MKT5610 Marketing Strategy & Planning
The Complete Study & Assessment Guide · Sem A 2026/27MKT5610 Overview
- City University of Hong Kong
- Semester A 2026/27
- Postgraduate course
- Department of Marketing
- No final examination
What this course is actually asking you to do
MKT5610 is a postgraduate course in the Department of Marketing at City University of Hong Kong, taught through lectures, case analysis, videos, class discussions and problem reviews, with Canvas used alongside them.
- Assessed by Five components and no written paper: class participation at fifteen per cent, in-class activities at thirty, a group idea and presentation at fifteen, an online implementation at thirty, and an individual self-reflection at ten.
- The skill being tested Reaching a recommendation a marker could act on, and showing the number or the mechanism that makes it the right one.
- Hardest step Choosing and validating the group idea early enough that the store has two months of operation behind it when the report is due.
- Pass condition A minimum attendance rate of 70% is required to pass the course, and students must also pass the coursework components to be awarded a pass; the numeric threshold for that second condition is not stated in the course materials. Confirm both on the course Canvas page.
- Where to confirm Submission formats, deadlines and platform rules for both group components are announced on Canvas and in class.
How MKT5610 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Class Participation and Discussion · hurdle | 15% | Individual. Assessed across every class discussion |
| In-class activities | 30% | Individual. Includes a product selection competition, store decoration and content build-up |
| Innovative Idea Development & Marketing Plan Presentation | 15% | Group. A validated business or marketing proposal plus a business presentation |
| Online Marketing Implementation | 30% | Group. Roughly two months operating an online store, then a final business report |
| Self-Reflection | 10% | Individual. Structured around four named dimensions |
The syllabus lists these five components and they total 100%. Two things are worth knowing before you plan your effort.
First, the appendix to the same syllabus restates two of the weights differently, putting in-class activities at 25% and the innovative idea component at 25%, which would total 105%. The table above follows the assessment table, because that is the one carrying an explicit total of 100%, and you should confirm the current split on Canvas before allocating effort between the two.
Second, attendance is a pass condition and not only a share of the participation mark. A minimum attendance rate of 70% is required to pass the course, and students must also pass the coursework components to be awarded a pass; the numeric threshold for that second condition is not stated in the course materials. Confirm both on the course Canvas page. No per-component hurdle is stated anywhere in the course materials, so the hurdle flag above appears only on the row the syllabus attaches the attendance requirement to. Submission formats and deadlines for both group components are announced through Canvas and in class.
Assessment structure
Current MKT5610 dates
| Date | Item | Control |
|---|---|---|
| 14 September 2026 | Segmentation, targeting and positioning exercise | Due date shown on the submission point on the course site for this offering. |
| 17 September 2026 | In-class exercise on product strategy | Due date shown on the submission point on the course site for this offering. |
| 18 September 2026 | Marketing intelligence exercise | Due date shown on the submission point on the course site for this offering. |
| 18 September 2026 | Product selection challenge | Due date shown on the submission point on the course site for this offering. |
| 19 December 2026 | Peer evaluation | Due date shown on the submission point on the course site for this offering. |
Dates are as published in the submission points on the course site for this offering. Confirm exact deadlines and submission settings in the live LMS.
What MKT5610 covers
Thirteen chapters follow the published class schedule through its five lettered sections, from the fundamentals of marketing strategy and case analysis, through competitor, industry and customer analysis, segmentation, targeting and positioning, and the program decisions of product, brand, price, communication and channel, to customer experience management.
Fundamentals of Marketing Strategy and Case Analysis
the six course objectives and what each one asks you to do · strategy against program · reading a case for the constraint before the objective · marketing ethics as an assessed outcome02Competitive and Industry Analysis
substitutes against alternatives · strategic groups and what they hide · convergence on competing factors · reading a share figure as a ratio with two moving parts03Reconstructing Market Boundaries
six principles and the risk each lowers · the six paths · the strategy canvas and the four actions grid · three tiers of non-customers · the four sequential viability gates04Customer Analysis and Customer Equity
purchaser, influencer and user as three roles · the four inputs to customer value and which of them multiply · why acquisition absorbs attention it has not earned05Market Segmentation and Targeting
segmenting on need against segmenting on what is visible · finding a proxy · four questions that reject a segment · turning a rating distribution into an importance weight06Competitive Positioning and Perceptual Mapping
positioning as projecting an image · the semantic differential and the two-dimensional map · weighted attribute scores · changing a rating against changing a weight07Product Strategy and Line Extension Economics
the incremental frame and what it excludes · cannibalisation charged as lost contribution · break-even volume and its two blind spots · reporting a close decision with its thresholds08Brand Equity and Brand Strategy
awareness, perceived quality, associations and loyalty · double jeopardy and brand penetration · five decisions that spend equity and look free in the month they are taken09Pricing Strategy and Competitive Price Dynamics
price elasticity against advertising elasticity · the four properties of the profit-price curve · expert judgement, conjoint measurement and observed behaviour · skimming against penetration · three responses to entry10Communication Strategy and User Contribution Systems
a consistent approach to communicating with customers · active against passive contribution · why crowd-sourcing is not a contribution system · five motives and what each asks of the design11Channel Governance and Sales Force Control
governance as initiation, maintenance and termination · market, unilateral and bilateral as ideal types · eight dimensions on which they differ · transaction-specific assets and performance ambiguity · salary against commission12Customer Experience and Retention Economics
the gulf between satisfied and completely satisfied · why a mean conceals the group that predicts behaviour · defection as a late but honest measurement · auditing six experience stages against six utility levers13Marketing Intelligence from Platform Data
focal brands and matched comparators · verified accounts only · collecting to the last page · schema fidelity and why it makes a collection poolable · recording the failuresIts published objectives run from acquiring advanced knowledge of marketing philosophy and principles, through assessing market opportunities by analysing customers, competitors and a company's own strengths and weaknesses, to designing and implementing an effective marketing plan and applying marketing ethics in real business encounters.
