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Marketing strategy, part of the marketing planning process, flows directly from a company's goals and helps define how the marketing organization will help the firm achieve its objectives. Marketing strategy is guided by the goals and objectives of the organization, the business unit, or the particular product or service for which the plan is developed. The choice of which marketing strategy (or strategies) to pursue then guides the marketing mix decisions, which, taken together, become the value proposition offered to the target market segment(s). Marketing strategy involves four steps, and this note addresses the first three.

Although not all MBA students end up working in a marketing function and/or on a brand per se, all students will develop a professional brand, whether it is proactively built or created through happenstance. This exercise helps guide students through a process to think strategically about how to develop their professional brand at work. It is used in conjunction with a technical note that details how to build brands using a tool called the Brand Essence Statement. In this exercise, students are asked to use the tool to create their own Brand Essence Statement, focused primarily on the brand image that the students wish to achieve as a full-time employee. This exercise is appropriate in a general marketing, brand management, or strategic marketing course at the undergraduate or graduate levels during a module focused on branding. It should be used in conjunction with the technical tool and a discussion on Brand Essence Statements.

Although not all MBA students end up working in a marketing function and/or on a brand per se, all students will develop a professional brand, whether it is proactively built or created through happenstance. This exercise helps guide students through a process to think strategically about how to develop their professional brand in an internship setting. It is used in conjunction with a technical note that details how to build brands using a tool called the Brand Essence Statement. In this exercise, students are asked to use the tool to create their own Brand Essence Statement, focused primarily on the brand image that the students wish to achieve during the internship period. This exercise is appropriate in a general marketing, brand management, or strategic marketing course at the undergraduate or graduate levels during a module focused on branding. It should be used in conjunction with the technical tool and a discussion on Brand Essence Statements.

This document is one of three available case-based simulations used as the basis for a multisession course on design thinking. The course emphasizes deep user understanding, iteration, and a focus on the possibilities as a way to enhance value creation for stakeholders. Please refer to the course teaching guide to view the additional essential pedagogical tools available to the course instructor-including several hours of video content and a set of posters that summarize ethnographic interview findings for each simulation scenario. In this case, the CEO of Great Lakes (GL), a Fortune 200 company and one of the world's largest dairy cooperatives, reflects on the challenges and opportunities the company faces as it considers how to tap into a bigger slice of the lucrative market for snack foods for Millennials, an area GL's research had identified as a promising first target. Students play the role of members of a handpicked innovation team chartered to explore and develop profitable revenue growth opportunities.

This case is used in Darden's "Digital Marketing" course elective. It explores the experience of a niche search firm whose founder attributed her ability to open her recruiting firm to LinkedIn and the new model of recruiting it created. LinkedIn Corporation had been one of the most successful companies in the digital media space, with more than 4,000 employees and a market capitalization of over $25.5 billion in August 2013. But few people knew how LinkedIn had grown and how it had become profitable. LinkedIn had multiple unique aspects to explore: its focus on professional--not simply personal--social interaction, the company's B2B components, and also its marketing positioning from user experience to targeting and growth strategy.