Transformational Marketing (MKTG7806)

You will critically evaluate your organisation’s orientation to marketing (or another organisation you are familiar with) by examining the role of marketing within the organisation and its current marketing activities and practices. The aim is to assess how well marketing aligns with the organisation’s overall strategy and its effectiveness in achieving organisational goals. Based on this analysis, you will provide specific and practical recommendations for transforming the organisation’s marketing thinking and practice.

Your analysis should include the following components:

1. Organisational Overview (200-250 words)

• Briefly describe the organisation’s industry, key target market(s), and positioning.
• Summarise the role that marketing currently plays within the organisation

2. Evaluation of Organisational Orientation to Marketing (500-600 words)

• Role of Marketing within the Organisation
• Critically assess the extent to which marketing drives or supports organisational goals
• Evaluate whether marketing is positioned as a strategic and/or tactical function within the organisation
• Current Marketing Activities and Practices: 
• Identify key marketing activities and practices, such as market research, customer engagement, product positioning, and communication channels.
• Discuss the impact of marketing activities and practices on the organisation’s orientation to marketing

3. Recommendations for Transforming Marketing Thinking and Practice (400-500 words)

• Based on your evaluation, provide specific recommendations to improve or transform the organisation’s orientation to marketing.
• Suggestions may include:
• Shifting the positioning of marketing to a more strategic role within the organisation.
• Implementing customer-focused practices (e.g., enhanced customer research, targeted campaigns, or loyalty initiatives).
• Introducing tools or methods to improve customer insight, engagement, or satisfaction tracking.
• Explain how these changes would better align marketing with organisational goals, strengthen customer relationships, and enhance overall marketing effectiveness.

Assessment Requirements:

·     Length: 1,500 words

·     Sources: Draw on credible sources, including academic literature, industry reports, and case studies, to support your analysis and recommendations.

·     Evaluation Criteria: Your work will be assessed on the depth of critical evaluation, coherence of argument, use of evidence, and relevance and feasibility of recommendations.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Translation (MT) are emerging tools that may support students in completing this assessment task. Students may appropriately use AI and/or MT in completing this assessment task. Students must clearly reference any use of AI or MT in each instance.

You will be randomly allocated to a project team to create and present a marketing dashboard analysis for a specific organisation within a chosen market sector. The aim is to examine how the organisation uses marketing metrics to assess performance and to identify opportunities to enhance these metrics for better insight and alignment with organisational goals. The 10 minute presentation will be pitched to the CEO of the organisation, followed by 5 minutes Q&A.

In your presentation, you will evaluate the marketing metrics currently used by the organisation, explore how these metrics link to broader corporate performance metrics, and recommend additional or alternative marketing metrics that could provide greater insight or a more accurate measurement of marketing effectiveness.

Your presentation should include the following components:

1. Market Sector Overview

• Contextualise the Market Sector: Provide a brief overview of the chosen market sector, key characteristics, and competitive dynamics that influence marketing measurement practices.
• Organisational Background: Introduce the specific organisation within this sector, including a summary of its goals, positioning, and key competitive advantages or challenges.

2. Current Marketing Metrics Analysis

• Identify Key Marketing Metrics: Describe the primary marketing metrics the organisation currently uses. Metrics may include customer acquisition cost (CAC), customer lifetime value (CLV), brand awareness, engagement rates, conversion rates, etc.
• Evaluate Metric Effectiveness: Assess how these metrics help the organisation measure marketing outcomes and support its strategic objectives. Discuss any limitations or areas where the metrics may not fully capture marketing performance.

3. Linking Marketing Metrics to Corporate Performance

• Alignment with Corporate Metrics: Analyse how the identified marketing metrics relate to broader corporate performance metrics, such as revenue growth, profitability, or market share. Explain whether these links support strategic objectives and drive decision-making.
• Assessment of Alignment: Evaluate whether the current metrics provide sufficient alignment with corporate goals, and identify any gaps where marketing metrics may not fully support the company’s overall performance metrics.

4. Recommendations for Improved Marketing Metrics

• Identify Additional/Alternative Metrics: Based on your analysis, recommend additional or alternative marketing metrics that could provide more valuable insight or better alignment with corporate objectives. Examples might include net promoter score (NPS), return on marketing investment (ROMI), customer satisfaction, or engagement through specific channels.
• Justify Your Recommendations: Explain how each recommended metric would enhance the organisation’s ability to measure, understand, and improve its marketing effectiveness in a way that aligns with corporate performance goals.

Teams can self-organise in any way that works for them. It is recommended that the project team works as a cross-functional team with different members fulfilling different functions (e.g., background research, analytics, design, presenting results), and that only 1-2 team members actually present the results of the analysis with other team members handling the Q&A session. All team members must be present in-class or online for the presentation.

