Marketing and Brand Management MSc

Oxford Brookes University

You will explore the role and usage of contemporary brand and marketing communications and the fundamental insight that an organisation's brand strategy needs to be at the heart of all its marketing communications activities. A professional and ethically responsible focus will help you to consider multiple stakeholders' needs – eg consumers, businesses, the media, pressure groups – in a global context. A broad range of marketing communications channels and tools will be critically assessed. This includes advertising, public relations, sponsorship and digital marketing communications. Creative and strategic insights from current practice will help your understanding and application of marketing communications skills.

You have the opportunity to link theory to practice by analysing a real organisational issue. Having identified a project (with the approval of both the client company and the Module Leader) you investigate a particular issue, one that can be supported through the relevant literature and by conducting primary research with the client. This module is not an internship but can be taken in conjunction with an internship you have identified and are participating in. The 'issue' in question may be current management problem for the client organisation or related to future strategic choices. The Client project provides you with a significant learning and personal development experience.

Digital technologies have transformed marketing, they offer new sources of customer insight, they have dramatically changed customer behaviour, enabled new business models and impacted how organisations interact with their customers and key stakeholders. This module aims to take a strategic perspective of the digital and social media environment. It focuses on the interaction between consumers, businesses and other organisations and how thinking digitally can assist in effective marketing. Web based media, mobile platforms, social media and digital tools are reviewed, practised and critically evaluated to identify successful performance and to create contemporary digital marketing strategies.

The dissertation is an opportunity for you to explore and develop expertise in brand management. You are encouraged to choose a topic that will be valuable in your future career. This is a self-managed activity, with you driving your own research project, with guidance and advice by a supervisor, based on the proposal developed in the Research Methods in Marketing module.

You will build on the Principles of Marketing module, and explore the global marketing environment. There is a particular emphasis on internationalisation and the creation and development of global markets. You will understand the principles, influences, and institutions affecting the development of international trade and global marketing strategies. You will analyse opportunities and constraints in the context of global marketing strategy, and the associated organisational and control issues associated with the development of global markets. This includes an appreciation of the importance of ethical and social issues.

This module introduces the key principles of marketing by studying the theories that underpin the subject. You will explore the roles of buyers, the marketing environment, and the ways in which marketers plan, manage, implement and monitor marketing programmes in the context of the international environment of the 21st century.

This professional and academic skills development module helps you to become a lifelong learner and enhances your employability. Starting with a focus on how to achieve your best academically, you will then develop your skills for employment and career planning. You will work through a self-development plan, taking the lead in your own learning and development. You will be coached in identifying, engaging in and reflecting on how you can gain from developmental activities within the University and externally.

This module delivers the skills that enable you to conduct marketing research independently. Students on the MSc programmes are expected to undertake effective research drawing upon a range of secondary and primary data sources in the preparation of coursework. It is important that you are exposed to a range of methodological issues, data collection techniques and study skills. In addition, this module is geared towards the preparation for, and successful completion of, high quality, rigorous and systematic research for business and management.

You will examine how brands are created and successfully managed. You will explore the latest research and practice in strategic brand management and focus on innovative approaches to new product development. Key ethical, environmental and socio-cultural implications for contemporary brand management are analysed within regional, national and global contexts. The latest research and practice in strategic brand management and the use of social media and digital communications technology, is investigated. On completing this module, you will have gained an advanced knowledge of the latest tools, techniques and broader societal implications of contemporary strategic brand management.

You will critically appraise the behaviours of customers and their interactions with marketing. Informed by behavioural science, you will analyse why customers behave as they do and how marketing activity influences their behaviours. This analysis informs your critical understanding and implementation of both strategic and responsible marketing practice. An innovative dimension of this course is the investigation of change agents that will significantly influence the behaviours of customers in the future, for example neuroscience, climate change and technology innovation. This is an analytical module that utilises research evidence to inform evaluation, behavioural and communications research.