Professional Application

The Course Project: A Professional Application

Deliverable Length:  6 Body Pages  a cover page, an abstract page, and a reference page

A list of the 100 Best Global Brands each year is released each year. Click here for the 2014 list. Sort the list by "Country of Origin." Select a brand with the United States as the country of origin. This brand will become the competition for a fictional brand you create in a later unit, which will be used throughout this course. 

If your brand represents a large number of products or services, it will be necessary to select one major business or product line for the assignment. 

Part 1: Competitor Selection

Using articles from the library's full-text databases and the company's Web site, introduce the brand.

• Provide an analysis of its marketing mix (products, price, distribution, and promotion).  
• This section of the paper should be 1 page in length and use research from the library's full-text databases and the company's Web site. 

Part 2: Brand Background

Using a variety of sources, including the company's Web site, provide an overview of how the products or services are marketed, branded, and sold by the company. 

• Identify all brand elements (logos, slogans, symbols, trademarks, characters, and packaging)  
• Profile 2 direct or indirect competitive brands for points of parity and difference.  
• This section of the paper should be 2 pages in length and use research from a variety of sources including the company's Web site. 

Part 3: Primary Research

Perform primary buyer-behavior research about the brand. Develop a focus group (at least 5 people) or survey (of at least 10) that will elicit consumer perceptions of the target brand as compared to the 2 competitors from Part 2. 

• Describe the data collection process.  
• Include the survey or focus group questions (with appropriate respondent demographics).  
• Share the results in tabular format, and explain them.  
• Analyze the results, and apply them to the research completed in Parts 1 and 2 of this project.  
• This section of the paper should be 3–4 pages in length. 

Your assignment should contain a cover page, an abstract page, and a reference page, in addition to the body paragraphs. The body of the paper should be 6 pages in length, starting with a brief 1-paragraph introduction and ending with a short conclusion.