Strategies That Build Winning Brands

Create powerful brand strategies for long-term business growth and customer affinity.

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Course Dates

STARTS ON

June 26, 2024

Course Duration

DURATION

6 weeks, online
4-6 hours per week

Course Fee
Course Fee

For Your Team

Enroll your team and learn with your peers

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Competing on Price? Better Think Seriously About Differentiating Your Brand

In this hyper-connected world with so much noise and competition, branding and marketing have grown dramatically in influence and importance. Startups and mature businesses alike are seeking growth and long-term profitability—and it’s getting harder to come by amidst the clutter. Brands help people distill information, simplify choices, and make decisions.

Find growth and long-term profitability by offering a highly-differentiated product or service. If not, you’ll find yourself in a race to the bottom on price.

71%

of consumers switched brands at least once in the past 12 months, suggesting that "getting it right" is more important than ever.

Source: Salesforce

73%

of consumers want the ability to start on one channel and move to another without starting over, but only one-third of today's companies offer an omnichannel experience.

Source: Zendesk

68%

of consumers expect every interaction to be personalized.

Source: Zendesk

Key Takeaways

In this program, you will:

  • Learn to develop your brand's positioning, character, and purpose
  • Evaluate the health of your brand using different approaches
  • Make smart brand portfolio decisions and manage growth
  • Create a powerful marketing plan for a real-world scenario
  • Drive growth and defend against competitive attacks using a financial risk assessment

Who Is This Program For?

This program is for managers who are responsible for traditional branding initiatives. But it’s also geared towards any manager or executive who contributes to the organization’s growth initiatives. If you have a role in driving growth, whether through customer experience touchpoints, supply chain, distribution channels, or general management, you can benefit from learning about the critical role that brands play in driving profitable, long-term growth.

Representative roles include:

  • Brand managers and directors
  • Brand ambassadors such as customer experience managers
  • Branding agency executives and team
  • Founders/entrepreneurs
  • Marketing, communication, and creative leaders
  • Growth and strategy leaders, including consultants
  • General managers

Program Modules

In this highly interactive six-week online experience, you will learn by doing. Interactive and hands-on activities are part of every module, which will allow you to put branding concepts that you've learned into practice right away.

Module 1:

The Power and Challenge of Branding

Distinguish how a brand can help or hurt a product proposition, learn to strengthen brand touchpoints, and explore the importance of building customer advantage.

Module 2:

Defining Your Brand: Targeting, Positioning, Character, and Purpose

Assess the risks and benefits of designing hyper-targeted products and services, learn the rules for picking a target market, draft a positioning statement, and master segmentation.

Module 3:

Bringing Your Brand to Life: Brand Design and Touchpoints

Select the tools and technology to address your marketing challenge, create target personas, construct a meaningful customer journey with touchpoints, and compare purchase types.

Module 4:

Building a Strong Brand Portfolio

Learn best practices for brand portfolio management, compare launching a new brand vs. creating a brand extension, and determine the best strategy for introducing a new product.

Module 5:

Managing Your Brands

Measure and track the health of your brands, apply the Awareness/Liking/Market-Share model of brand tracking and create a powerful one-page marketing plan.

Module 6:

Brand Strategy: Growth and Defense

Construct a strategically designed brand or line extension, evaluate growth opportunities to broaden a brand or tighten its focus, and build a plan to combat competitive threats.

Module 1:

The Power and Challenge of Branding

Distinguish how a brand can help or hurt a product proposition, learn to strengthen brand touchpoints, and explore the importance of building customer advantage.

Module 4:

Building a Strong Brand Portfolio

Learn best practices for brand portfolio management, compare launching a new brand vs. creating a brand extension, and determine the best strategy for introducing a new product.

Module 2:

Defining Your Brand: Targeting, Positioning, Character, and Purpose

Assess the risks and benefits of designing hyper-targeted products and services, learn the rules for picking a target market, draft a positioning statement, and master segmentation.

Module 5:

Managing Your Brands

Measure and track the health of your brands, apply the Awareness/Liking/Market-Share model of brand tracking and create a powerful one-page marketing plan.

Module 3:

Bringing Your Brand to Life: Brand Design and Touchpoints

Select the tools and technology to address your marketing challenge, create target personas, construct a meaningful customer journey with touchpoints, and compare purchase types.

Module 6:

Brand Strategy: Growth and Defense

Construct a strategically designed brand or line extension, evaluate growth opportunities to broaden a brand or tighten its focus, and build a plan to combat competitive threats.

