Skill Upgrade's Professional Review
The Section4:
Brand Strategy Sprint
Will the Section4 Brand Strategy Sprint help you learn their secrets?
Read on to find out in our review of the course.
Last Updated: May 30, 2022
4.8 out of 5 Stars
Skill Upgrade Rating
What do Apple, Coca-Cola, Nike, Disney, and Google have in common? Powerful brands.
Almost everyone on the planet can instantly recognize these names and what they stand for. Their brand strategy is so effective and powerful, securing the loyalty of die-hard customers and building entire lifestyles around their core.
Reviews of the Section4 Brand Strategy Sprint with Scott Galloway
Pathrise: A review of Section4 bootcamp
Pathrise is an online program that provides mentorship, training, and career advice to tech professionals.
“Students in the brand strategy course learn to optimize marketing by making smart branding decisions,” reads their review. “The program runs for 3 weeks and features a flexible schedule with lots of self-paced learning. Students get access to 3 live workshops with Q&As, 9 recorded video lessons, guest lectures, and 11 recorded video case studies that explain the branding strategies behind top companies like Uber.”
The company also recommends Section4 to students with some background in business, marketing, or product management.
“The curriculum was designed by an NYU marketing professor, who also serves as the lead instructor. Students learn to identify a brand’s strengths, audit brands, create roadmaps for future brand strategies, improve a firm’s value proposition, and communicate this value proposition through a brand. The curriculum also covers practical skills students can use in their current roles like optimizing their own personal brand and making actionable recommendations for resource allocation based on brand strategy.”
Pathrise recommends The Section4 Brand Strategy Sprint to “current marketing, product, or business professionals seeking to change or level up their careers” and “people seeking a short online program with lots of self-paced video content they can review anytime”. They also think the case studies would be especially helpful to people who learn best through real-world examples.
“However, people looking for guidance with their job search or personalized, 1-on-1 attention would not be a good fit,” reads the review.
Pathrise also points out that, since the Section4 Brand Strategy Sprint has an enrollment schedule due to the live sessions with Galloway, you might have to join a waitlist to get in the class.
Business Insider: Popular NYU professor Scott Galloway has a new course on business strategy anyone can sign up to take — I took away MBA-like insights for way less money than going to business school
“If you want to learn from a well-known business professor about how the most successful companies of the 20th and 21st centuries got to where they are now, this is a great course,” says Business Insider writer Breton Fischetti, who reviewed the course.
“If you listen to Scott [Galloway] anywhere you can find him, then you know that his way of thinking about business is unique, and I value the insights,” Fischetti writes. “He’s spent a lot of time studying the most valuable companies in the world, and the way he thinks about marketing, branding, and their business models now and in the future always gives me a new perspective.”
“He’s also an incredibly engaging personality and teacher, so five hours of him talking about the characteristics of trillion-dollar companies made me think about the company I work for differently. If you are a regular listener of any of his podcasts, you may hear some of the same topics and themes discussed. But even considering that, I still took quite a bit away from the course that you couldn’t otherwise get without spending hours listening to him and piecing it together.”
Fischetti praised the “classroom feel” that the course delivered, noting that he enjoyed discussing the lessons with other students from different countries and industries. However, he advised learners looking for an MBA-level experience to manage their expectations.
“This class teaches you a framework for how to think about business in general, the business you work for, or the business you may want to start or run. It is not a shortcut to building a successful company, nor is it a full MBA. The hard part comes after, which is to take these themes and apply them to your real-world scenario.”
Overall, Fischetti firmly believes that the course, which cost $750 at the time of writing, was worth the money.
“If you want to learn from a well-known business professor about how the most successful companies of the 20th and 21st centuries got to where they are now, this is a great course.”
Student Reviews of The Section4 Brand Strategy Sprint with Scott Galloway
Unlike other online education providers, Section4 does not have any student reviews on its website. There aren’t a lot of reviews yet, but so far, it seems like the students appreciate Galloway’s approach to education, as well as the diversity of their cohorts.
“Extremely well-organized online for both peer discussion and Prof Galloway lectures, fantastic content. Diverse cohort gets split into interest groups,” writes 2021 graduate Jordi in his review on EDUopinions.
“On the downside for non-US students, tat the lectures tend to be scheduled quite late in the day in the European timezone. However, all lectures get recorded—useful if you are an early bedtime person.”
Another student, Lee Odess, detailed his Section4 Brand Strategy Sprint experience on LinkedIn.
“It allowed me to create a space to think about my business, reflect, and put thoughts and strategy into practice. The structure was great, and the format gave me what I needed to work on my business,” he wrote.
“You will not only walk away with practical tools for your own business, but it [will also] make you look at general business differently.”
However, he found the live sessions a bit underwhelming, perhaps due to his familiarity with Galloway’s content. “I got useful nuggets of info, but it came from [the] QA, not from the presentation.”
Despite this, Odess believed that the course will only get better as time goes by.
