Applied marketing in cooperation with L'Oréal

Seminar

Instructor: Dr. Jens Paschmann
Date, Time & Room: see KLIPS

 

Content of the Seminar

The main learning objective of this seminar is to acquire experience in solving an applied marketing case, which will prepare students for possible challenges in their future working life. Substantively, in this seminar, students will be confronted with real issues from the marketing department of a multinational company. Thereby, the seminar will facilitate a deeper understanding of real-world marketing problems and their solutions in business practice. Moreover, the seminar will train social and communicative skills as a presentation and a written report has to be prepared in teams.
This seminar will introduce students to applying their marketing knowledge to real issues of the day-to-day business life. The business partner of the seminar is L’Oréal, the world’s leading beauty company. With over 100 years of experience and close to 90,000 employees, L’Oréal creates annual revenues of over €26bn today. L’Oréal is active in field such as hair care, skin care, make-up, perfume, and sun protection. In its wide brand portfolio, L’Oréal owns and operates brands such as L’Oréal Paris, Garnier, Maybelline, Vichy, Lancôme, Kiehl’s among many others.

A detailed syllabus of the course including seminar topics can be found here.

Examination

The examination of the course is two-folded: First, students have to prepare a 30-minutes’ presentation of their case solution. The presentation will be given in front of a group of L’Oréal managers as well as the course instructors from the University of Cologne probably via “Zoom” (if the COVID-19 situation and corresponding regulations allow it, at the L’Oréal headquarters in Düsseldorf)  Afterwards, a 15-minutes’ question session will be held to further discuss the case solution. Second, students have to write an executive summary about their concept (10-15 pages).

The grade will be based on the presentation (75%) and the executive summary (25%). Both assignments need to be passed for successfully completing the whole course. The course language is English. Presentations and executive summaries must be prepared in English. The course is eligible for 6 ECTS.

Please keep in mind that after your admission to the course you need to register via KLIPS for the exam within the given registration period. It is NOT possible to register after the respective registration period. Non-registration will result in exclusion from the course.

Bitte beachten Sie, dass Sie sich nach Zulassung zum Seminar nur innerhalb der vorgegebenen Fristen für die Prüfung anmelden können. Es ist NICHT möglich, sich nach Ablauf der Frist nachträglich anzumelden. Bei Nichtanmeldung erfolgt der Ausschluss aus dem Kurs.

Presentation

Presentations are prepared and held in teams. The task is to present the case solution in 30 minutes. The presentation should start with a brief market analysis and then continue with the presentation of the concept. It is important that the presentation does not take longer than 30 minutes. Time will be kept and overrun will not be accepted. Afterwards, L’Oréal managers and the instructors from the University of Cologne will ask questions regarding the case solution in a 15-minutes discussion session. Both parts will be evaluated and count towards the final grade. The learning objective is to acquire the necessary skills and experience to present and defend a self-developed concept in a real-world business setting in front of a professional audience.

Executive Summary

The teams will write an executive summary of 10-15 pages (+ appendices), which should 1) motivate the case solution by drawing specific implications from the status quo of the market, and 2) explain the developed case solution. To support the proposed case solution, it is necessary to integrate scientific literature (i.e., empirical journal articles, scientific books) for the argumentations. Scientific findings can directly be used to support decisions made for developing the case solution and do not need to be explained in detail.