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Award-winning Program Faculty

Profile picture of course faculty Timothy Calkins

Timothy Calkins

Clinical Professor of Marketing, Kellogg School of Management

Tim Calkins helps people and organizations build strong brands. He is a marketing professor, author, speaker, and consultant. He teaches courses including Marketing Strategy and Biomedical Marketing, and is co-academic director of the Kellogg on Branding executive education program. More info

Profile picture of course faculty Julie Hennessy

Julie Hennessy

Clinical Professor of Marketing and Associate Chair of the Marketing Department

Professor Hennessy's MBA and Executive teaching focuses on the development of Marketing Strategies to enhance long-term competitive advantage and profitability. She works frequently with research and technology-driven firms that desire to become more customer-centric, in both new product/services and mature product/services categories. More info

Featured Guest Speakers

Profile picture of course faculty Gina Fong

Gina Fong

Adjunct Lecturer of Marketing at Kellogg School of Management and Principal at Fong Insight

Gina integrates creative problem solving, engaging storytelling, and analytical moderating to help her clients develop game-changing strategies for their business challenges. Gina brings the consumer to life within an organization, helping teams channel consumer insight to surprise and delight their audience across the entire consumer journey. In our program, Gina shares how to undertake and use ethnographic research to grow your brand.

Profile picture of course faculty Kevin McTigue

Kevin McTigue

Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing at Kellogg School of Management

Before his full-time academic appointment, Kevin led the Strategy and Consulting practice in the central region for global digital agency SapientRazorfish. From marketing strategies to digital transformation roadmaps to creation of entirely new businesses, he advised senior Fortune 500 clients on how to best leverage digital to create value. In our program, Kevin shares his insights on how companies use customer journeys to build powerful brands.

Profile picture of course faculty Eben Gillette

Eben Gillette

Vice President of Marketing at the Wine Group

As the Vice President of Marketing at the Wine Group, Eben manages a portfolio of wine brands that include Cupcake Vineyards, the #1 premium wine brand by volume for over five years, and claims the title as #1 exporter of California wine. In our program, Eben shares his insights for managing a portfolio of world-class brands.

Testimonials

“I enjoyed the strategic insight into how famous brands work. It was interesting to learn how brands used customer-centric marketing strategies to become what they are today.”

— Marcio Cabral, Creative Director, Marketing Communications, Oak Street Health

“The program met my objectives, which were to take key matters back to the workplace and leverage going forward, from the outset.”

— Pieter Steyn, Director, General Management, KPMG

“After 20 years on the job, I’m delighted with the amount of new knowledge I was able to gain from this branding course!”

— Jason Casto, Marketing Director, Central Garden Pet

“My personal favorite was understanding when to rebrand, extend, reposition or kill a brand. Very relevant to my current company and role.”

— Amy Chamberlain, Senior Marketing Manager, Marketing & Sales, Liberty Hardware Mfg. Company

Certificate

Certificate

Upon successful completion of the program, Kellogg Executive Education grants a verified digital certificate of completion to participants.This program is graded as a pass or fail; participants must receive 80% to pass and obtain the certificate of completion.

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After successful completion of the program, your verified digital certificate will be emailed to you in the name you used when registering for the program. All certificate images are for illustrative purposes only and may be subject to change at the discretion of Kellogg Executive Education.

Note: This online certificate program does not grant academic credit or a degree from Kellogg School of Management.

Past Participants Reviews

4.6

2 Star
1 Star
Bernard Jansen
Founder, Firejuice
April 2022
The content was of high quality. Would like an easier way to see if I have done all the assignments correctly. I'm a little concerned that there might be something outstanding.
jenny goddard
Art Director, self-employed
April 2022
It was like learning a great deal of content in a condensed time.
Luis Felipe Amaral
Early Investor/Board Member, Overclock Beverages
April 2022
The content was highly relevant and the quality of the material and professors was great. Could have been better if there were more case studies.
Laura Lindsay
CEO, EMKTG INC
April 2022
Great examples, easy to follow instructors, interesting, new and insightful info, helpful. I would like to take a deeper dive into analysis of tracking and defense strategies

FAQs

  • How do I know if this program is right for me?

    After reviewing the information on the program landing page, we recommend you submit the short form above to gain access to the program brochure, which includes more in-depth information. If you still have questions on whether this program is a good fit for you, please email learner.success@emeritus.org, and a dedicated program advisor will follow-up with you very shortly.


    Are there any prerequisites for this program?

    Some programs do have prerequisites, particularly the more technical ones. This information will be noted on the program landing page, as well as in the program brochure. If you are uncertain about program prerequisites and your capabilities, please email us at the ID mentioned above.


    Note that, unless otherwise stated on the program web page, all programs are taught in English and proficiency in English is required.


    What is the typical class profile?

    More than 50 percent of our participants are from outside the United States. Class profiles vary from one cohort to the next, but, generally, our online certificates draw a highly diverse audience in terms of professional experience, industry, and geography — leading to a very rich peer learning and networking experience.


    What other dates will this program be offered in the future?

    Check back to this program web page or email us to inquire if future program dates or the timeline for future offerings have been confirmed yet.

  • How much time is required each week?

    Each program includes an estimated learner effort per week. This is referenced at the top of the program landing page under the Duration section, as well as in the program brochure, which you can obtain by submitting the short form at the top of this web page.


    How will my time be spent?

