In this final mini-project, you will continue your strategic exploration of your chosen company by writing in depth about how your company's values and positioning will fix your company as the best option in your customer's mind. You will consider how to enable effective branding and positioning with your customer through marketing planning, implementation, and control.

Remember - you are thinking like a marketing manager and practicing your business decision-making.

Think about the marketing manager role that you wrote about in the first project. How will you address the issues in the questions below and help your company compete and win in the marketplace?

The company I choose was Nike.

Assignment Instructions

1. Think about your company's brand in the marketplace. You read in Chapter 7 that a truly effective brand is one that captures the product offering in a way that answers a question in the customer's mind.
   1. Thinking about your chosen company - What questions does your brand answer? Why is your company's brand effective or ineffective?
   2. Choose one competition brand and compare it to your company. Where is the competition stronger? Where is your company stronger? Why would customers choose your brand instead of the competition? Or - why are customers choosing your competition instead of your company?
2. Think about how your company practices marketing ethics and social responsibility.
   1. Have you seen evidence of poor marketing ethics from your company? Does your company lie to customers in any way? If so, what can you do as a marketing manager to improve this?
   2. How do ethics operate at your company? Is there a clear message from management to front line employees about ethical practices at your company? Does your company have a Code of Conduct?
   3. Is your company involved in any kind of social responsibility effort? Perhaps your company donates money to a local sports team or organizes a food drive. If so, how does this social responsibility effort support the effectiveness of your company?
3. Explain your company's marketing strategy in three sentences or less. Use your own words.
4. What does marketing implementation look like at your company? How does the strategy get from the CEO or company president all the way to the front-line employee?
5. What kind of marketing controls are in effect at your company? Are there daily performance measurements or employee bonuses? How do these controls support the company strategy?
6. Who are your company's most highly profitable customers? What does your company do to retain those customers?
   1. Does your company do anything to give poor or lesser service quality to the less profitable customers? If so, how does that make you feel as a marketing manager?