Strategic Marketing Essentials

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Wharton Executive Education
Dates Location Tuition
- Strategic Marketing Essentials
Philadelphia
$9,250
- Strategic Marketing Essentials
Philadelphia
$9,250

This program was formerly called Essentials of Marketing

In this highly competitive business environment, marketing is everyone’s business. Strategic Marketing Essentials provides you with the core concepts and strategic perspectives found in most marketing MBA programs. In five intensive days, you will understand and apply the basic techniques of marketing, including segmenting and targeting customers, understanding the decision-making processes of your customers, using lifetime customer value in marketing planning, developing a unique brand, managing a product line, understanding distribution channels, and making effective advertising decisions.

You'll be actively engaged in learning and application by Wharton professors who teach the core marketing courses in Wharton's top-ranked MBA program. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, interactive lectures, case studies, and hands-on simulations, you'll gain a deeper understanding of your customers and the role marketing plays throughout the organization. In the evenings, small groups work together to get hands-on practice in applying theories and tactics discussed during the day.

Tuition for Philadelphia programs includes lodging and meals. Prices are subject to change. Program Consultants are available to provide more information on course specifics and discuss how this program might meet your needs. Please contact them by e-mail or by telephone at +1 215.898.1776. Plan your stay.


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Using both quantitative and qualitative methods in lectures, case studies, and hands-on exercises, you will gain a better understanding of your customers and the role of marketing throughout the organization. The program is taught by the professors who teach the core marketing courses in Wharton’s top-ranked MBA program. In the evening, small groups work together to gain hands-on practice in applying theories and tactics discussed during the day, such as evaluating new business opportunities, forecasting, measuring consumer preferences, and discussing methods for setting pricing.

Strategic Marketing Essentials Session Topics

  • Marketing math essentials
  • Managing customer experiences
  • Analyzing markets and customers
  • Understanding customer behavior
  • Using customer analysis to make business decisions
  • Pricing strategies
  • Product lifecycle strategies
  • Strategies for managing channel conflict
  • Allocating your marketing resources
  • Integrated marketing communications
  • Advertising decisions
  • New product launch and positioning

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Program Logistics

Program officially begins on Sunday and will conclude at noon on Friday. Hotel accommodations are provided Sunday through Thursday evenings.

This program will benefit executives across the organization (in engineering, R&D, operations, finance, product development, accounting, sales, public relations, and other areas). Managers who are assuming marketing responsibilities for the first time, as well as managers already in a marketing capacity but without significant formal education in this discipline, can gain valuable insights. Sending several members of a product development team can provide a common marketing language and understanding that greatly facilitate the development process.

Gain a clear, indepth understanding of core marketing concepts, and identify the essential elements of a strong marketing plan. In sessions such as Analyzing Markets and Customers, Product Lifecycle and Line Management, and Advertising Decisions, you will:

  • Develop a thorough understanding of customers and what motivates their behavior.
  • Understand the value of your brands and how to build and develop that value.
  • Learn to use quantitative analysis to make — and support — marketing decisions.

Jagmohan Raju, PhD JAGMOHAN S. RAJU, PhD
Faculty Director
Joseph J. Aresty Professor
Professor of Marketing
Chairman, Wharton Marketing Department
The Wharton School

Professor Raju is a leading authority on competitive strategy and pricing. His research interests include pricing, strategic alliances, new-product introduction strategy, retailing, private labels, and corporate advertising. He teaches marketing management to the MBAs, pricing strategy to the Executive MBA students, and mathematical models in marketing to the PhD students. He is the academic director of Wharton's Strategic Marketing Essentials, Competitive Marketing Strategy, and Pricing Strategies Executive Education programs and is the marketing editor of Management Science. He holds a PhD in business, an MS in operations research, and an MA in economics from Stanford University. He also has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and a BTech in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
undefined GEORGE S. DAY, PhD
Geoffrey T. Boisi Professor, Professor of Marketing
Co-Director, Mack Center for Technological Innovation
Director, Emerging Technologies Management Research Program
The Wharton School