    We have designed this program to fit into your current working life as efficiently as possible. Time will be spent among a variety of activities including:



    • Engaging with recorded video lectures from faculty
    • Attending webinars and office hours, as per the specific program schedule
    • Reading or engaging with examples of core topics
    • Completing knowledge checks/quizzes and required activities
    • Engaging in moderated discussion groups with your peers
    • Completing your final project, if required

    The program is designed to be highly interactive while also allowing time for self-reflection and to demonstrate an understanding of the core topics through various active learning exercises. Please email us if you need further clarification on program activities.


    What is it like to learn online with the learning collaborator, Emeritus?

    More than 300,000 learners across 200 countries have chosen to advance their skills with Emeritus and its educational learning partners. In fact, 90 percent of the respondents of a recent survey across all our programs said that their learning outcomes were met or exceeded.

    All the contents of the course would be made available to students at the commencement of the course. However, to ensure the program delivers the desired learning outcomes the students may appoint Emeritus to manage the delivery of the program in a cohort-based manner the cost of which is already included in the overall course fee of the course.

    A dedicated program support team is available 24/5 (Monday to Friday) to answer questions about the learning platform, technical issues, or anything else that may affect your learning experience.


    How do I interact with other program participants?

    Peer learning adds substantially to the overall learning experience and is an important part of the program. You can connect and communicate with other participants through our learning platform.

  • What are the requirements to earn the certificate?

    Each program includes an estimated learner effort per week, so you can gauge what will be required before you enroll. This is referenced at the top of the program landing page under the Duration section, as well as in the program brochure, which you can obtain by submitting the short form at the top of this web page. All programs are designed to fit into your working life.

    This program is scored as a pass or no-pass; participants must complete the required activities to pass and obtain the certificate of completion. Some programs include a final project submission or other assignments to obtain passing status. This information will be noted in the program brochure. Please email us if you need further clarification on any specific program requirements.


    What type of certificate will I receive?

    Upon successful completion of the program, you will receive a smart digital certificate. The smart digital certificate can be shared with friends, family, schools, or potential employers. You can use it on your cover letter, resume, and/or display it on your LinkedIn profile.
    The digital certificate will be sent approximately two weeks after the program, once grading is complete.


    Can I get the hard copy of the certificate?

    No, only verified digital certificates will be issued upon successful completion. This allows you to share your credentials on social platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.


    Do I receive alumni status after completing this program?

    No, there is no alumni status granted for this program. In some cases, there are credits that count toward a higher level of certification. This information will be clearly noted in the program brochure.


    How long will I have access to the learning materials?

    You will have access to the online learning platform and all the videos and program materials for 12 months following the program start date. Access to the learning platform is restricted to registered participants per the terms of agreement.

  • What equipment or technical requirements are there for this program?

    Participants will need the latest version of their preferred browser to access the learning platform. In addition, Microsoft Office and a PDF viewer are required to access documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDF files, and transcripts.


    Do I need to be online to access the program content?

    Yes, the learning platform is accessed via the internet, and video content is not available for download. However, you can download files of video transcripts, assignment templates, readings, etc. For maximum flexibility, you can access program content from a desktop, laptop, tablet, or mobile device.

    Video lectures must be streamed via the internet, and any livestream webinars and office hours will require an internet connection. However, these sessions are always recorded, so you may view them later.

  • Can I still register if the registration deadline has passed?

    Yes, you can register up until seven days past the published start date of the program without missing any of the core program material or learnings.


    What is the program fee, and what forms of payment do you accept?

    The program fee is noted at the top of this program web page and usually referenced in the program brochure as well.

    • Flexible payment options are available (see details below as well as at the top of this program web page next to FEE).
    • Tuition assistance is available for participants who qualify. Please email learner.success@emeritus.org.

    What if I don’t have a credit card? Is there another method of payment accepted?

    Yes, you can do the bank remittance in the program currency via wire transfer or debit card. Please contact your program advisor, or email us for details.


    I was not able to use the discount code provided. Can you help?

    Yes! Please email us with the details of the program you are interested in, and we will assist you.


    How can I obtain an invoice for payment?

    Please email us your invoicing requirements and the specific program you’re interested in enrolling in.


    Is there an option to make flexible payments for this program?

    Yes, the flexible payment option allows a participant to pay the program fee in installments. This option is made available on the payment page and should be selected before submitting the payment.


    How can I obtain a W9 form?

    Please connect with us via email for assistance.


    Who will be collecting the payment for the program?

    Emeritus collects all program payments, provides learner enrollment and program support, and manages learning platform services.

  • What is the program refund and deferral policy?

    For the program refund and deferral policy, please click the link here.

Financing Options

Climb Credit*

We offer financing options with our partner, Climb Credit*. Click here to learn more.
*Applicable for US Residents

Flexible Payment Options For All

Flexible payment options allow you to pay the program fee in installments. Click here to see payment schedule.

Didn't find what you were looking for? Write to us at learner.success@emeritus.org or Schedule a call with one of our Academic Advisors or call us at +1 315 502 3308 (US) / +44 128 291 1923 (UK) / +65 3129 4131 (SG)

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Early registrations are encouraged. Seats fill up quickly!

Flexible payment options available. Learn more.