MA Marketing Communications

• Marketing Communications: You will develop a critical understanding of the development of marketing communications as both an academic discipline and in practice. You will also learn how to apply marketing communications tools, techniques, and theories to develop integrated marketing communications campaigns. In addition, this unit will allow you to experience the parameters and constraints of a client brief, where client issues, tight deadlines, and the limitations of a budget call for ideas that are practical and realistic, as well as creative and original.

• Consumer Insights: Through applied work, you will gain a critical appreciation of the role of theory in generating commercially consumer-viable insights and in marketing communications practice. Understanding consumer culture and behavior for effective marketing communications development and implementation are explored and analyzed.

• Digital Media Strategies: This unit covers the theoretical fundamentals of digital media and communications and the specific skills required to deploy efficient and effective strategies on digital platforms. By the end of the unit, you will be able to develop appropriate, effective, measurable digital media strategies within an integrated marketing communications plan. You will also be able to evaluate and assimilate new digital trends in a constantly moving arena.

• Brands & Branding: This unit aims to consolidate your understanding of why a brand is a strategic asset for an organization; how the support is realized, protected, and valued not as a cost but as a source of revenue/ value. You will also be encouraged to critically reflect upon the role and impact of brands and branding in today’s contemporary society and appreciate how branding and brand communications need to evolve in the world of 24/7/always on connected audiences. You will also be exposed to new and emerging forms of brand communication, such as branded content, branded entertainment, and transmedia storytelling.

• Research in Action: In preparation for your final project, you will gain a broad grounding in social science research methods and the skills needed to rigorously and reflexively design, conduct, report, and evaluate research. You will be exposed to a variety of cutting-edge research practices. You will also be introduced to opportunities and challenges of conducting research using some of the more industry-relevant data collection and analytical methods. 

• Corporate Communications: This unit aims to provide you with a critical understanding of the professional communicator’s role at a strategic level. It covers the complexities of communicating with internal and external audiences to recognize and address challenges in applied communication scenarios. 

• Final Project: You will have the opportunity to critically apply the principles and techniques of systematic research to produce either a piece of scholarly research or to intervene within an organizational setting to solve a practical marketing communications issue. The unit builds upon and consolidates knowledge and experience from all the earlier units in the course. 

You can undertake a 30-week placement at the end of the course, providing an opportunity to apply your acquired knowledge and skills in the workplace. You are required to find your order; however, our Careers & Employability Service and your faculty placements office are on hand to support you.