Marketing That Moves People

Students revisit their recommendation for Great River Outfitters after hearing a debrief on personalized marketing, customer choice, data partnerships, transparency, loyalty programs, brand trust, and long-term relationship value. Students decide whether to keep, revise, or replace their original recommendation and identify what evidence leadership would need before expanding personalized marketin...

Students enter a simulated leadership discussion at Great River Outfitters, a regional outdoor retailer deciding how to use customer data for more personalized marketing. Students recommend how the company should balance relevant offers, customer choice, transparency, marketing effectiveness, and long-term trust. Recommended Placement Marketing Ethics, Customer Relationships, Data Use, and Trust T...

Students revisit their Fuel & Flavor digital-marketing recommendation after hearing a debrief on campaign objectives, influencer fit, geo-targeted promotion, retailer coordination, customer content, digital measurement, trial, and repeat purchase. Students decide whether to keep, revise, or replace their original recommendation and identify the evidence they would need before expanding the campaig...

Students enter a simulated digital-campaign planning discussion at Driftless Dairy Co. as the company expands its Fuel & Flavor snack line into additional regional stores. Students recommend how the company should use limited digital resources to create awareness, encourage trial, support retail partners, and measure meaningful results. Recommended Placement Digital Marketing, Social Media, and In...

Students revisit their Fuel & Flavor launch recommendation after hearing a debrief on product assortment, pricing, channel placement, retail execution, promotion, test-and-learn launches, and marketing control. Students decide whether to keep, revise, or replace their original recommendation and identify what additional evidence Driftless Dairy should collect before expanding the product. Recommen...

Students enter a simulated launch-planning discussion at Driftless Dairy Co. The company has selected busy working adults and commuters as the first target market for Fuel & Flavor, its refrigerated cheese-snack line. Students recommend how Driftless Dairy should coordinate product assortment, pricing, store placement, and promotion while balancing customer value, launch risk, and limited resource...

Students revisit their Fuel & Flavor target-market and positioning recommendation after hearing a debrief on segmentation, target-market evaluation, customer value, positioning statements, channel fit, repeat purchase behavior, and performance measurement. Students decide whether to keep, revise, or replace their original recommendation and identify the evidence they would need before Driftless Da...

Students enter a simulated leadership discussion at Driftless Dairy Co. after an initial test of its Fuel & Flavor refrigerated snack line. Students must decide whether the company should target busy working adults, college students, or premium regional-food shoppers—and how the product should be positioned to create a meaningful point of difference. Recommended Placement Segmentation, Targeting,...

Students revisit their recommendation for Driftless Dairy Co. after hearing a debrief on consumer research, retailer feedback, segmentation, concept testing, pricing research, and market testing. Students decide whether to keep, revise, or replace their original recommendation and identify the evidence they would need before expanding the Fuel & Flavor product line. Recommended Placement Marketing...

Students enter a simulated leadership discussion at a regional Wisconsin cheese-food manufacturer considering a new refrigerated snack line. They must recommend whether the company should move quickly using existing information, invest in consumer research first, or use a phased research-and-market-test strategy before launching the product. Recommended Placement Marketing Research, Customer Insig...

Marketing careers are broader than many students realize. In this upbeat bonus episode, Dr. Derek, Emily Carter, Marcus Reed, and Tom Kessler explore entry-level jobs and early career opportunities where business graduates can use marketing skills. The hosts discuss roles such as marketing assistant, social media coordinator, digital marketing assistant, customer experience associate, sales and ma...

Artificial intelligence is transforming marketing, but powerful tools require responsible judgment. In this final episode of Marketing That Moves People, Dr. Derek, Marcus Reed, and Priya Nair explore how AI supports content creation, customer insights, personalization, analytics, automation, customer service, and campaign strategy. The hosts also examine risks involving accuracy, privacy, bias, t...

Modern marketing depends on tools that help organizations manage customer relationships, communication, automation, analytics, and data. In this episode, Dr. Derek, Marcus Reed, and Priya Nair explore marketing technology platforms, CRM systems, email marketing tools, marketing automation, customer data, data integration, chatbots, and AI-supported marketing workflows. Listeners learn why technolo...