George Day began as a market development engineer with a major plastics maker and has been deeply involved in management of new products since. For 10 years he was academic director of the product planning program at the GE company. His current areas of research are marketing, organic growth strategies, strategic planning, organizational change, and competitive strategies in global markets. Dr. Day is the author of 15 books in the areas of marketing and strategic management, his most recent being Strategy from the Outside In: How to Profit from Customer Value (with Christine Moorman). He has received all of the major awards in the field of marketing.
undefined STEPHEN J. HOCH, PhD
Laura and John J. Pomerantz Professor in Marketing
The Wharton School

Professor Hoch has researched and written extensively on retail strategy, consumer behavior, and the psychology of forecasting. His research areas include retail merchandising, assortment, pricing, and promotion strategy; decision support systems and the psychology of forecasting; and consumer behavior. Prior to teaching, he served as national sales and marketing manager for Disney Music. A prolific scholar, Professor Hoch serves as an Associate Editor for Management Science, the Journal of Consumer Research, and other leading journals. He is a past president of the Association for Consumer Research, and has won numerous academic awards. Professor Hoch also teaches in the Competitive Marketing Strategy and Pricing Strategies programs.
undefined WES HUTCHINSON, PhD
Stephen J. Heyman Professor
Professor of Marketing
The Wharton School

Wes Hutchinson’s current research projects include studies on consumer and managerial decision-making processes, modeling the sales impact of brand awareness, and the role of visual attention in point-of-purchase marketing activities. He has published articles in a wide variety of journals in business and psychology and is on the editorial review boards of the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Marketing Science. Dr. Hutchinson’s current teaching interests include marketing management, new-product development, global demographic trends, and graduate seminars in marketing research methods.
David Reibstein DAVID J. REIBSTEIN, PhD
William Stewart Woodside Professor
Professor of Marketing
The Wharton School

Professor Reibstein has conducted research into competitive marketing strategies, e-commerce resource allocation, promotion evaluation, product variety, brand equity, and market segmentation. He has authored numerous books, developed the ValueWar competitive simulation, and teaches marketing management and marketing research in the MBA program, where he has received numerous teaching awards, including national recognition for teaching among business school faculty in BusinessWeek and Fortune. He developed and coordinates several Wharton Executive Education programs such as Competitive Marketing Strategy and Wharton Marketing Metrics™: Linking Marketing to Financial Consequences. He helped found Bizrate.com, a leading infomediary that has surveyed more than three million Internet customers and was recently appointed to a new marketing task force for Major League Baseball called Major League Baseball in the 21st Century.
undefined PATRICIA WILLIAMS, PhD
Ira A. Lipman Associate Professor of Marketing
The Wharton School

Patti Williams is the Ira A. Lipman Associate Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School. She currently teaches courses on advertising/marketing communications to both undergraduates and MBA students at Wharton, and has also taught on Marketing and the Internet. She is the recipient of an Excellence in Teaching Award.

Her research interests include the role of emotions in persuasion and consumer decision making and automatic and effortful processes in consumer behavior. Her papers have appeared in the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Marketing Research, among others. She serves on the Editorial Review Boards for the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

Prior to joining the Wharton School in 2000, Dr. Williams was an assistant professor at the Stern School of Business at NYU. She received a BA in communications from Stanford University and an MBA and PhD in marketing from UCLA.

"This program has a unique blend of world-class faculty, an integrated curriculum, and in-class exercises that taught us how to apply key learnings. The evening exercise on break-even analysis was invaluable to me. It was great that each professor could relate to the others' presentations to continuously drive home the key learnings until the very final session."
— Mark Hayes, Project Manager, Aetna

"Without a doubt, the 'Essentials' program was most valuable. The quality of the information and faculty, coupled with the interaction with the other participants, exceeded every other program I have attended during my entire professional career."
— Keith Ensinger, Development Manager, Decorative Coatings & Adhesives

"My learning came not only from the professors and class material, but from a really diverse group of classmates from a wide range of industries — city government, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, health care, and retail. Also, the case material was stimulating and gave me a chance to challenge myself way beyond my own business experience."
— Kim Seaman, Marketing & Communications Coordinator, Seaman Corporation

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