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The Best MBA Programs In MarketingPosted By Jeff Schmitt On March 3, 2015 @ 12:54 pm In MBA Rankings | 6 Comments

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Kellogg School of Management’s new global hub now under construction

“Marketing has changed.”

There’s an understatement. A decade ago, marketing and sales were divided like church andstate. And marketing departments themselves were often organized by function. Each area hadits own data – but never the whole picture of the customer.

As the digital revolution has accelerated, silos have become dangerous. Customers have grownmuch more powerful too, says Greg Carpenter, a professor of marketing strategy at NorthwesternUniversity’s Kellogg School of Management. They have access to unlimited info – and to eachother too.

BIG DATA AND GLOBALIZATION ARE TRANSFORMING MARKETING INTO A SCIENCE

And this has become a blessing and a curse. With countless touch points, marketers can collect,

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Greg Carpenter

segment, and connect more data – and react faster to market forces – than ever before. Butthese changes have also required marketers to change their philosophy (and operationalstructure).

“The traditional way to be organized around functions is too slow to respond to customers andtoo expensive, says Carpenter. “So organizations are taking a customer perspective and infusingit throughout the organization. So marketing has gone from being a core function to a corefunction plus that requires a general management perspective.”

And these shifts reflect the foundation of Kellogg’s MBA marketing program, which is the top-ranked program of its kind according to U.S. News & World Report. Carpenter says that Kellogghas responded to the challenge by designing its program to address the three biggest careerchallenges for prospective marketers.

First, Carpenter points out, marketing hasincreasingly become a global undertaking,which requires greater planning andawareness. Second, marketers are evolvingfrom functional experts to change drivers,who are also tasked with generalmanagement functions like profit-and-loss.Finally, the proliferation of data has turnedmarketing into a true science. “We can usethis data not only to understand customersand what they are doing but also to makepredictions,” Carpenter says. “It hastransformed the field from looking in therearview mirror to being more predictiveand analytical.”

UNDERSTANDING CUSTOMERS TO DEVELOP STRATEGY IS THE HEART OF THEPROGRAM

Kellogg applies a number of strategies to achieve this end. First, the school is continuouslyupdating its curriculum to integrate global markets, general management, and data science. Andthis applies to the entire Kellogg curriculum, not just marketing-related courses. A globalperspective is just one example. “We used to have courses that go into global marketing andglobal distribution,” says Eric Anderson, chair of Kellogg’s marketing department. “We’veeliminated those courses and infused global into our DNA. It’s now part of every course at

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Kellogg marketing professors Derek Rucker (left) and TimCalkins at last year’s Super Bowl Advertising Review

Kellogg.”

The data component is just one extension of Kellogg’s core tenet of gaining a deep understandingof consumers, says Anderson. “We develop unique insights through things like data analytics,and use that to drive marketing strategy. We train students to develop frameworks and ways ofthinking about markets so they can connect the dots between what’s happening betweenconsumers and business.” One example is Florian Zettelmeyer’s popular Customer Analyticscourse, which examines how data-derived insights are used to drive growth. “The combination ofstrategy and analytics,” Anderson claims, “will shape the leaders of tomorrow.”

Another course that reflects Kellogg’s integrative, real world approach is its Digital Marketing andeCommerce elective. Here, Kellogg has partnered with Google, IBM, and Target to develop anonline platform. Over five weeks, student teams build commercial-grade websites to sell realproducts to real shoppers. In fact, the teams even compete with each other. “We’re the onlyschool to do this,” Anderson points out. “Students take on functional roles like chief executive,merchandising, advertising, and placement. In a short time, they must turn around and make thesame tradeoffs that they’d make in the real world as they develop their business.”

And Kellogg’s customer-centricapproach is epitomized by itsAdvertising prerequisite. While thecourse examines various advertisingmediums, it does so with anunderlying purpose. “It is deeplyrooted in our academic research witha deep understanding of psychologyof consumers; and also grounded inhow you translate that into businessstrategy,” Anderson says. “It reallyhighlights our strengths and whatwe’ve really been good at fordecades.”

SELECTIVITY ANDRESPONSIVENESS DISTINGUISHKELLOGG

And some of the program’s biggest strengths lie in its selectivity, speed, size, and relevance.

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For starters, the school is very judicious in what it includes in its curriculum, says Anderson.“We’ve been very thoughtful in how we respond to marketplace change. If you talk to anycompany right now, they’d tell you that the pace of change in marketing is unlike any other areaof the company…And one risk here is that you can quickly start chasing shiny objects. If I toldyou today that we had a course on QR codes, you might chuckle. [As a result], we’ve tried to befairly strategic in how we organize the curriculum.”