Digital marketing creates a lot of data, but not every number matters equally. In this episode, Dr. Derek, Marcus Reed, and Priya Nair explore digital marketing metrics, dashboards, KPIs, funnels, click-through rates, conversion rates, bounce rates, email metrics, social media metrics, and customer behavior. Using an online lunch order campaign as a running example, the hosts explain how marketers...

Marketing activity is not the same as marketing results. In this episode, Dr. Derek opens the final unit on marketing technology, analytics, and AI with Marcus Reed and Priya Nair. Together, they explore marketing analytics, performance metrics, vanity metrics, conversion rates, customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, marketing ROI, dashboards, attribution, and responsible data use. Li...

Digital marketing is not about chasing every platform—it is about reaching customers in the places where they already spend time. In this episode, Dr. Derek, Marcus Reed, and Tom Kessler explore social media marketing, content marketing, influencer marketing, e-commerce, online reviews, omnichannel experiences, and AI-generated content. Through examples from local business, digital campaigns, micr...

Marketing communication is not always one-way. In this episode, Dr. Derek, Marcus Reed, and Tom Kessler explore personal selling, direct marketing, and customer engagement. Listeners learn how personal selling helps customers through conversation, needs discovery, presentations, objection handling, closing, and follow-up. The episode also explains how email, text messaging, loyalty programs, and d...

Advertising, public relations, and sales promotion are three important tools in the promotion mix, but they each serve a different purpose. In this episode, Dr. Derek, Marcus Reed, and Tom Kessler explore how organizations use advertising to create paid visibility, public relations to build credibility and reputation, and sales promotion to encourage immediate action. Through examples from local b...

Marketing communication is more than posting ads or creating social media content. In this episode, Dr. Derek introduces Unit 7 with Marcus Reed, a digital marketing agency owner, and Tom Kessler, owner of Kessler County Market and Fuel. Together, they explore integrated marketing communications, the communication process, branding, promotion tools, message consistency, calls to action, campaign m...

Pricing decisions affect more than revenue—they affect customer trust. In this episode, Dr. Derek, Emily Carter, and Tom Kessler examine legal, ethical, and profitability considerations in pricing. Through examples involving hidden fees, drip pricing, price gouging, discounts, fuel pricing, AI-supported pricing, and competition from large chains, listeners learn why ethical pricing requires transp...

Why do prices often end in ninety-nine, and why do online prices sometimes change from one day to the next? In this episode, Dr. Derek, Emily Carter, and Tom Kessler explore psychological pricing, dynamic pricing, and digital pricing. Through examples from convenience stores, fuel prices, subscriptions, online shopping, rideshare apps, hotels, and digital platforms, listeners learn how pricing aff...

How do businesses decide what to charge? In this episode, Dr. Derek, Emily Carter, and Tom Kessler walk through the pricing decision process by examining pricing objectives, costs, customer demand, perceived value, competitor prices, and final strategy. Using examples from convenience stores, fuel pricing, breakfast sandwiches, digital markets, and customer experience, listeners learn why good pri...

What can the Coca-Cola versus Pepsi Challenge teach us about marketing? In this welcome episode of Marketing That Moves People, Dr. Derek and Emily Carter introduce students to the power of marketing through a blind cola taste test and the famous rivalry between Coke and Pepsi. The episode explores why Pepsi often performed well in blind taste tests, why Coca-Cola's brand power remained so strong,...

Price is one of the most visible marketing decisions, but it is much more than a number. In this episode, Dr. Derek, Emily Carter, and Tom Kessler introduce pricing strategy by exploring pricing objectives and common pricing methods. Through examples from convenience stores, fuel pricing, breakfast sandwiches, digital markets, and customer experience, listeners learn how price communicates value,...

This episode breaks down why most product launches never make it, from shopper inertia and status quo bias to the challenge of displacing the same 150 everyday items consumers already trust. It also examines two classic product flop traps: awkward middle-ground offerings and overly complex products that force customers to learn too much.