The objective of this course is to introduce students to the marketing of financial services. All financial institutions, including consumer banks and corporate finance services, practice some form of marketing. Some firms market themselves better than others, as evidenced in the competitive value of their brands.

This course will demonstrate to students the benefits of using an analytical approach to marketing in the financial services industry, and will show students how to undertake that analysis. An analytical approach helps firms to  (1) identify marketing options, (2) calibrate the opportunity costs associated with each option, and (3) choose the best option to achieve the firm’s business goals.

This course operationalizes several marketing concepts such as segmentation, targeting, and positioning. By the end of this course, students will know how to segment customers, what kind of data are required to do so, what are the different ways to segment, which customers to target, how to determine the best positioning of your brand in customers’ minds, how to develop new products/services that add value to consumers and firms, how to price financial products,  how to efficiently manage multiple brands across multiple segments in order to meet corporate bottom-line goals, how to develop a brand, how to migrate a brand when brands are acquired or merged, and how to co-brand financial services.

This course operationalizes several marketing concepts such as segmentation, targeting, and positioning. By the end of this course, students will know

• how to segment customers,
• what kind of data are required to do so,
•  what are the different ways to segment,
•  which customers to target,
• how to determine the best positioning of your brand in customers’ minds,
•  how to develop new products/services that add value to consumers and firms,
• how to price financial products,  and
• how to efficiently manage multiple brands across multiple customer segments in order to meet corporate bottom-line goals, and
• how to develop a brand, migrate a brand when brands are acquired or merged, how to co-brand services.

The pedagogic philosophy in this course is that of learning by doing. Therefore, students will go beyond learning conceptual marketing material to learning how to do segmentation, targeting, positioning, using real and simulated data from the financial services industry.

Assessment will consist of written assignments (50%), examination (30%), and tutorial participation and presentations (20%).

3 hours of seminars over 13 weeks

For further information please refer to the Course Website