This course helps students understand the strategies about building, managing, and protecting brands. Specific areas covered include brand equity, brand value, forming customer relationships around a brand, as well as creating and sustaining brand loyalty. Social media's influence has extended to many spheres of life and today's younger generations are more skeptical of marketing and not as brand loyal as were the previous generations. The course explores how to develop better consumer-brand relationships that can create a clear competitive advantage as branding is becoming more participatory and experiential between customers and organizations.