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July-August

Pre-study modules should be completed before the start of your programme to ensure you have the prerequisite knowledge needed to succeed on the programme, including Maths, Data Analysis and Marketing Fundamentals. These modules are designed to provide students with a common base of knowledge but do not contribute to your overall grade for the Master’s.

September 

The programme induction week allows you to fully immerse yourself in the Business School experience and meet your cohort. Attendance in person is mandatory.

Year 1 | September-November

When, why and how do people buy (or not buy) a product? When you stop to think about it, product decisions are made every day, some without much thought. Successful marketing leaders develop a core understanding of how their current and prospective customers are driven by psychological factors and react to marketing activities.

In this module, you will develop an in-depth understanding of consumer behaviour through the cutting-edge ideas that are gaining prominence in academia. You will apply these key concepts to develop and evaluate marketing strategies to ultimately predict and change consumer behaviour. Learn through case discussions, guest lectures, experimental demonstrations and projects.

Year 1 | September-November

Digital media and the internet have had a huge impact on marketing practice in recent years, dramatically changing how marketers communicate and interact with consumers, as well as what consumers expect from their relationship with a company. As digital technologies continue to develop in terms of speed, availability and functionality, marketing strategies need to be integrated with digital and interactive tools and practices.

In this module, you will learn how to utilise the latest tools and technologies to identify new opportunities for strategic marketing and analyse online customer behaviour. Search optimisation, paid search, mobile marketing, social media, online advertising, email marketing and e-CRM– you will develop a firm grasp on all of these digital tools. Applying these skills to real examples, you will be able to integrate digital marketing into a communication and marketing plan and unlock a greater level of customer value.

Year 1 | September-November

To excel as a senior level marketer, you must possess a clear understanding of the concepts needed to craft and execute strategy, along with sound knowledge of how to apply financial and operational principles. This module will introduce you to frameworks and real-world examples in marketing strategy, including future thinking, sustainable design, creation of new markets and the diffusion of innovation as key topics.

Equipped with the skills to formulate and execute market-relevant and financially sound strategies for an organisation, you will be able to take an overall view of its future direction and the potential hurdles it faces. Case studies will help to sharpen your skills in identifying strategic challenges for a range of different companies and to evaluate the options open to senior marketing managers in these contexts.

Year 1 | January-March

The growth in collaborative business models, digital innovation and structural shifts in developing markets have accelerated in recent years. To succeed in today’s fast-changing global marketplace, marketing leaders need to deliver winning strategies that engage consumers, accelerate new market success, outperform competitors and embrace disruptive economic models.

This module will teach you the skills to understand shareholder interests and the levers available to drive growth and profit. You will be able to deliver outcomes using practical, applied techniques used by strategy and marketing consultants and industry professionals alike. By drawing on contemporary examples, you will gain the tools to solve a growth challenge. Bring on disruption – you will be ready for it.

Year 1 | January-March

The Marketing Analytics module aims to provide an in-depth insight into the importance that analytics plays in strategic marketing decisions. We consider how strategic marketing questions can be dealt with using marketing analytics. The module covers a selection of state-of-the-art analytic tools used by leading firms to support marketing strategy. You will learn how to apply these tools to actual business situations through hands-on exercises using analytical software.

Year 1 | January-March

Market research is vital to making informed decisions and formulating effective marketing plans. This module examines problem formulation, research design, data collection, data analysis and interpretation of market research results. You will gain the practical skills to design, analyse, interpret and critically evaluate market research studies. This is an important skill for an integrated marketing strategy – market research complements marketing analytics and big data analytics to help solve business problems.

Year 2 | September-November

For marketing practitioners to climb up the organisational hierarchy, they need to understand and influence key financial organisational decisions. This module deals with two key financial aspects: first, pricing products and services strategically, and second, understanding critical topics in financial management from a marketing point of view.

In the finance component of the module, you will look at the reasons why marketers need to understand key financial measures. The pricing part of the module will provide you with an overview of the factors that need to be considered when setting prices and how to develop pricing alternatives. Effective financial management and integrating pricing decisions back into the marketing mix can support the strategic objectives of the organisation as a whole. You will be able to improve cross-function communication, maximise strategic influence within the firm and become a more effective marketer and leader.

Year 2 | September-November

The profitability of a business increasingly depends on two factors: its ability to build and sustain strong relationships with customers and other key stakeholders, and the quality of the services it provides customers. Relationship management is critically important in any industry and is an essential skill for you to master as a marketing professional.

This module equips you with the skills to manage relationships for superior financial performance – focusing on relationships with external customers – consumers, buyers, agents – and internal customers – employees, colleagues, different functional areas and departments. You will gain powerful insights, best practices, and the latest ideas on how to manage relationships for profit, how to sustain trust and loyalty over time, and how to deliver outstanding customer service quality. Using CRM technology, you will discover best practices and innovations in loyalty and service management.

