Marketing Undergraduate Major (BA, BS, HBA, HBS)

The marketing curriculum provides students with technical marketing skills and leadership training. Opportunities exist for marketing graduates in a wide variety of organizations, including manufacturing firms, service firms, retailers, wholesalers, advertising agencies, the communications media and government agencies. Career options include sales, advertising, retailing, brand management, logistics management, market research, purchasing management and more.

The heart of marketing is matching supply and demand in a complex, advanced economy. Marketing consists of a sequence of activities: identifying customer needs, developing goods and services to satisfy those needs, communicating information about products to potential customers, and distributing the products to customers. In small firms, a few people must carry out all the marketing functions or activities. Large corporations, on the other hand, tend to hire people with specific potential or skills to fill more specialized job requirements.

Major Code: 799

Upon successful completion of the program, students will meet the following learning outcomes:

• Articulate the place and contribution of marketing to the business enterprise.
• Define primary and secondary sources of information; give examples of methods used to collect primary data; give examples of sources for secondary data; compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of both types of data.
• Describe major bases for segmenting consumer and business markets; define and be able to apply the three steps of target marketing: market segmentation, target marketing and market positioning; understand how different situations in the competitive environment will affect choices in target marketing.
• Describe the major types of consumer buying behavior, the stages in the buyer decision process and completely outline the components of the marketing mix; identify how the firms marketing strategy and marketing mix must evolve and adapt to match consumer behavior and perceptions of the product (e.g., classification of products and services, brand image, price and value), the stage in the product life cycle and the competitive environment; summarize the importance of measuring and managing return on marketing.
• List and describe the steps in the new-product development (NPD) process; describe how the NPD process meshes with the adoption and diffusion process for those products.
• Identify the costs and benefits of marketing channels; discuss the firms and the functions involved in typical channels in North America.
• Identify the roles of advertising, sales promotion, public relations, personal selling and direct marketing in the promotion mix; compare and contrast integrated marketing communications with a non-integrated approach to the promotional mix.
• Illustrate how the international trade system, economic, political-legal and cultural environments in a foreign country affect a company’s international marketing decisions.
• Identify the major social criticisms of marketing.

The lower-division business core involves completion of courses within the first and second year that build a solid foundation for the upper-division marketing and business curricula. The lower-division business core course work may be completed at OSU or any accredited college or university that offers equivalent courses transferable to OSU.

Credits listed are minimum to fulfill Bacc Core with Business requirements overlapping. As coursework in this grouping may not satisfy both Bacc Core and Business requirements, check with advisors for best course selections to overlap and complete requirements in both groups

Options and minors are available to provide specializations and fulfill unrestricted elective credits

Business Administration Core Curriculum

The business administration core curriculum provides students with a broad overview of business; basic skills in accounting and quantitative methods; an understanding of the legal and social environment of business; a background in management and organizational behavior, marketing, finance, and operations management; an understanding of the entrepreneurial process; and the opportunity to integrate course work and further develop decision-making skills through the analysis of business cases.

Baccalaureate Core Course (BCC)

Writing Intensive Course (WIC)

Core Education course. Applies only to students admitted to an OSU undergraduate degree from Summer 2025 onwards

The COMM, ECON, MTH and WR courses listed meet the university's Baccalaureate Core requirements for Speech, Social Processes & Institutions, Mathematics, and Writing II. All students must meet the other Baccalaureate Core requirements and the other requirements for baccalaureate degrees

Courses require a grade of C or higher