Business Case Studies & Business Publications

GBUS 8464: Hot Topics in Marketing

Gale, John

Darden Course Pack

GBUS 8464: Hot Topics in Marketing

Gale, John

CP-2635 | Published June 9, 2026 Darden Course Pack

Collection: Darden School of Business

Product Details

Hot Topics in Marketing offers a substantive, practitioner-facing introduction to the discipline at this frontier. It is designed for first-year part-time MBA students who have not yet taken a formal marketing elective. The course pairs a unifying research framework, drawn from the instructor's work on how AI is reshaping brand discoverability and consumer decision-making, with direct exposure to senior practitioners navigating these changes across industries, from consumer analytics and brand strategy to go-to-market automation and institutional AI.

• Explain how AI is reshaping consumer discovery, brand equity, and go-to-market strategy using a structured analytical framework developed from original research. • Apply that framework to evaluate practitioner decisions across diverse industries and institutional contexts. • Engage in substantive dialogue with senior marketing leaders, asking informed questions and debating strategic tradeoffs. • Analyze real-world marketing challenges with the rigor expected of general managers operating in AI-native environments. • Develop the instincts to identify the next inflection points in marketing strategy and practice.