But don’t mistake being selective for being slow at Kellogg. One way the school absorbs rapidchange into this program is through its “At the Forefront” series. Here, faculty launches coursesand seminars on late-breaking marketplace developments. In doing so, they produce newcontent and introduce it into the curriculum. “An example of that was social media,” saysAnderson. “If you look for a social media class at Kellogg, you won’t find it. That’s because it istalked about in all of the classes. It’s a different philosophy. We infuse topics like social mediainto our consumer insights and marketing strategy classes and into our core curriculum. Similarto global, it’s part of our DNA.”

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Eric Anderson

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Kellogg School of Management. Photo by John A. Byrne.

Kellogg’s size – bolstered by the size of Northwestern University as a whole – gives the marketingdepartment another big advantage. “Because we are large,” Anderson observes, “we’re allowedto do a deep dive, so we have a number of courses that allow you to specialize in Biotechmarketing or Media – whereas other programs don’t have that breadth.”

Finally, Kellogg has committed itself to experiential learning across its curriculum. In fact,students are often working alongside practitioners in many courses. Anderson cites the program’smarket research course as an example. “This course partners with companies and work side-by-side with them on projects. So as you learn about something, you are applying it immediately ona project with a company to understand how you can use that technique in practice.”

THE SECRETS BEHIND KELLOGG’S LONG-TERM SUCCESS

While Kellogg faculty and administrators may cringe at being labeled a “marketing school,” theprogram’s stellar reputation is well-deserved. In fact, U.S. News has ranked it among the topmarketing programs for nearly two decades. So what’s behind such consistency?

For starters, Kellogg has maintained a tradition of hiring faculty from a variety of disciplines.“We’ve now had faculty members here who’ve been everything from cultural anthropologists toneuroscientists,” says Carpenter. “For us, the best way to get insights into consumer behaviors isto bring in a large number of perspectives. It’s an intense focus on understanding customers anddoing it through a large number of lenses.”

Anderson also credits Kellogg’s success to itsunwavering commitment to fundamentals, namelya deep understanding of consumer behavior. “Thathas always been at the core of the Kelloggmarketing program,” he says. “What we’ve had toadapt to is how consumer behavior has becomemore complex in a world of digital marketing. Andthe total marketplace is more difficult to manage.What we’ve been good at is, as markets evolve,adapting our understanding of consumers andtranslating that into our curriculum.”

And that’s often driven by the faculty’s research prowess. “What you always see,” Anderson says,

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“is we infuse research into the classroom, along with an understanding of the consumer.” In fact,students benefit from the faculty stepping outside a business framework, Anderson observes.“You talk to Derek Rucker and he’s publishing papers in the world’s best psychology journals.Zettelmeyer is publishing papers on data analytics in the top economics journals. It’s the abilityto lead on the research side, where you develop that deep grounding and foundations in a varietyinto disciplines (whether its neuroscience, psychology, marketing or statistics) and thentranslating all that into classroom. That has really benefitted Kellogg decade after decade.”

Tom Hubbard, Kellogg’s senior associate dean, also praises alumni for their contributions. “We’vehad a long series of CEOs and CMOs who’ve come out of Kellogg who’ve provided resources frombringing practice into classroom and getting the classroom into practice.”

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS BELIE KELLOGG’S STRENGTHS

Kellogg’s is also attracting some of the industry’s best minds to campus. Each fall, the school nowholds a Marketing Leadership Summit, an invitation-only, day-long conference that drawsmarketing leaders to examine a key issue like digital disruption or the future of marketing.Pairing academics and students with seasoned practitioners, the program has drawn chiefmarketing and brand officers from firms like Nike, Nielsen, Visa, and AutoNation. The studentmarketing club has also gotten into the act by organizing an annual Kellogg MarketingConference in January, the largest student-run marketing event in the world. This year’s sessionsdrew senior executives from Anheuser-Busch, Kraft Foods, PepsiCo, Ford, Unilever, Uber, andAMC Theaters.

The school also hosts a Marketing Strategy Challenge, where students from various b-schoolsresearch a marketing issue faced by a corporate sponsor. After several weeks of preparation,school teams present their strategic recommendations to company executives and Kelloggalumni. Most recently, teams from Kellogg, Wharton, Fuqua, Ross, and Sloan helped Johnson &Johnson better target the LGBT community and mothers of school-aged children. As part of thecompetition, teams receive customized instruction from Kellogg faculty and sponsors. “We’re notjust teaching our students,” Anderson notes. “We’re also teaching students from other schools.”

