Principles of Global Marketing

Course Description

Principles of Global Marketing employs a global approach to the study of marketing. Students examine domestic, international, and multinational perspectives across the core marketing elements: customer, product, price, promotion, and place. A key component requires students to complete a marketing plan project.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, MAR is the Marketing prefix. Daytona State publishes this at 3 credits, offered fall, spring and summer, giving approximately 45 contact hours.

What makes this the global version rather than the domestic one is that every element of the marketing mix stops being a settled assumption. Price expectations, distribution structures, what a colour or a name means, what a product is even understood to be for — all of it varies, and the classic failures in international marketing are not failures of strategy but failures to notice an assumption. Florida makes this unusually concrete: its economy is genuinely international, with substantial Latin American and Caribbean trade, a large multilingual population, and an enormous inbound tourism market.

Daytona State does not publish a lecture and laboratory split for its MAR courses. The prefix is entirely lecture-based and unsuffixed, and its business-family siblings run at the standard 15 contact hours per credit — GEB1011 and MAN2021 are both live at 3 credits and 45 hours. This course is priced at that convention.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the marketing concept and the marketing mix.
• Describe the customer as the organising element of marketing.
• Analyse consumer behaviour and the buying decision process.
• Segment a market and select target segments.
• Develop a positioning statement.
• Conduct market research and evaluate its quality.
• Distinguish primary and secondary research and use both.
• Describe product strategy, including branding and the product life cycle.
• Describe pricing strategy and the factors constraining it.
• Describe promotion and integrated marketing communication.
• Describe place, distribution channels, and logistics.
• Distinguish domestic, international, multinational, and global approaches.
• Assess a foreign market's attractiveness using evidence.
• Describe cultural factors affecting marketing decisions.
• Describe how language and symbolism affect brand and message.
• Decide between standardisation and adaptation, and justify it.
• Describe market entry modes and their trade-offs.
• Describe economic, political, and legal risk in foreign markets.
• Describe currency, pricing, and payment considerations in international trade.
• Describe international distribution and its constraints.
• Describe ethical issues in international marketing.
• Describe the regulatory environment governing marketing claims.
• Write a complete marketing plan.
• Present and defend the plan's recommendations.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe emerging market strategy.
• Describe global digital and e-commerce marketing.
• Describe export assistance available to Florida businesses.
• Describe sustainability and marketing.
• Describe business-to-business marketing internationally.
• Describe trade agreements and their marketing implications.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• The marketing concept and the mix
• Customer centrality
• Consumer behaviour
• Segmentation and targeting
• Positioning
• Market research
• Primary and secondary research
• Product strategy and branding
• Pricing strategy
• Promotion and integrated communication
• Place and distribution
• Domestic, international, multinational, and global
• Assessing foreign market attractiveness
• Culture and marketing decisions
• Language and symbolism
• Standardisation versus adaptation
• Market entry modes
• Economic, political, and legal risk
• Currency and payment
• International distribution
• Ethics in international marketing
• The regulatory environment
• Writing a marketing plan
• Presenting and defending recommendations

Optional Topics

• Emerging market strategy
• Global digital marketing
• Export assistance for Florida businesses
• Sustainability and marketing
• International business-to-business
• Trade agreements

Resources & Tools

• Federal Trade Commission — Business Guidance (ftc.gov/business-guidance) — free, plainly written, and the authoritative source on advertising law. Its endorsement guides and FAQ are the single most useful reading in this course.
• American Marketing Association (ama.org) — professional body, student membership, and its Statement of Ethics.
• Google Analytics and Google Digital Garage — free tools and certification-bearing training used widely by employers.
• Google Ads and Meta Blueprint certifications — free to study; employers ask for these by name and they cost nothing but time.
• HubSpot Academy — free certifications in inbound, content, email, and social media marketing.
• Florida Attorney General — consumer protection (myfloridalegal.com) — free; Florida's own enforcement guidance under FDUTPA.
• Census Bureau and BLS consumer expenditure data — free primary market data that most students never think to use.
• Build and publish something real — a campaign, a social account with measured results, an analysed A/B test. A portfolio with numbers in it outperforms a transcript in this field.
• Enterprise Florida / SelectFlorida and the U.S. Commercial Service — free export counselling and market research for Florida businesses; genuinely useful for the plan project.
• CIA World Factbook and World Bank open data — free country-level economic and demographic data.