Four of the six objectives are verbs about deciding, and the assessment matches: none of it is a written paper. You are marked on what you contribute in class, on a competition run against a clock, on a business presentation, on a store your group actually operates, and on a reflection about how you decided.
How the thirteen topics are arranged
The class schedule runs twelve classes across five lettered sections.
Section A introduces the fundamentals of marketing strategy. Section B analyses the market through competitive analysis, industrial and company analysis, and customer analysis. Section C formulates strategy through market segmentation and targeting and then competitive positioning.
Section D designs the marketing program and carries six of the thirteen topics: product, brand, pricing, communication, channel and sales management. Section E closes on customer experience management and a course summary.
The instructor reserves the right to adjust the schedule, so treat the order as reliable and any particular class number as provisional.
Where the difficulty actually sits
Not in the frameworks. Most of them are a page each and none is hard to state.
The difficulty is that this course is assessed on decisions taken under time pressure with incomplete information, and the two group components are sequenced rather than parallel: an idea has to clear a validation step before implementation begins, and the store then needs roughly two months of operation to produce anything worth reporting. A group that settles its idea late does not lose marks on the idea.
It loses them on the implementation report, because there is nothing to report.
The pass conditions sit outside the assessment table
A minimum attendance rate of 70% is required to pass the course, and students must also pass the coursework components to be awarded a pass; the numeric threshold for that second condition is not stated in the course materials. Confirm both on the course Canvas page.
Neither condition is a hurdle on any single component, and no exemption mechanism is published, so treat the attendance figure as a floor to stay well clear of rather than a target to approach.
Note also that Zoom and online attendance are not available for this course.
Two things to set up in the first fortnight
A decision log, because the self-reflection is organised around options considered, evidence that changed a decision, verifiable individual contributions and transferable methods, and all four are easy to write from notes taken at the time and close to impossible to reconstruct honestly at the end.
And a habit of attaching a number to every claim, because the criterion that separates a strong presentation from an adequate one is whether the group can say what its plan assumes and how wrong that assumption can be before the plan fails.
Decide a line extension on incremental profit
- 2Compute the new line's contribution: unit contribution of HK$7 across 40,000 units, or HK$280,000.
- 3Charge the cannibalisation: 10,000 units at the original bar's HK$5 contribution, a loss of HK$50,000.
- 2Compute incremental fixed cost: HK$300,000 of new spending less the HK$40,000 saved, or HK$260,000.
- 2Combine and report the threshold: HK$280,000 less HK$50,000 less HK$260,000 is negative HK$30,000, and about 4,300 more units would reverse it.
Key terms
- Marketing Program
- The set of product, brand, price, communication and channel decisions that deliver a chosen strategy. It is assessed on whether the pieces reinforce each other, which is a separate question from whether the strategy behind them is sound.
- Strategic Group
- A cluster of firms inside one industry whose strategies resemble each other. Rankings inside a group say nothing about whether the group itself is gaining or losing against the industry around it.
- Alternative
- A product or service with a different form and a different function that serves the same purpose, in the way a cinema and a restaurant both answer the question of what to do with an evening. Losing buyers to one shrinks the industry rather than moving share within it.
- Value Curve
- A brand's profile drawn across the factors an industry competes on. A curve that sits above a rival at every point describes a company competing harder rather than differently.
- Non-Customer Tier
- One of three groups not currently buying: those on the edge of the market, those who have consciously refused it, and those in distant markets who have never considered it. The first tier is the cheapest to convert and gives the most reliable reasons.
- Customer Lifetime Value
- The margin on each purchase multiplied by purchase frequency and by the length of the relationship, less the cost of acquisition. Three of those four inputs multiply and only the last is subtracted once.
- Proxy Variable
- Something observable at the moment of an offer that correlates with the unobservable need a segmentation is built on. Every workable segmentation in practice runs on one, and an imperfect proxy is more useful than a perfect segment nobody can address.
