The second module for my University of Adelaide MBA programme will be Marketing Management. I was deciding between Managerial Finance (which comes directly after my Accounting module) and Marketing Management (which is more relevant to my work). Finally I decided on the latter as I hope to use whatever I can learn from marketing to my work as soon as possible and also to take a break from all the financial jargons.
Coincidentally, one of my good friend, William also enrolled for the module. We matriculated at the same time during Term 2 of 2010. The lecturer for the course is Dr Cullen Habel from the University of Adelaide.
He is a great lecturer-cum-facilitator who goes through with us many of the case studies. Below is Dr Cullen leading us through one of the marketing session.
Some case studies include Procter & Gamble approach towards introducing new products, CRM@Tesco for market segmentation, Singapore Airlines' Singapore Girl branding, David Beckham as a brand and Nivea product line extension.
Social Media on Marketing
The impact of social media on marketing has been touched on very early in the course. This shows the University of Adelaide MBA programme has been kept abreast with the latest happenings on the technological developments these few years. Social medias include Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and online Forums, and a case study of how Dell bad customer service in 2005 resulted in an Internal Inferno (Hart, C and Blackshaw).
Dr Cullen also touched on Personal Marketing and this aspect of which interest me. I maybe creating a personal professional profile on the internet soon as part of the discussions on personal marketing.
Group Project
Our group project is to analyze Kraft's name change of Vegemite to iSnack 2.0. Dr Cullen let us have a bite into Vegemite during our very first lesson. It can be found in certain supermarkets in Singapore. It taste a bit like Marmite. But it's extremely salty and it's much thicker (guess Singaporeans are not used to this taste).
I really enjoy working with everyone in the group. We met 3 times in all (first time in Raffles Place MRT TCC, second and third time in Adelaide's discussion room). There are lots of topics we can talk about besides studies. The synergy between all of us just flows through naturally and William is our leader.
The group photo is below. From left we have Raymond, me, Shu Ping and William. After our exams, we went down to Graces Court Hotel Vegetarian restaurant for lunch. We always chat for hours. It's really so much fun working with everyone. Really hope to be able to work together on it again.
Wine Research
Dr Cullen is an expert in wine research. I have also done a bit on reading and research into wine due to my involvement with the Wine Hub below. The other reason why I choose the Marketing Management module is to see whether I can link up between Dr Cullen's research expertise with the Wine Hub Exchange. Finally managed to make that happen on the 5th August (Thursday). Truth to tell, I abstain from alcohol whenever possible due to personal reasons. As such, I am unable to participate in wine research. It's great that they are able to meet one another. Really enjoy the positive energy from this exchange. The link to Dr Cullen’s blog entry is here.
Gruen Transfer
Dr Cullen showed several videos of the Gruen Transfer in class. I enjoy it greatly cos it's extremely humorous! From what I understand, Gruen Transfer originally is about consumers walking into a shopping mall and be dazzle by all the sights and sounds in a mall setting. They may have plans initially to just buy a few stuffs, but they will eventually be distracted into buying more.
The Gruen Transfer series is broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Australia. It is all about advertising and marketing. Not only it is funny, i has a great bit of educational value, definitely a must-watch for advertisers and marketers. You can search on YouTube on the videos.
