This assessment will be held during week 6. It will assess the course concepts, tools and frameworks which we have covered in class and in the additional readings up to session/week 5 of the course. More specific details of this assessment item will be provided on ilearn and during the first session of the class.

Teams will give presentations of 7 minutes, highlighting (in no more than 10 Powerpoint slides) the key points from the Team Marketing Plan. This will be followed by a short question and answer period. Make sure to have a coherent storyline, support your arguments with data and visualise your insights. If needed, seek guidance on effective presentations. Student teams will be marked according to the Team Presentation Marking Guide, which is available via the iLearn website for this Unit. The presentation is scheduled well before the submission date of the final report, in order to receive valuable feedback, iterate and implement changes.

The project requires the production of a marketing plan for a market offering, either existing or planned. The plan should have a 12 month focus.

Preparing the Team Marketing Plan

Throughout this course, you will be assigned Team Exercises. These exercises are designed to lead you through some of the key preparatory work for completing your Team Marketing Plan.

For the final plan, you will draw on your output from the Team Exercises; however, you will also need to include additional components. The content of the Plan is representative of strategic marketing plans prepared commercially by internal marketing departments and consultants. As such, this is an excellent opportunity for you to participate in the construction of what is likely to be a business critical document in your corporate life now, or in the future.

Suggested Content

Your team marketing plan should include the content you would expect to see in a standard strategic marketing plan, with some additional inclusions that specifically relate to the learning objectives of this course. For a comprehensive overview of suggested content, see Team Marketing Plan – Suggested Content and Marking Guide (MGSM iLearn; Additional Resources Category)

The report can focus on a good, a service, a not for profit enterprise or a cause. If the product exists, your plan should revolve around re-launching or a significant re- positioning. In other words a “business as usual” plan is not suitable. In an introductory note to the plan, you should clarify the status of the product or service such as whether it is an existing product, a fictional company etc. and indicate clearly your point of departures for the status quo.

The project will involve a series of stages including:

• Defining users, customers and key stakeholders
• Defining the market offering and Value Proposition
• Carrying out background research/investigation
• Evaluating market potential
• Segmenting and selecting target markets
• Determining appropriate positioning
• Developing a launch plan, which includes both overall launch strategy and action plans
• Making market projections and financial estimates of likely sales, market share, costs and return on investment

Format

Report (4,000 word limit, not including appendices and references) + Pitch deck

In the document, you should pay close attention to acknowledging all sources of data, especially existing internal company documents, plans, market research studies etc. In particular, you should cite any references fully and in an acceptable style as noted in the Student Handbook.

The document should be presented in a professional manner, in line with what would be presented by consultants to a management board. Specifically, it is vital that your document is easy to read. As such you must use at least 11 point font and 1.5 spacing with 2.5cm margins. The report should also include your presentation slide deck.

The word limit is absolute. Assignments which are longer than the prescribed limit will be penalised.

Interim Team  Presentation

You will be required to present your key insights, objectives and key recommendations in sessions 7 or 8. 

Submission

The designated group member should submit an electronic copy into iLearn by the due date/time: 

• Team Marketing Plan
• Completed Group Assignment Cover Sheet
• Meeting minutes

The softcopy may be submitted to automatic plagiarism detection software (Turnitin).

Instructions on how to submit will be available in iLearn.

Team Marketing Plan: Meeting minutes x 5 submissions – (5%)

You are expected to meet regularly to develop your marketing plan. This may be online and/or face to face. Ensure your team submits 5 x minutes of meetings attached as an appendix to the back of your project showing evidence of your progress. Please make these meetings regular throughout the term demonstrating that your team has met regularly to progress the plan.

Peer Evaluation

In allocating individual marks for the Marketing Plan, the team mark may be adjusted up or down on the basis of peer evaluations of individual contributions. The peer evaluation form is available in MGSM iLearn. Please download from the Peer evaluation section in iLearn and save completed form as: Team #_Your Name.doc, and submit an electronic copy into iLearn by the due date/time.

You will not receive your final grade if you do not submit this form. All fields including student name, student ID and team number must be on the form or else it will not be accepted.

Instructions on how to submit will be available in iLearn.

Late assignments

Late assignments will be penalised up to 10% per day unless you have successfully applied for special consideration. Applications for extensions must be made before the submission date, and will only be granted in exceptional circumstances.

Further information about the marketing plan, including guidelines and marking guide, will be provided online. No pre-submission assignment marking

Assessment of Individual performance will be based on the Group member contribution statement / Peer Evaluation + meeting minutes (are defined as a subset of marketing plan submission instructions) will be evaluated.

You/your group is expected to submit your Team Marketing Plan in its final, completed form by the due date. Lecturers will not mark or assess any draft plans prior to actual submission of the final version.

Duration: 3 hours plus 10 minutes reading time (OPEN book)

Further exam details will be provided in class.