Group members are expected to contribute equally, fulfilling the tasks agreed on. If there are disagreements in relation to team members' contributions that cannot be resolved, students must bring the problem to the attention of their Course Coordinator as early as possible. Students can elect to undertake a Peer Review process, which can influence the marks of those who do not contribute to group work.

Please Note: The presentation will be recorded for marking purposes per UQ Policy. 

Assessment Requirements:

·     Presentation Length: 10 minutes with 5 minute Q&A

·     Visuals: Prepare a clear, visually engaging marketing dashboard that displays key metrics, links to corporate performance, and proposed new metrics.

·     References: Use credible sources, including academic literature and industry reports, to support your analysis and recommendations.

·     Evaluation Criteria: Your presentation will be assessed on clarity of analysis, depth of insight, relevance of recommendations, and effectiveness of your visual dashboard.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Translation (MT) are emerging tools that may support students in completing this assessment task. Students may appropriately use AI and/or MT in completing this assessment task. Students must clearly reference any use of AI or MT in each instance.

You will develop a marketing strategy and implementation plan aimed at driving cost savings and improving marketing effectiveness through the use of generative AI. You will choose a recent marketing initiative undertaken by your organisation (or an organisation you are familiar with), recreate this initiative using generative AI tools, and critically evaluate the suitability of this AI-driven approach for your organisation’s operating context.

Using concepts and insights from the course, your analysis should focus on how generative AI could enhance the marketing initiative, identifying cost-saving opportunities, improvements in marketing effectiveness, and potential limitations. Your findings will form the basis of a strategy and implementation plan that aligns with organisational goals. Before presenting to the board, you will need to prepare a plan for presenting the strategy to the CEO to gain initial consensus and support.

Assessment Guidelines:

Your assessment should include the following components:

1. Overview of the Recent Marketing Initiative (150-200 words)

• Describe the Original Initiative: Provide a brief description of the marketing initiative you’re recreating, including its goals, target audience, key messages, and channels used.
• Current Outcomes and Limitations: Summarise any outcomes or limitations of the original initiative, focusing on areas where cost savings or improved effectiveness could benefit the organisation.

2. Marketing Strategy and Generative AI Implementation Plan (700-900 words)

Objective: Define the main objectives of using generative AI for this initiative, such as reducing costs, improving message personalization, or increasing content creation speed.

• Generative AI Tools Selection: Describe the generative AI tools and models you selected (e.g., for content creation, audience segmentation, ad targeting) and justify your choices based on the needs of the initiative.
• Recreation of the Marketing Initiative Using AI: Recreate the marketing content or campaign using generative AI. Provide specific examples of AI-generated content, such as text, images, or customer engagement elements, as relevant. Explain your process of creating and generating prompts and decisions made.
• Cost-Saving and Effectiveness Opportunities: Identify how using generative AI can drive cost savings or improve effectiveness. For instance, note if the AI-generated content reduces production time, offers customization at scale, or enhances audience engagement.

3. Critical Evaluation of AI-Generated Results (500-600 words)

• Analysis of AI Outputs Using Course Concepts: Apply key marketing course concepts (e.g., customer segmentation, message personalization, ROI analysis) to critique the AI-generated content. Assess the AI’s effectiveness in meeting customer needs and alignment with brand voice.
• Suitability for Organisational Context: Evaluate whether the AI-generated content and approach align with your organisation’s operating context, brand standards, and target audience. Highlight any challenges or limitations, such as concerns about brand voice consistency or ethical considerations in content generation.
• Recommendations for Refinement: Suggest adjustments to improve the fit of generative AI outputs for your organisation. Consider any additional controls, reviews, or modifications to ensure AI-driven content aligns with strategic goals.

4. Strategy for CEO Engagement and Board Approval (200-300 words)

• Value proposition: develop an initial value proposition for the CEO and Board positioning the AI-driven strategy, implementation plan and key benefits (e.g., cost savings, improved marketing effectiveness).
• CEO engagement: Outline how you plan to gain the CEO’s interest and support, such as by discussing alignment with organisational goals, demonstrating expected ROI, and addressing any potential risks or challenges .
• Next Steps for Board Presentation: Outline your approach for presenting the strategy to the board, emphasising key metrics and anticipated outcomes.

5. Video Pitch to CEO Engagement (5 minute video)

• Create a 5 minute video recording of your pitch to the CEO

Appendix One

• First and final drafts on AI generated outputs

Assessment Requirements:

·     Length: 2,000 words + 5 minute video pitch

·     Sources: Reference relevant academic literature, industry sources on generative AI in marketing, and marketing course concepts to support your analysis and recommendations.

·     Evaluation Criteria: Your assessment will be evaluated based on the quality of your strategy and implementation plan, depth of analysis, application of course concepts, practicality of recommendations, and clarity of presentation.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Translation (MT) are emerging tools that may support students in completing this assessment task. Students may appropriately use AI and/or MT in completing this assessment task. Students must clearly reference any use of AI or MT in each instance.