Career Pathways

• Advertising, promotions, and marketing managers — SOC 11-2021.
• Market research analysts and marketing specialists — SOC 13-1161; strong projected demand and the most common analytical entry point.
• Public relations specialists — SOC 27-3031.
• Advertising sales agents — SOC 41-3011.
• Social media coordinator and content marketing roles — common entry positions, frequently the first rung.
• Digital marketing, SEO, and paid media specialist roles — the most measurable and among the best paid early.
• Marketing analytics — where marketing meets data work, and where pay rises fastest.
• E-commerce and brand management.
• Florida sectors that hire heavily: tourism and hospitality, healthcare, real estate, financial services, and a substantial small-business economy — and tourism marketing in particular is a distinctive Florida specialisation.
• Self-employment and agency work — a genuinely accessible route in this field, and one where a portfolio matters far more than a credential.
• Transfer to a bachelor's in marketing or business administration — management roles generally expect one.

Special Information

⚠⚠ The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act reaches marketing activity

• The FCPA prohibits offering anything of value to a foreign official to obtain or retain business, and it applies to U.S. persons and companies operating abroad.
• ⚠ Marketing and sales activity is where this most commonly arises — entertainment, gifts, travel, sponsorships, and payments to agents or distributors are all routes by which a well-meaning marketer creates liability.
• "It is normal practice there" is not a defence. Local custom does not alter the statute, and this is exactly the reasoning that produces enforcement actions.
• Third parties create exposure. A local agent or distributor acting improperly can produce liability for the company that engaged them, which is why due diligence on intermediaries matters.
• The books and records provisions matter as much as the anti-bribery ones — mischaracterised expenses are themselves a violation.
• Ask before, not after. Every organisation operating internationally has compliance guidance, and the cost of a question is nothing.
• ⚠ Sanctions and export controls apply separately, and restrict who may be marketed to and sold to at all.
• ⚠ Rule 11 applies — sanctions lists and trade restrictions change frequently; verify current status rather than relying on a course guide.

⚠ The standardisation-or-adaptation decision is the whole subject in one question

• Standardising is cheaper and builds a consistent brand; adapting fits the market but multiplies cost and complexity. Nearly every international marketing decision is a version of this trade.
• Adapt where the difference is functional or regulatory — sizing, voltage, ingredients, labelling, and legal requirements are not optional.
• ⚠ Test names, colours, and imagery locally before launch. The famous international marketing failures are mostly untested assumptions about meaning, and they are cheap to avoid and expensive to repair.
• Translation is not localisation. A correctly translated message can still land wrongly, and a native speaker in-market is worth more than any translation service.
• Distribution structures differ more than most students expect — retail concentration, wholesaler layers, and logistics quality vary enormously, and they constrain price and reach.
• Price expectations are cultural as well as economic. A premium position in one market is an insult or an irrelevance in another.
• ⚠ Do not treat "Latin America" or "Europe" as a market. The variation within those groupings is larger than the variation between them, and this is a common error in student plans.
• Research before deciding. The plan project is an opportunity to practise evidence-based recommendation rather than plausible assertion.

⚠⚠ Marketing is regulated — the rules bind the marketer, not only the company's lawyers

• The Federal Trade Commission regulates advertising and marketing practice nationally, and enforcement reaches individuals and small businesses, not only large advertisers.
• Claims must be truthful, not misleading, and substantiated before they are made. ⚠ Substantiation must exist at the time of the claim — producing evidence afterwards is not a defence.
• ⚠⚠ Material connections must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously. Where an endorser is paid, given free product, employed by the brand, or otherwise connected, the connection must be disclosed in a way an ordinary viewer will actually notice — not buried, not below a "more" fold, and not in a wall of hashtags.
• ⚠⚠ Fake and incentivised reviews carry federal exposure. The FTC has rules addressing fake reviews, undisclosed insider reviews, and suppressed negative reviews. Buying reviews, writing your own, or conditioning an incentive on a positive rating are all unsafe.
• Florida adds its own layer: the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, Chapter 501, Part II, Florida Statutes, which reaches unfair or deceptive practices independently of federal law and allows private actions.
• ⚠ Florida's Digital Bill of Rights adds consumer data obligations for businesses meeting its thresholds — relevant to any marketer handling personal data.
• Email marketing is governed by the CAN-SPAM Act (accurate headers, identifiable advertising, a working opt-out, honoured promptly), and ⚠ text message marketing is far more tightly regulated than email under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, where per-message statutory damages have produced very large settlements.
• Children's marketing is separately restricted, and online data collection from children is governed by COPPA.
• ⚠ Rule 11 applies emphatically. This is one of the fastest-moving regulatory areas covered anywhere in this repository — FTC guidance, state privacy statutes, and platform policies all change frequently. Verify current requirements with primary sources and with counsel before relying on any of this.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement.

MAR2011 is 3 credits and approximately 45 contact hours, offered fall, spring and summer at Daytona State. A marketing plan project is required.

Use real data for the plan. Census, BLS, World Bank, and the U.S. Commercial Service are all free, and a plan built on them is worth putting in a portfolio.