draws upon the ideas put forth by successful entrepreneurial evangelist, ‘Shark' Daymond John. In response to specific questions, incorporate the lessons of this book and the author's 'SHARK Points.' You will also be asked for takeaway insights for your future professional pursuits. Concepts from the Lodish text as reinforce your thesis should also be referenced.
1. SHARK Points: Pick three (3) of the author/coach's favorite quotes as inspired or motivated this semester, or otherwise provided clarity about the rewarding life of an entrepreneurial marketer. Relate each to how they have informed your TVP project and/or your goals for this summer (internship or employment).
2. Defining Success: Daymond John reviews several journeys of start-up business owners, mostly those that became unstuck, dug in deep and improved their prospects. Pick one 'Power of Broke' business owner profile whose story you found particularly relevant, inspirational or cautionary. Offer a brief essay (2-3 paragraphs) that reviews this story as if the reader audience was meeting him/her for the first time. Make sure to update the story by doing additional research about the business. What did you learn from their story that you will take forward? What notable accomplishments or milestones have occurred since Daymond John profiled them as a case study in his book? This is a multi-part question.
3. Power of Broke Student Course: Daymond John has been expanding his media platform to further diversify his brand portfolio and grow revenue, to include the release of his latest book this past January. Go online to familiarize yourself with his media educational empire and many self-branded marketing products. He is far from alone: from Forbes to Inc. among many business gurus, media organizations use branded conferences and coursework as channels to court customers for paid education and consultation services. Do you feel there would be value in an online course or podcast created by Daymond John that is directed to college students? Why or why not? If you could have a published expert whose credentials as an early-stage business owner or respected influencer would benefit entrepreneurial marketing students, who would that be? Please write a 1-2 paragraph description of the course as you would design it as would share their unique experience. Include pricing of the product portfolio and what you and your friends would be willing to pay for as reported through a survey that you administer.
4. Gen Z v Millennials: Marketing successfully requires that you understand and can speak the language of your target customers and their influencers. Having 'street cred' was a key formula of Daymond John's earliest success. You are the CMO of an employer that is concerned about recruitment and retention of its workforce, looking into the pipeline of Gen Z and Millennial employees. Identify your generational group. Complete this chart for both demographics as will permit a comparison of the values, desires and filters that researchers have determined influence worker loyalty and consideration of an employer. Footnote your sources. Does this provide you with an accurate snapshot of you as an employee or manager? Will these insights in any way influence your job search (whether internship or permanent).
Trait + Value Gen Z Millennial
Collaboration
Job Stability
Work Ethic
Respect for Authority
Patience for Change
Leadership
Communication Style
5. Employer Communication: As a second part to Sec. 4 (above) and in your role as the employer's CMO, offer your counsel as to how an employer must engage these employees (from both demographics) in ways that will accomplish the best possible outcomes: technology fluency, curiosity, loyalty, evangelism and worth ethic.
6. BONUS: Nonprofit Marketing. Budgets are smallest when you are a donor-driven, not- for-profit organization. It's one of the reasons that nonprofits recruit experts to working committees and board service, when doing so will fortify specific skill sets (like marketing) and donor reach. Volunteerism for most students begins in high school in preparation for college applications. Using a nonprofit organization (can be a CBO, NGO or charity) with which you have personal familiarity, you are asked to introduce your chosen organization, include an overview of its purpose, its geographic and demographic profile and any recent changes, e.g., expansion, merger, rebranding. Applying the principles of our course books, recommend two (2) new marketing efforts that would benefit the organization in a meaningful way, indicating the estimated cost and labor resources to execute each, and the means by which you would measure the impact after a specific timeframe. This is a multi-part question.