“I recommend it for anyone no matter where you are at with your career. Good ROI. [The] structure and content are excellent. Creates a space to work on your business.”
Should You Enroll in The Udacity Business Analytics Nanodegree?
This is a beginner-level course and does not require any qualifications, knowledge, programming experience, or other prerequisites. Anyone with basic computer skills and the ability to navigate the internet can enroll in this nanodegree.
The Business Analytics Nanodegree from Udacity is perfect for you if:
- You are just getting started in or want to enter data science
- Your current role or a role you are applying for demands basic data skills
- You are interested in applying analytics to spot areas for improvement, assess performance, and gain better insights for future planning
- You want to pursue higher studies or a career in data analytics
What is the Section4 Brand Strategy Sprint?
At the end of the course, you are expected to submit your own case study based on what you’ve learned from the course. Throughout the course, you’ll encounter sample case studies from previous students. You can review these to get a feel of what you want your final project to be about.
The Section4 Brand Strategy Sprint uses a pass-or-fail evaluation system for its final project. If you pay attention to the lessons and put in the effort, you should be able to get through this requirement. You’ll receive a certificate of completion if you watch all the course videos and if you pass the final project.
What Will I Learn in This Program?
The Section4 Brand Strategy Sprint is structured around the eight strategic areas that successful companies focus on to fuel their growth.
“People don’t buy products. They buy brands.”
The Brand Strategy Sprint from Section4 is a three-week intensive course designed to help you drive value with your brand strategy. The program helps learners identify the core emotion at the heart of their brands, discover the traits that set their brands apart from their competitors, and tell a resonant brand story that will boost customer loyalty.
The Course Structure
There are four modules, with each module covering two topics:
Module 1
- Appealing to Human Instinct
- Serving as a Career Accelerant
Module 2
- Balancing Growth & Margins
- Rundles (Recurring Revenue Bundles)
Modules 3
- Vertical Integration
- Benjamin Button Products
Module 4
- Likeability
- Visionary Storytelling
Each module consists of four approximately 30-minute on-demand videos and related resources such as readings, podcasts, and sample projects. There are also two live lectures from Galloway—one at the midway point and another towards the end—as well as two group study sessions, all held on Zoom.
You will also be placed in a Slack group with other students in similar job roles. It’s a great networking opportunity, allowing you to pick each other’s brains about how you can apply what you’ve learned in your respective careers.
Tuition Fees
Subscribing to Section4 costs USD 995 per year. This includes unlimited access to all Section4 courses, including the Brand Strategy Sprint.
Are Scholarships Available?
Yes. Every month, Section4 sets aside some membership slots for scholars. Applications close on the 25th of every month, and the scholarships are awarded on the first of the following month.
Discounts for the Udacity Business Analytics Nanodegree
Section4 often offers discounts of up to 75%, helping students save hundreds of dollars. You can get personalized discounts when you sign up for the program.
Who Is Scott Galloway: The Instructor of the Section 4 Brand Strategy Sprint?
The course instructor is Section4 founder Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at the NYU Stern School of Business and the author of bestselling books The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google and The Pursuit of Happiness. He is also a serial entrepreneur—he founded the marketing consultancy firm Prophet and the digital intelligence firm L2 Inc, which was acquired by Gartner in 2017, among a handful of other firms.
Over the past few years, Galloway’s notoriety has risen thanks to Pivot, the leading tech and media podcast he hosts with Kara Swisher. He also rose to fame thanks to an article he wrote criticizing WeWork’s S-1filing. As a result of backlash from Galloway and others, WeWork’s board stepped in, removed the CEO, and shelved plans to go public.
Galloway’s stellar credentials, along with his massive influence in the realms of business, marketing, and e-commerce as a prolific content creator, make him more than qualified to teach Section4’s Brand Strategy Sprint.
Weighing The Pros and Cons
The Pros
- Perfect introductory program for people with basic knowledge of marketing and business
- Hands-on, immersive training
- Taught by one of the top marketing thought leaders in the world
- Engaging curriculum with several case studies
- Livestreamed sessions with Scott Galloway
- Diverse, international learning cohort
- Helpful, attentive TAs
The Cons
- $995 for just 3 weeks of learning is awfully high. However, you can make the most of it by signing up for other Section4 courses during your year-long membership.
- While Scott Galloway is an impressive speaker, the program is a huge cohort – so you’re really interacting with your peers and TAs and not Professor Galloway
Final Thoughts
Though Section4 is still a relatively new school, it already enjoys a great reputation among students and industry folks. There’s a lot of buzz about the Brand Strategy Sprint, mainly due to its famous instructor. The live sessions give learners a rare opportunity to hear directly from Scott Galloway and pick his brain about marketing and business.
The best time to enroll in the Section4 Brand Strategy Sprint is when you’re still at the beginning of your career—you’ll take away invaluable knowledge about the factors that will help a brand succeed in the digital age, as well as how to strategically drive value to your company.
With the Section4 Brand Strategy Sprint under your belt, you’ll be challenged to elevate the way you build your brand.