Marketing MSc

Royal Holloway, University of London

This module will describe the key principles of academic integrity, focusing on university assignments. Plagiarism, collusion and commissioning will be described as activities that undermine academic integrity, and the possible consequences of engaging in such activities will be described. Activities, with feedback, will provide you with opportunities to reflect and develop your understanding of academic integrity principles.

In this module you will develop an understanding of how consumers consume brands. You will look at current ideas within marketing and consumption scholarship and practice, considering the centrality of brands to commercial practice and everyday living. With a focus on critical engagement, you will learn about branding and consumption theory, incorporating current thinking on the strategic management of brands, consumer behaviour and its role within general marketing practice, recent theoretical formulations concerning brand culture and consumer culture, and how personal experiences, relationships and identities are partly organised and mediated by the consumption of brands and their immanence in a constantly evolving symbolic order.

The dissertation provides you with an opportunity to learn and practise researching and writing skills for your future career. You will apply the analytical and problem-solving techniques you have acquired throughout your studies to explore a specialist interest in greater depth. You will critically evaluate academic literature, collect data systematically, organise your findings, and present your research results in a clear and logical and manner. To help, your research proposal will be read by the programme director, who will select an appropriate member of staff to act as your dissertation supervisor. Your final submission will be between 12,000 and 15,000 words in length.

In this module, you will develop an understanding of core marketing concepts in order to help you develop a thorough understanding of marketing. You will apply marketing theories and frameworks to assess the effectiveness of strategic approaches. You will explore and critically evaluate the theory and applications of marketing concepts. You will also develop a solid working knowledge of the strategic marketing concepts, methods and practices, and apply this knowledge to practical problems and variety of contexts in analytic and creative ways.

In this module you will develop an advanced understanding of marketing management principles. You will look at marketing not just as practical field, but also as an intellectual tradition strongly associated with values of neo-liberalism and managerial ideology. You will explore the practical utility, ethical status and intellectual standing of traditional marketing concepts and principles. You will also consider marketing topics in the media through blogs, the trade press, newspapers and other popular sources, in order to appreciate marketing topics within their cultural context.

This module will help you to prepare for your dissertation with useful theoretical and practical lessons in research methods. You will develop your analytical and technical research skills, reflecting critically upon the theoretical and philosophical assumptions of the underlying research methodologies. You will develop an understanding of the ethical considerations when conducting research, and will learn how to write a structured research proposal that will form the basis of your dissertation.