MKT 533 - Branding Strategy

Super easy work and generous grades, you are tied to one brand for the semester, doing several assignments on the same. Who is this class for? Useful for those interested in Marketing, Advertising, Branding and those that like a fully-online easy class. Final Thoughts:

This class is a joke. Could've passed in 3rd grade. Professor repeats things 1000000 times and brags about his accomplishments. Every guest speaker is his employee. Easy and online but it's not a graduate level class and myself and the handful of friends I have in the class all think it's useless. Worst class I've taken at Marshall but you can sleep through it if that's what your schedule demands.

The class is pretty chill, but you still learn enough about branding. Quizzes are not difficult, and there is no exam. There is no group project, and you only have individual project, which helps you think as a brand manager.

Great guest speakers, interesting topics, relaxed online class environment, assignmets and quizzes are very fair, no midterm only final project, all work is individual and power point based

Professor is an expert in the Brand Strategy domain which reflects from his classes. He brings great speakers who talk about complex business cases solved through the lens of brand strategy.

Love the class and the professor! Not stressful, kinda chill, but if you want to learn new things, you will.

Structure of the coure was reduntant, but interesting readings and guest speakers.

It is an really well-organized online class for 3 hours and the professor is really chill, interactive, and responsive (he encourages you to have your pet or eat in front of the camera if that is how you feel comfortable and efficient to learn). There are several quizs that are super easy, and about 5 deliverables presentation (each about 5 slides) to conduct a brand analysis.

Because it is a 1.5 unit course, it is a bit of a whirlwind and the professor has to breeze through the material; as a result don't think I learned much about how to think about developing a branding strategy. Addiitonally, as has been mentioned, it is alot of work for a 1.5 unit course, and oddly the material is still taught in a more theoretical fashion vs. what you would actually do in the real world. The guest speakers are a bit uneven as well.

For a 1.5 credit course, this class was a lot of work. There were multiple readings and assignments for almost every class. The final deliverable was a long 40-50 page document that included portions that were not taught in class.

Professor Badame is very enthusiastic about the class and materials. The readings were interesting and pretty current, however there was too much reading and other assignments for a 1.5 credit class. She brought in guest speakers from impressive companies as well.

Readings were great, but Badame is sometimes hard to follow; her enthusiasm is unparalleled, but she assigns lots of reading and is a hard grader. She assigns too much work for a 1.5 unit class.

really interesting, dynamic teacher and lectures (despite the professor's large-ego personality, which can get egregious at times; he literally references himself in the 3rd person).

Professor has a lot of energy and is engaging. As others have mentioned, professor sometimes wastes a lot of time (for example, he spent almost an hour one night assigning everyone a brand to work on for our projects when this could have been done over email). Also, assignments are time consuming and are graded harshly compared to the effort/amount of time put in. Assignment instructions are very vague and professor doesn't provide individual feedback so it's hard to know how to improve your grade. I learned a lot in the first few classes but now it is starting to get repetitive, and as others stated there is a lot of self-promoting which gets old quickly.

The professor is engaging but better for executives. The class session is too long. It is mainly targeting people in brand management and marketing. There are too many sessions focused on the professor's firm. There needs to be more videos and less talking. The assignments take too long to complete and grading is tough. There should be examples of how work should be completed. Guest speakers are great!

Too focused on agency creative. I think Strauss is over hyped so I would recommend managing your expectations. Would not recommend unless you are planning on working very, very closely with an agency or working for an agency. Overall, I don't think this is an MBA course.

I think Professor Strauss is very engaging and brings a very relevant perspetive on branding strategy, and if you're looking for a night class where you won't lose focus this is a great one. However, I do agree with other comments that sometimes class time does not feel like it's being used as productivcely as it could be. Also, when it comes to assignments, he has been vague and then pretty critical when it comes to our deliverables

At 3 hours, the class is way too long and repetitive, especially since Sasha doesn't use that time in the most constructive way. Most of the time he lectures at us and self-promotes. There's not very much in the way of discussion. I do think Sasha is an engaging presenter but I'm not feeling like I'm learning anything new or hearing a new perspective. Also, this class feels like its catered to PM students (which makes sense since it's a night class).