To stay ahead of the marketplace, the school is investing more heavily in organizationaltransformation. “We’re focusing a lot on the idea of understanding how organizations aresuccessfully transforming themselves,” says Carpenter, “moving marketing from one function tosomething that is really part of the organizational culture.” Kellogg is also making a big push intoneuroscience, recently hiring Moran Cerf, a respected teacher and neuroscientist. “We’re seeingmore firms using neuromarketing as a way to develop insights into consumers,” says Hubbard.“Not many schools have embraced that.”

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Celebrating the start to a new year

WHY KELLOGG?

When asked why he would recommendKellogg to an aspiring marketer, Andersonechoed Carpenter’s emphasis on developinga broader skill set. “Marketing is not just asingle function. It is used throughout theorganization. What that requires is going toa school that is not only going to give youfoundational expertise in marketing areaslike marketing strategy, analytics,advertising, and channels, but also requiresyou to be expert in other areas likestrategy, finance, and leadership.”

And Anderson believes this generalmanagement approach will pay dividendsfor students down the road. “[These days],an assistant brand manager typically hasoverall responsibility for the business, soyou’re managing the brand, P&L… you might even need to drive up to Wisconsin to themanufacturing plant [to look at operations]. So what you need to succeed are marketing skillsand operations skills. You need to understand strategy, and finance too. That Generalmanagement perspective is pervasive throughout many marketing careers today. And I thinkthat’s where Kellogg shines.”

To continue doing that, Anderson sees keeping pace as his department’s biggest challenge.“Marketing has evolved quickly over the past 5-10 years and will continue to move quickly.Success for us is defined by continuing to evolve our curriculum to train thought leaders oftomorrow. We need to lead through that change. We’ve done a great job so far. And we’relooking forward to continue doing that.”

To see U.S. News & World Report’s rankings of the top ten MBA marketing programs – and tolearn what makes each of these programs special – go to the next pages.

The Top 10 Business Schools In MarketingRank and School Electives Faculty Unique Courses

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1. Northwestern

(Kellogg) [7]33 32

Customer Analytics

Advertising Strategy

Digital Marketing and eCommerce

Marketing Strategy

C-Suite and Boardroom Dynamics

2. Pennsylvania

(Wharton) [8] 67 28

Marketing Management Strategy

Pricing Policy

Strategic Brand Management

Consumer Behavior

Marketing Research

3. Stanford [9] 12 18

Monetization – Choosing a Business Model

Customer Acquisition for New Ventures

Persuasion

Building Innovative Brands

Click here for course descriptions [10].

4) Harvard [11] 9 20

Strategic Marketing in Creative Industries

Digital Marketing Strategy

Luxury Marketing

Business Marketing and Sales

Retailing

Building Effective Go-To Marketing Organizations and Marketing

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5) Chicago (Booth)

[12] 8 19

Research (Experiential Lab Course)

Developing New Products and Services (Experiential Lab

Course)Consumer Behavior

Marketing and E-Commerce

Pricing Strategies

Data-Driven Marketing

Laboratory in New Product and Strategy Development:

Management Lab

6) Michigan (Ross)

[13] 16 23

Strategic Marketing Planning

Strategic Brand Management

Models for Marketing Decisions: Marketing Engineering

Marketing Research and Design Analysis

Innovation in New Products and Services

Sensory Marketing

Co-creation of Value

7) Duke (Fuqua)

[14] 17 19

Behavioral Economics

Consumer Behavior

Marketing Strategy

Marketing of Innovation

8) Columbia [15] 40 18

Internet Wars

Behavioral Economics & Decision Making

Integrated Marketing Strategy

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Mobile Marketing

Systematic Creativity in Business

9) New York (Stern)

[16] 49 70*

Brand Strategy

Consulative Selling

Competitive Strategy in the Marketplace

Data-Driven Decision Marketing

Craft and Commerce of Cinema: Cannes Film Festival

Digital Media Innovation

10) Texas

(McCombs) [17] 22 25

Design Thinking for Business

Innovation Analysis of Markets

Data Analytics and Dynamic Pricing

Leveraging Marketing Metrics

Click here for course descriptions [18]

Source: U.S. News and schoolsNotes: * Number includes 40 adjunct professors

Here are some benefits that prospective marketing students will enjoy at other schools:

2) The Wharton School: Wharton describes itsmarketing professors as “the largest, most cited,and most published faculty in the world.” Theirmission is to “translate their state-of-the-artresearch into practical tools that managers can useto make better decisions.” However, their impactgoes far beyond academia, as professors like J.Scott Armstrong and Cass Mogilner are often citedon marketing-related topics in outlets like the New