Marketing Management (Advanced)

The dissertation is the keystone of the Master's in Advanced Marketing Management and involves an in-depth investigation of a specific marketing topic. Various types of organisational projects or research-based dissertations are possible, but whichever you undertake, the process requires you to integrate the key intellectual skills of critical and integrative thinking you have developed through the earlier modules with the philosophical perspectives and research skills which you are exposed to in the methodology classes.

This module is concerned with putting brand management theory into practice by examining a number of real-world brands and case studies. Specifically, the aims of the module are to: create an understanding of the stratified reality and process of brand management action; create awareness of the involved brand management decisions; explore the criteria used to evaluate and monitor brand-related activities. The module explores the role of brand management within organisations and within consumer culture. It presents the types of decisions involved in managing brands and discusses contemporary challenges and opportunities. It contains a range of lectures and case studies and is assessed by group work and examination.

The central aim of this module is to give you the opportunity to develop the crucial skills of criticality and reflexivity – personal capabilities that are crucial whether you are an aspiring marketing manager or marketing academic. The learnings from this module, including a group of three integrated sub-modules, will therefore not only support the development of the capabilities/skills vital in the world of practice but the capabilities/skills that you require for successful engagement with the MSc programme itself. This module opens the programme with development of the skill sets and concludes with Strategic Marketing Management which all students take as the final taught component of the programme.

This module enables you to acquire the knowledge and skills to research markets, and to conduct academic research in marketing, and prepares you for the later dissertation module.

This module aims to equip you with a comprehensive, integrative and critical understanding of marketing. It comprises three sub-modules: Understanding Consumers; Understanding Online Consumer Engagement; Understanding Business Markets. You will engage with the main theoretical perspectives in each area, critically applying this theory to real-world issues and problems. A wide variety of teaching and learning methodologies are utilised.

The digital ecosystem is a dynamic and complex environment. The aim of this module is to provide an up-to-date explanation of this digital context to enable students to understand and analyse the digital environment. The module takes a more analytical perspective building on ideas discussed in an earlier, compulsory social module. This is an applied, “hands-on”, module with both a practitioner, and a research, focus using industry leading analytics tools. Specific aims include: to understand the main elements of the digital marketing ecosystem; be able to provide a critical assessment of digital consumer behaviour and offer conclusions and recommendations for digital marketing activity, in-role as marketing management practitioners; understand at least two analytics approaches in assessing consumer behaviour. This will normally include a quantitative based approach and one based on an analysis of word usage. This is an important dimension as reconciling information from multiple sources is a significant practitioner competency; be able to apply an understanding of digital consumer behaviour, and of digital consumer analytics, to a consumer behaviour research context.

At a time when globalism and nationalism debates are on the rise, successful global firms must adapt to the evolving socio-cultural events and discourses around the world in order to remain relevant in today's dynamic and international marketplace. This module takes the view that the global marketplace is characterised by increasingly diverse, yet interrelated cultures, thus creating new opportunities and challenges for international marketers. Focusing on the consumer and cultural aspects of global marketing management, this module will go beyond the textbook to examine the pluralistic and ever-changing consumer market shaped by globalisation and fragmentation. Specifically, this module is organised around four substantive areas representing the most dominant arenas of international consumer research: (1) cultural convergence versus divergence, (2) the dark side of global consumer culture, (3) cross-cultural research, and (4) the marginalised consumers in the global market.

This module considers global strategic marketing from two thematic perspectives: the internationalisation of the firm and the globalisation of markets. The first theme looks at the way in which firms expand into markets through consideration of the organisational and marketing challenges. This includes market selection, entry mode choice and brand strategy. The second theme looks at the changes that occur in global markets and how this creates a dynamic environment, both positive and negative for international businesses.