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ENTREP 395: Building a Buzzworthy Brand

Quarter Offered

Spring: Mondays, 9:30 a.m. – 12:20 p.m. CT, Evanston

Prerequisites

None, but prior entrepreneurship coursework is highly recommended.

Description

This experiential course is focused on building brands that create buzz and attract loyal customers. Student teams will work with live partner companies to assess their current brand strength in the market and provide recommendations for a brand overhaul for accelerating growth and profitability. 

 

Apply

Applications for the Spring 2024 section of ENTREP 395: Building a Buzzworthy Brand are now closed. Questions can be directed to farley@northwestern.edu.

Faculty

VIEW COURSE FACULTY

Course Details

Requirements that this course satisfies: Serves as the marketing OR experiential course requirement for the Farley undergraduate minor in entrepreneurship, and as the experiential course requirement for the Farley graduate minor in entrepreneurship.  

Duration: 3-hour course sessions, once per week (3-hour courses include regular breaks and are broken into lecture, discussion, and groupwork portions); 1 quarter 

Class size: 20 students 

Course number: ENTREP 395 

Who Should Enroll: Any advanced undergraduate student interested in expanding their knowledge of brand consulting, entrepreneurship, and innovation. 

Application: Applications are required for this course. 

Advisers

Adrienne Weiss- Weiss is the founder of the Adrienne Weiss Corporation (AWC). Since 1986, her business has created award-winning brand strategies for companies including Disney, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, and Target. Prior to founding AWC, Weiss was president of Rage Inc., a gift manufacturing business, and she worked for Applesauce, Inc. to expand the Smurf brand to over $1 billion in revenue. Weiss has a BFA from Syracuse University and has served on the boards of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Gene Siskel Film Center, and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago.

Greg Weiss- Weiss is the president of the Adrienne Weiss Corporation and plays an active role in legal and accounting, as well as creative and copywriting. He is co-founder of FUIR, LLC, an entertainment-focused mobile app company. Weiss has a BFA from Johns Hopkins University, JD from George Washington University, and MBA from Northwestern. He has spoken on brand strategy at Booth School of Business, Kellogg School of Management, and Chicago’s tech start-up hub, 1871.

Partner Companies

Small to medium-sized entrepreneurial-minded companies are invited to apply to sponsor a student team and become the subject of the team's brand creation/reinvention project. Through becoming a sponsor, student teams will take your marketing data and brand information to learn and apply their knowledge in conceptualizing and relaunching a brand with compelling and impactful messaging that generates buzz. The teams will work directly with you as a live partner to develop a comprehensive analysis of your current brand strategy and competitive position and generate insights and suggestions on your key attributes and implementation options across a variety of marketing tactics. At the end of the class, the team will share with you their final report.

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