MarketingMA

Digital Marketing and Social media

This module will equip you with Masters-level skills and awareness of the challenges and opportunities within the everchanging digital ecosystem. You will be able to critically explore the theoretical frameworks and models which are relevant to digital and social media marketing practice. You will look at the development and planning of supporting technologies for digital marketing and examine digital channels and their suitability for inclusion for effective integrated marketing programmes and campaigns.

The module aims to:

- enable you gain a comprehensive understanding of digital and social media marketing techniques applicable to marketing theory and practice, research and advanced scholarship.

- provide you with an understanding and the development of critical awareness of current theoretical research in digital and social media for the evaluation and effectiveness of different tools and technologies in digital and social media marketing.

- enhance your cognitive/intellectual, transferable digital practical skills and applied decision-making skills needed successful career in digital and social media marketing.

Marketing Research in Practice

The module provides you with practical insight into research methods and techniques utilised by both marketing practitioners and marketing academics. The module will introduce you to different ontological, epistemological and axiological assumptions as well as methodology, methods and techniques. Besides learning the basics of research problem formulation, literature review and questionnaire design, sampling and methods for data collection, the module will introduce you to a variety of statistical methods using the latest version of SPSS/Excel and qualitative data analysis techniques, with an emphasis on the interpretation and use of results. You will be able to address reliability and validity issues in qualitative and quantitative research.

The module will also prepare you to undertake a compelling and persuasively argued research proposal, fulfilling both academic and professional standards.

The module aims to:

- Critically explore the nature and role of marketing research in the research process.
- Provide an understanding of the marketing research approaches appropriate for
providing effective solutions to a variety of marketing problems.
- Provide practical research experience and prepare students for their marketing dissertation research/ Business Consultancy Project.

Public Relations Strategy & Planning

You will gain the knowledge and key industry-standard skills needed to help you develop a successful career within the growing and dynamic public relations (PR) industry. The module provides you with an opportunity to develop and improve your public relations campaign planning and management skills from a position of knowledge and clarity of objectives that a fundamental grasp of communications strategy should deliver.

You will analyse and discuss how communications strategy is best served from a position of well informed and thorough research into stakeholders, combined with a solid grasp of the external (economic/political/social etc) and internal (management/systems/morale etc) environments faced by an organisation.

You will be supported and encouraged to conduct appropriate research to help them plan and design a communications plan for a real-world organisation

As part of this approach, you will also be introduced to contemporary communications theory and practice with the expectation that you will examine how these have been impacted by new-technology, political upheaval, subsequent changes in consumer perception and disruptive trends in the global economy.

Such an approach is geared to providing you with a greater awareness of the need for 21st century communications professionals to continue to analyse trends and predict their consequences with the aim of implementing planned programmes of action which will serve both organisational and public interests.

Retail Design, Buying and Merchandising

In this module, you will be introduced to the concept of retail design as an intrinsic part of marketing strategy in order that you acquire a sophisticated and theoretically informed understanding of how the various players in the retail environment interact in catering to consumers’ needs in addition to maximising profitability.

You will address those elements of the commercial process that determine the nature of the transactional interface with the consumer. It will also enable you to integrate academic models pertaining to the scope and function of the buying and merchandising processes that determine not only the availability of products but also the manner in which these are perceived.

The aims of this module are to:

• Develop a critical awareness of, and introduce a range of theoretical approaches to, issues extant in contemporary retail design, buying and merchandising.

• Propose insights into the differentiated decision-making processes of commercial practice and furnish students with understandings of buying behaviours across a fast-changing retail environment.

• Foster creativity in the application of knowledge, developing sophisticated techniques of research enquiry and contributing to practical understanding of the field in order to advance scholarship.

• Facilitate students in gaining a holistic overview of professional practice in a range of consumer-facing contexts within the global marketing context.

• Enhance cognitive, practical, academic and transferable skills (time-management; problem-solving; numeracy; creativity; written, verbal & visual communication) together with applied decision-making abilities needed for a successful career in marketing and other related disciplines.

Strategic Marketing Management

This module critically explores the strategic aspect of marketing management. It includes the essentials of marketing theory and offers a structured approach to identifying, understanding and solving marketing problems. The concepts, principles and frameworks examined in the module apply nationally and internationally to a wide range of organisations and sectors.