Year 2 | September-November

Firms are increasingly becoming aware that one of their most valuable assets is the brand associated with their products and services. Companies must create strong brands that deliver customer value and maintain and enhance the strengths of those brands over time. So, what is the magic formula behind a successful brand?

In this module you will identify the anatomy of strong brands. Using case studies, you will be able to build, measure and manage brands over time, and discover how to leverage elements of marketing communications to build and strengthen brand equity. This is not just relevant to you as a future marketing leader, but something that sits on the boundary between the firm and the external environment. Brand management is a management imperative – and you can lead the way.

This module provides an in-depth exploration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in marketing and consumer behaviour, blending theoretical foundations with practical applications. You will cover AI fundamentals, including machine learning, algorithms and generative AI, setting the stage for their role in marketing innovation and consumer behaviour.

You will also delve into AI-driven market research, focusing on understanding the customer journey. You will learn how AI enhances content creation and search engine optimisation (SEO), how it is used in creative processes and product development, including idea generation, content creation and graphic design.

You will also explore social AI, learning how to utilise AI for social media strategies, and advanced personalisation, including programmatic advertising, automated email campaigns and chatbot-driven CX optimisation. Ethical concerns related to AI in marketing are examined, alongside discussions on the future of AI, including trends in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), hyper-personalisation and the metaverse.

In this new era of marketing, your brand is defined by those who experience it. Firms are increasingly becoming aware that one of their most valuable assets is the brand associated with their products and services, and that they need to manage the entire brand experience to obtain a competitive advantage.

This module is concerned with building, measuring and managing brand experiences over time. You will learn how to leverage advertising and the other elements of the marketing communications mix to build and strengthen the brand experience. Through learning key theories and concepts you will develop the tools to apply a strategic approach to the design, management and measurement of brand experiences.

Managers are faced with a wealth of data. This module is about turning that data into actionable insights, leading to well-informed decisions for complex business problems.

We show how to build a model of the business situation that recognises its essential features and takes account of uncertainty. These models can be used first to understand what is happening, second to predict what will happen, and finally to make good management decisions that take into account risks arising from management actions.

Throughout the module we will use Excel spreadsheets– so that you will build your skills in this area. The applications are multi-disciplinary with links to finance, marketing and operations.

This module draws from cognitive psychology, decision science and behavioural economics to provide a practical understanding of fundamental processes that drive consumer decision-making and the tools that influence them. Rather than covering a broad range of topics, you will focus on core concepts such as heuristic decision-making, comparisons and context effects, framing, nudging and choice architecture. Emphasis is placed on applying these concepts to real-world contexts and business scenarios through highly interactive lectures and hands-on exercises. Assessment consists of a group project - prepared and presented in class - where you collaboratively apply your learnings to a practical challenge, alongside a very short individual assignment.​

Customers are the most valuable assets of a firm. Many firms have a staggering amount of data on their customers' browsing and buying behaviour, but only few of them have the expertise to use such information to guide their customer engagement strategies. Blending theory with practical examples and case studies, this module aims to firstly provide an overview of key areas in customer engagement and secondly deliver a set of analytical tools for effective customer management. Students will learn how to use a series of marketing frameworks and data analytics to make informed decisions and influence customers hearts, minds and sales.

The module prepares students to visualise and analyse data, and to use analytical and data-driven approaches to make sound management decisions. The module introduces several tools for data manipulation and visualisation, including Excel, Tableau and SQL, with an emphasis on how to ask insightful business questions and analyse data interactively.

Innovation has become an increasingly important tool for organisations because of the rapid evolution in products, services, technologies and business models and the ever more complicated world in which businesses and organisations operate. Innovation is about seeing the world not as it is, but as it could be. Therefore, the ability to innovate rests upon the exploration of problems whose solutions cannot always be found in past experience and proven by data.

Design Thinking is a structured and systematic human-centred approach aimed at solving these complex and ambiguous problems (the so-called “wicked problems”), and at identifying opportunities for innovation. It can be used both for developing new business ideas and for unlocking hidden value in existing products, services and technologies. It can reap benefits like significant economic value creation for stakeholders, meaningful differentiation of products and services, and improved customer experience.

As such, Design Thinking not only represents a powerful way to unleash the creative potential of managers and leaders in organisations, but it is also rapidly becoming a priority for organisations to create and appropriate value.

When we hear “crisis management,” we often think of scandals, business disruptions, and tragedies, such as the emissions-cheating scandal at Volkswagen, leaders’ misconduct at Oxfam, or disasters at Bangladeshi garment factories. Leaders certainly need to be prepared for such acute incidents. However, today's environment demands readiness for a broader range of crises: rapid social media backlashes, crises triggered by the misuse or failure of artificial intelligence systems, or even crises initiated by customer actions - such as viral complaints, consumer boycotts, or coordinated online activism.