- Weighted Attribute Score
- A brand's rating on each benefit multiplied by that benefit's importance weight, summed across benefits. Its value lies in decomposing the gap to the leader rather than in the ranking it produces.
- Incremental Profit
- The difference a decision makes between two worlds: new contribution, less contribution destroyed elsewhere, less the fixed cost the decision causes. Anything unchanged between the two worlds is irrelevant however large it is.
- User Contribution System
- A method, usually internet-based, that aggregates what people supply and converts it into something useful to other people with little or no company intervention. If a person approves each item, the thing scales with staff rather than with participation.
- Bilateral Governance
- A relationship organised through joint planning, overlapping roles and mutual adjustment, enforced by mutuality of interest rather than by authority or by the legal system. It is a distinct form and not a midpoint between market and hierarchy.
MKT5610 FAQ
How is this course assessed if there is no written paper?
Through five components that total one hundred per cent. Class participation and discussion carries fifteen per cent and is individual. In-class activities carry thirty per cent, also individual, and include a product selection competition alongside store decoration and content build-up. A group innovative idea with a marketing plan presentation carries fifteen.
An online marketing implementation, in which a group operates a store for roughly two months, carries thirty. An individual self-reflection carries ten. Note that the appendix to the syllabus restates two of those weights differently, so confirm the current split on Canvas before allocating effort.
Is attendance compulsory, and what happens if I fall short?
A minimum attendance rate of 70% is required to pass the course, and students must also pass the coursework components to be awarded a pass; the numeric threshold for that second condition is not stated in the course materials. Confirm both on the course Canvas page. The syllabus also states that students need to meet the attendance requirement of the Department of Marketing for completion of the course.
No exemption mechanism and no consequence short of failing is published in the course materials, and Zoom and online attendance are not available, so plan around being physically present in every class.
What do the two group components actually involve?
They are sequenced rather than parallel. First a group develops an innovative business idea aimed at the campus student market, presented in a professional format, and puts it through a brief validation before selection: either at least five short interviews or a quick survey with the intended segment, or a benchmark against two or three alternative solutions on differentiation, feasibility and barriers to entry.
Then the group operates an online store for approximately two months, monitoring performance and adjusting, and reports outcomes in a final business report.
What is the in-class competition and how is it graded?
The syllabus describes a cross-border e-commerce simulation in which you act as a new seller on a newly launched platform station, with competitive product selection as the main task and shop building as a supporting activity. Its stated grading criteria are startup execution, market performance ranking and strategic discussion quality, with up to two bonus points for exceptional performance and insight.
Three of those four are not about the sales result, so prepare an account of your selection logic rather than relying on the scoreboard.
How much time does the online store really need?
The syllabus expects groups to operate an online store or business for approximately two months and to demonstrate accountable execution and learning through implementation, including store setup, listing, customer-facing communication, ongoing performance monitoring and adjustment.
That window is the binding constraint on the whole project, because a store started late cannot produce the performance history the final report is assessed on. Settle the idea and clear the validation step in the first month of the semester.
What does the marketing intelligence collection task require?
It asks for a body of public platform material assembled to a specification: posts from a set of brand accounts made up of assigned focal brands and self-selected competitors, and product listings with their reviews from an online marketplace, each assigned product paired with one comparable competitor.
The rules that matter are same category, officially verified accounts rather than imitation or fan pages, collection continuing to the last page, and files matching the supplied templates field by field. Failures are recorded in an error file rather than dropped silently.
How should the self-reflection be organised?
Around the four dimensions the syllabus names, and literally rather than chronologically. The decision process means the options you considered and the rationale for the final choice. Evidence-based iteration means what data or feedback informed a change and what was revised. Individual contribution and collaboration means your role and contributions in a form someone else could verify.
Transferable learning means a reusable method or principle. A reflection organised week by week touches all four accidentally and none of them fully.
Can I use AI tools, and under what conditions?
Yes, within a stated policy. The syllabus encourages the use of AI and generative AI tools to enhance learning provided educational outcomes are not compromised, and names six permitted tools covering text generation and brainstorming, grammar checking, plagiarism detection, citation generation, paraphrasing and visual content.
Three conditions attach: AI-generated content is prohibited for final submissions, original work must be provided alongside any AI assistance, and AI use must be cited in the suggested style with an explanation of why the output was used.
How to prepare for the assessments
Carry one business you can actually observe through every chapter, and answer that chapter's question about it before reading the chapter's own answer. A shop on campus works better than a large company, because you can check what you conclude. Then practise the two moves the whole assessment is built on.
Write your recommendation in one line, write underneath it the strongest alternative and the condition under which that alternative would have won, and write the one number that, if wrong by a stated amount, would reverse you.
Twenty minutes on paper doing that is worth more than a second pass through the readings, because it is the only exercise that rehearses what a graded class hour, a business presentation and a self-reflection all ask for.
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