Module aims:

•To define and evaluate the dimensions of strategic marketing management and its impact on the achievement of long-term objectives in order to gain competitive advantages.
•To provide an understanding of the complex nature of marketing strategy and critically evaluate theories, concepts, tools and models in marketing strategy.
•To broaden students’ understanding of the environment in which marketing decisions are made.
•To enable students to formulate, evaluate and select from alternative marketing strategies to solve marketing issues and problems whilst developing associated strategic decision-making skills.

Understanding Consumer Behaviour

The module will enable you to gain an in-depth understanding of the buyer decision-making process and the factors influencing consumer buying behaviour. You will examine relevant consumer behaviour concepts, principles, and frameworks applied across business sectors and cultural boundaries. The main focus is to develop the link between theory and practical application.

The module aims and learning outcomes have been formulated in relation to these QAA benchmark statements.

The aims of the module are to:
• Critically explore the marketing implications of psychological personal and group influences of consumer behaviour from a customer perspective.
• Enable students to select and apply appropriate tools for analysing consumer behaviour, and evaluate the links between consumer analysis and marketing strategy.
• Foster a critical awareness and understanding of contemporary issues and trends in consumer behaviour studies and their application to marketing campaign.
• Enhance students’ cognitive, transferable and applied decision-making skills needed for a successful career in marketing and consumer analysis.

Business Consultancy Project-portfolio assessment

This module provides you with the opportunity to work on specific business issues that organisations are facing. Utilising your competences of handling and managing business challenges, starting from problem identification and concluding with solution-related recommendations, thus encouraging research into real world business issues impacting organisations.
Useful and applied business research, like useful reflection, leads to change. To that end, students will be encouraged to take a pragmatic approach to their research, seeking always to create actionable conclusions of value to business managers, owners and entrepreneurs.
The aims of the module are to:
1. Foster a critical awareness and deep interest in a management/business issue or topic associated with their subject specialist area and to combine knowledge and analyses acquired in modules to explore that topic in depth
2. Enable students to produce a full business research report and a management summary on an appropriate topic to a professional and engaging standard that provides the basis for action.
3. Encourage reflection to critically evaluate the success of a business-related project and assess personal competence in the light of current knowledge and skills.
4. Build each student’s knowledge and confidence in their chosen subject to facilitate employability.
The expectation is that students will undertake research in areas of interest to them that is in context to their chosen programme and that develops knowledge and skills that support employment. Examples of possible areas of research include:
• Evaluation of an opportunity to enter a new market e.g. is it feasible for a low cost airline to enter the market in Brazil?
• Evaluation of a specific firm’s strategy and performance e.g. how is Ford responding to the advent of electric vehicles, driverless technology and ride sharing?
• Analysis of the impact of technology change on a company, industry or sector e.g. how will driverless technology and ride sharing impact on car ownership?
• Analysis of trends to create potential strategic scenarios for a firm or industry e.g. what are the future scenarios for law firms in the light of the adoption of AI?
• Analysis of competition in a specific market or industry e.g. global competition in the rapidly growing e-bike industry
• Identifying solutions to a specific business problem e.g. with a small or medium sized business e.g. what needs to be done to grow the business to the next level
• Analysis of disruption in an industry and the implications for a specific incumbent e.g. how should a black cab driver respond to Uber and other ride sharing platforms?
• Analysis of the effect of government intervention in a particular industry e.g. the current trade dispute over subsidies to Boeing and Airbus
• Response from Banks and FIs to the changing customer interaction and business landscape in the post pandemic era

Dissertation

This module provides students with the opportunity to undertake research projects on specific research questions related to their course.

Students will critically investigate issues cognate to their programme of study. The aim will be to make proposals or recommendations for the future and / or a contribution to extant theory.

Students are expected to utilise appropriate investigative techniques and standards of data collection and analysis as they write their postgraduate research-based dissertation.

The dissertation will be 10,000 words in length.

The dissertation module has the following aims:

1. To facilitate a detailed investigation of one area or topic within the subject field;

2. To develop a thorough analysis and synthesis of theory, policy and practice in relation to the chosen topic;

3. To provide an opportunity for critical reflection on the research topic.

The expectation is that students will undertake research in areas of interest to them that is in context to their chosen course; the research supervisor will be allocated by the subject area within which the course is located.