Crisis management today extends beyond isolated disasters to include serial challenges, chronic reputational risks, and smaller (yet still significant) threats to brand trust, business continuity, employee morale and shareholder value.

Managing a crisis is no longer the sole domain of PR professionals. Regardless of where you work in your future career, it is increasingly likely that you will be called upon to help navigate a crisis effectively, whether it emerges from external shocks, internal failures, or the unpredictable actions of technology and consumers.

Digital technology and the rapidly growing number of media types are not only transforming how brands can interact and communicate with their stakeholders. They are also reducing the effectiveness of many traditional one-way communication methods and media, which expose consumers and clients to a plethora of marketing messages. While brands used to be influential cultural engineers, social media has enabled consumers to be the dominant cultural innovators. This requires brands to rethink their marketing communications strategies, including the mix of push and pull communications.

This module will give you a solid understanding of the role of and mix of integrated marketing communications and corresponding challenges. You will apply knowledge learned in your core modules to navigate the complex and challenging task of creating integrated marketing communications.

The focus of this leadership module will be to help you become more aware of your personality, your strengths and weaknesses as a leader, and to build on this knowledge to improve your leadership practice through self-development. By the end of the module, you will have learned how to tackle future leadership challenges more effectively.

As data has become one of the most important forces shaping all business fields, firms are increasingly seeking marketing experts with sufficient technical background to make effective data-driven marketing decisions. This module takes a very hands-on approach with real data sets and cases, exposing you to a range of digital marketing problems dealt with using various analytical tools, including machine learning. The goal is to equip you with analytical thinking and a set of applied quantitative marketing skills so that you are best prepared to succeed in the workplace. The module is practical and the extensive use of case studies will help you understand the big-picture of marketing analytics.

This module explores the evidence of how brands grow (and decline) and reveals the metrics that matter when aiming to build bigger and more profitable brands. Over 50 years of research based on buying behaviour data has been sourced from over 170 categories of goods and services from across the world which includes over 3,000 brands. This has revealed ‘law like’ patterns in customers’ buying behaviour that apply to both B2C and B2B businesses and from products to services. These law like patterns also apply to start-ups and new entrants into established categories.

Students will learn to look for these patterns in data (which may not be obvious); learn what these ‘law like’ patterns are and why they are important; learn which marketing metrics they give rise to, and what the strategic implications are for brands and for businesses as a whole.

Great marketing requires great innovation, and innovation is a skill that can be taught. This module explores fundamental and cutting-edge innovation concepts, principles, ideas and theories. You will be exposed to and explore the latest thinking in service design and innovation tools, as well as effective innovation management strategies.

Learn how solutions can be designed and brought to market for products and digital services, as well as develop the skills to appraise a business’ future market orientation, willingness to cannibalise, asymmetric incentives and management of risk. Learn this by examining case studies of marketing innovation efforts that have failed vs succeeded.

Sustainability is not just a buzzword. It is a rapidly evolving concept beyond the financial performance of firms. It emphasises marketing’s role in the welfare of the world’s other stakeholders and institutions. More specifically, sustainable marketing is a major area of social marketing – marketing for the public good.

This module develops a general management viewpoint in planning and evaluating sustainable marketing decisions, from both strategic and tactical perspectives. By appraising the global challenges for sustainable products and corporate actions, you will develop the skills to create and launch a sustainability marketing plan.

Year 2 | May-July

The Applied Strategic Marketing Report is a 3,000-word unsupervised report on a relevant strategic marketing topic. You will be able to choose from a number of report titles which reflect marketing issues and trends discussed throughout the programme.

Year 2 | May-July

The Work-Based Project will help widen your strategic portfolio and demonstrate your marketing expertise by applying problem-solving techniques to a complex strategic marketing challenge. You will develop your skills by addressing a real strategic marketing project from inception to completion. The Work-Based Project can be completed at your current organisation or you can work as a consultant for another company.

Year 2 | May-July

This elective can be taken as an alternative to the Work-Based Project and allows you to identify a company facing a current strategic marketing challenge and provide a background to that organisation. You will present and discuss the marketing issue at hand and outline alternative courses of action, drawing on primary and secondary data and relevant marketing concepts and tools covered in the entire programme.

Year 2 | May-July

Students wishing to study a doctoral programme may undertake an Individual Research Report, with approval from the Academic Director. This constitutes a small piece of research, with an analytical focus, that offers a major opportunity for you to revise and integrate what you have learned on the MSc programme. It will also allow you to demonstrate that you can apply your theoretical knowledge to a real-world context.

You will need to secure a relevant supervisor to be considered.