MKTG1001: Marketing Principles

Group project report: Students working in a group will build key components of a marketing plan based on a market opportunity for a product or service that is emerging from a trend in the external environment. This task will enable students to learn the marketing process in a dynamic and creative way. You will strategically market an offering that requires research, market justification and analysis. This group project report is the finished written report that will detail the formal elements of the groups proposed marketing plan, incorporating feedback on key elements of the plan presented in the group presentation. Final written report due week 13.

Permitted use of AI in the Group Project: You can use AI to assist in the generation of your advertising piece that forms part of the assessment. For the marketing mix elements, you should not rely on AI, rather you should draw on your knowledge of the lecture content to make clear and creative recommendations around the marketing mix elements, that are feasible and well justified. For the final submission you are permitted to use Microsoft Copilot generative AI to directly suggest readability improvements to your text in terms of structure, grammar and expression.

Acknowledging the use of AI in the Group Project: To acknowledge the use of AI to improve readability follow these steps.  On the front of your submission, you should acknowledge the use of AI using the following statement: “I acknowledge the use of Microsoft Copilot to refine the academic language of my own work. On (insert date) I submitted my entire assessment (attach original pre-AI document to appendix) with the prompt to “improve the academic tone and accuracy of language, including grammatical structures, punctuation and vocabulary”. The output (attach to appendix with title AI output) was then modified further to better represent my own tone and style of writing which is my final submission.

Group presentation: Groups will submit a 10-minute pre-recorded presentation on key areas of the group project, where they will receive feedback that will advance their final written marketing plan submission. One group member will submit the pre-recorded presentation by the due date in week 9, following the instructions detailed on Canvas.

Permitted use of AI in the Group Presentation: In the presentation it is suggested that you use AI for an initial exploration of the macro-environmental trends using Microsoft Copilot. As you identify the segments you might target your new product or service towards, you can use AI to deepen your understanding of the segmentation variables that will help paint a rich description for each segment. You can also use AI to direct you towards further resources that may further develop the trends you identify and the segments you name and describe. You cannot use AI to identify your new product or service idea as you should draw on your research to develop a product or service that meets the needs of the segment you target and creates differentiation from competing offers. You must use the template provided in the lectures when writing the positioning statement, rather than relying on AI. You must ensure that the final submission is your original work. All referencing, including AI, must be included intext and in a bibliography using APA 7.

Acknowledging the use of AI in the Group Presentation: Use of generative artificial intelligence must be appropriately acknowledged. To show how you used AI to identify the macro-environmental trends and develop your segments you need to insert a note in the appendix your submission where you need to describe the AI tool that you used, what you used it to do, what prompt(s) you provided, and how the output of the artificial intelligence was used or adapted by you. It is important that you keep a record of the tools, prompts and output in a diary. You must do this from the beginning of the project as you will not be able to recreate it at the completion of the assessment. This information that you attach in the appendix of your submission will be used to validate that you have used AI to supplement your knowledge, and to confirm that the final submission is your original work.

Early feedback quiz: This is a compulsory task, worth 8%, that will take place in the week 3 tutorial to evaluate early progress and course familiarity.  It consists of 10 multiple choice questions, covering materials from weeks 1-2 inclusive.

Mid-semester exam: The mid-semester exam will inclusively assess all materials from weeks 1-5, including relevant textbook chapters, lecture slides, tutorial activities and/or industry lectures (if applicable). The mid semester exam will be held in week 7, as scheduled by the Business School exams office. 

Participation 1: Participation is ongoing and will be based on students’ contribution in tutorials to a number of activities designed to reinforce key learnings and to assist in the development of the group project. Participation will not simply be a measure of how much students contribute to class discussion, but more importantly whether comments are thoughtful and stimulating, provide insight into the topics of investigation, pose interesting questions to peers and provide relevant examples to illustrate a clear point of view.  Students can be randomly asked to submit their tutorial work on any week as a record of their participation/preparation.

Participation 2: Students have two options for completing this assessment: Option 1 - participating in a research study or Option 2 - research paper review. Please refer to the Business Research Component site on your CANVAS courses dashboard for detailed instructions on how to complete this assessment which is due in week 12.

Final exam:  The final exam will inclusively assess all materials from weeks 8-13 (inclusive), including relevant textbook chapters, lecture slides, tutorial activities and/or industry lectures (if applicable). The exam will be held in the formal exam period.   This assessment is listed as HURDLE TASK, which means you must undertake the assessment and achieve at least 5% of the available marks in that assessment as a minimum standard. Students who fail to achieve this minimum standard in this assessment, even when their aggregate mark for the entire unit is above 50%, will be given a Fail grade for the unit. As a result, the student's academic transcript will show a fail grade and the actual mark achieved if between 0-49 and a fail grade and a capped moderated mark of 49 for all other marks.

Detailed information for each assessment can be found on canvas.

General overview of the expectations in using AI Tools

• The Academic Integrity Policy outlines the rules for using AI in assessments. Students must acknowledge their use of AI tools, ensure their final work is original, and not copied directly from a generative AI tool. All software or tool usage expressly allowed for different assessment tasks must be acknowledged, and all sources referenced.
• Students should keep records of how they use generative AI in their assignments and keep copies of generative AI outputs as evidence of their research and writing process.
• Do not enter confidential, personal, copyrighted or otherwise sensitive information into AI tools. If you use these tools, you must be aware of their limitations, biases, and propensity for fabrication. Your use of AI tools must adhere to the Student Charter 2020, including upholding honestly, ethics, professionalism, and academic integrity.
• Do not rely on the accuracy of outputs. You remain responsible for your work. This means you must independently verify and edit AI-generated content to ensure the integrity, accuracy, and suitability of the output
• If you use these tools, you must include a statement at the end of your assignment explaining what you used the tool for, and the prompts that you used.