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Franco De Cesare

  • Adjunct Professor of Marketing

Franco De Cesare is an award-winning creative, marketing, and business executive, with over three decades of leadership experience in the entertainment, gaming, and tech industries. He has led marketing and business functions at blue-chip companies, such as Meta, Sony, 20th Century Fox, Nintendo, DreamWorks, and Unilever.

Franco has developed brand and go-to-market strategies for some of the most beloved brands, like PlayStation, Star Wars, Avatar, Shrek, The Simpsons, James Bond, Pokemon, GTA, and many other billion-dollar franchises. Franco’s marketing work has won multiple creative awards, and his campaigns led to wins of both the Cannes Lions Award, as well as the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or.

After a multi-national career spent living in several countries, Franco now lives with his family in L.A. and teaches as an adjunct professor of marketing at USC Marshall School of Business, while also fulfilling Fractional CMO roles in the gaming, entertainment, and tech space.

Franco De Cesare
Press Inquiries: COMMUNICATIONS@MARSHALL.USC.EDU

Departments

Marketing

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COURSES

Spring 2025
  • MKT-461
    Marketing in the Entertainment Industry
    Examine the marketing of products and brands in the entertainment industry (including movies, TV shows, music and video games).
  • MKT-499
    Marketing in the Gaming Industry
    This course will help students gain a deeper understanding of gaming marketing by examining the marketing mix (i.e., product, price, place, and promotion) across the global gaming industry. Class sessions will cover topics traditionally crucial to the marketing of games, such as launch marketing (for specific titles), consumer insights (targeting and segmentation) and brand management (for Gaming Platforms/Consoles), as well as the critical importance of data analytics, performance marketing (user acquisition and retention) and community engagement (through social and owned/earned community platforms).
Fall 2024
  • MKT-461
    Marketing in the Entertainment Industry
    Examine the marketing of products and brands in the entertainment industry (including movies, TV shows, music and video games).
Spring 2024
  • GSBA-552
    Problem Solving and Decision Making: An Integrative Approach
    An integrative, multi-disciplined and immersion-based approach to addressing unstructured business situations and imperfect data using a variety of analytical tools and critical thought processes.
  • MKT-499
    Special Topics
    Current developments in the field of Marketing; topics to be selected each semester.
Fall 2023
  • MKT-461
    Marketing in the Entertainment Industry
    Examine the marketing of products and brands in the entertainment industry (including movies, TV shows, music and video games).