Orthodox and Critical Perspectives in Marketing A

PART I.   THE EVOLVING MEANING OF CUSTOMER CENTRICITY 

• Paradigm: Marketing science versus cultural marketing
• Customer centricity: Needs versus desires and dreams
• Modelling customer centricity: Funnel versus customer journey
• Value: Customer lifetime value versus customer roles
• Kick off the project and tutorship
• Guest speaker #1

PART II.  ANALYTICAL MARKETING 

• Consumer trends: Following the market
• Consumer insights: Anticipating the market
• Tutorship 

PART III.  STRATEGIC MARKETING 

• Segmentation and targeting: Segmentation versus fragmentation
• Positioning: Deliberate versus perceptual positioning
• Tutorship

PART IV. ACTIVATION (OPERATIONAL MARKETING)

• Product: Product innovation & strategy versus cultural innovation
• Go-to-market: Channel & retailing versus customer experience
• Communication: Integrated marketing communication versus transmedia content management
• Price: Pricing versus Producer resistance & social justice

The Course first lays grounding marketing concepts, to then discuss and extend them, considering alternative marketing traditions (cultural, interpretive, critical) and raising societal concerns (materialism, post-colonialism, sustainability, etc.). 

In so doing, the Course revisits the idea of marketing-as-science, criticising its normative and merely profit-oriented perspective. It also locates marketing much further than the economic sphere, acknowledging its socio-cultural, political, and environmental implications.

The two labels “orthodox” and “critical” are thus used to constantly refer to “dominant” (capitalistic, Western, positivistic) and “alternative” views and practices in marketing, which percolate through both academic research and business. Each professor embodies one of the two perspectives, making the Course dialogical by foundation. 

• Good health and well-being
• Responsible consumption and production

In presence

Classes will provide rich opportunity for critical discussion, analysis of examples and real-life cases. 
Students are invited to actively participate. An in-company project will accompany students along the semester.

Students are requested to attend at least 60% of the in-presence classes to validate the course. In case of personal impediments, students are expected to reach out to professors to discuss with them the best way to proceed.

• Assessment is based on both an individual written exam (50% of the final grade) and group assignments (50%). During the exam, the use of notes, books, the Internet, generative AI, and any other type of document is not permitted. The exam will be held on your laptop (in Safe Exam Browser mode) or on a university PC at the student's request.To validate the course and average the project grade, each student must achieve a grade of 5 out of 10 or higher on the written individual examination. Detailed evaluation criteria are set at the beginning of the course.
   
• Concerning the project, (generative) artificial intelligence tools may be used provided that: (1) the authors indicate its use (which parts, with which prompts, etc.); (2) the authors use the content critically, verifying its reliability; (3) the authors take responsibility for the product as stated in the report; (4) the use of AI is limited to parts of the work (therefore, reports entirely delegated to AI are prohibited). Failure to declare the use of AI and how it is used is considered plagiarism and is subject to measures and sanctions, as per USI regulations and code of ethics.
   
• For projects, peer evaluation will be granted upon request.