MA Marketing Management (Full Time)

This Masters degree provides you with the insights, skills and knowledge necessary to enter a career in any aspect of marketing management, with a blend of core and option units to suit your interests and requirements.

Course overview

This course provides an in-depth and practical study of a wide range of marketing topics, covered throughout from a strategic, international and ethical perspective. 

You can choose either to follow the Postgraduate Diploma route or complete a dissertation to achieve an MA award – both are universally recognised qualifications and have been rated highly by examiners.

The course gives dual emphasis to a contemporary academic approach and managerial application. An important element of the course is the residential weekend in January where students have the opportunity to work in teams on a strategic business simulation exercise. This is complemented by a consultancy project which enables you to work with business clients and apply theory to a practical problem.

The academically and industrially experienced tuition team provides access to excellent teaching and learning resources, and fully support you through the varied and interesting teaching and assessment programme. A great deal of emphasis is placed on supporting students throughout their studies.

Course content  

The full-time course is structured to enable students to concentrate on their Marketing Dissertation during the summer period. The taught part of the course takes place in periods 1 and 2. Students study four units each in periods 1 and 2 from a list of core and option units.

Core units

Integrated Marketing Communications
This unit critically analyses and evaluates the significance of communication within the marketing management environment. Emphasis is placed on the importance of a holistic approach to communications, the options available to the marketing manager in terms of message vehicle, and tools for evaluating the success of communication in both a marketing and business context.

Contemporary Strategic Marketing Management
This unit examines the development of new marketing strategies, incorporating new technologies and globalisation. It also examines traditional analytical methods, stakeholder management, sustainability, branding relationships, implementation issues and marketing metrics.

Marketing Research and Information Management
This unit examines the theoretical and practical application of marketing research concepts in a variety of contexts. An evaluative macro-micro approach is taken to encourage you to explore the theoretical and practical problems, and to develop actionable solutions.

Services Marketing Management
This unit critically analyses and evaluates the distinctive nature of marketing management within the service sector. Emphasis is placed on the importance of service quality, the service encounter and customer care, and the potential conflict with the operational aspects of services

Marketing Consultancy Project
This unit provides the opportunity for you to demonstrate, in a real world environment, what you have already learned about a specific aspect (or aspects) of marketing. It also enables you to develop useful consultancy skills.

Research Methods and Dissertation
This core module is studied after completion of the taught units and involves researching and writing an academic dissertation of 12–15,000 words. This is supported by an initial proposal of 3,500 words. Students normally explore an area of marketing theory in the context of organisational and/or consumer behaviour. 

Option units
The option units listed below are examples of the units that have run most recently. Option units will be updated periodically to keep pace with modern marketing practices and will also be subject to demand.

Marketing Concepts
This unit comprehensively covers the basic concepts and principles of marketing, using the traditional ‘marketing mix’, segmentation, targeting and positioning, and organisational and consumer buying behaviour. It also introduces services marketing, branding and international marketing.

International Marketing Management
This unit comprehensively covers the basic concepts and principles of marketing, using the traditional ‘marketing mix’, segmentation, targeting and positioning, and organisational and consumer buying behaviour. It also introduces services marketing, branding and international marketing.

Academic English for Graduates
This unit allows students whose first language is not English to develop proficiency in language skills appropriate to academic study in the UK. It also aims to improve your language-related study skills, with an emphasis predominantly on writing and listening.

Contemporary Issues in Marketing
This unit examines the theoretical and practical application of a range of contemporary issues in marketing and marketing management. It aims to relate contemporary issues in marketing management to current and historical marketing theory and practice.

e-Marketing Management
This unit examines the theoretical and practical application of marketing management in an electronic context. Building on traditional marketing theory and utilising the emerging academic and practical literature, you will explore how organisations can utilise e-technology to leverage advantage in today’s competitive marketplace.

Entrepreneurial Marketing Management
This unit covers the nature of entrepreneurship and innovation and the characteristics of entrepreneurial behaviour. It is designed to give you a better understanding of the factors that lead to success in entrepreneurial business and therefore demonstrates the ways in which marketing management techniques can be brought to bear on the key issues in entrepreneurship.

Global Retail Marketing Management 
This unit offers you the opportunity to study the emerging field of global retailing and its impact on marketing dynamics and consumer choice. This is an area of increasing strategic importance to companies operating within both consumer and business-to-business marketing.

Assessment

There is a varied and interesting assessment programme involving in-course individual and group work. There are no examinations. You must pass all eight taught units plus the Research Methods and Dissertation unit in order to gain a masters degree.

Key career skills

Business and client communications, marketing planning, presentation, project management, teamwork, strategy and research.

Projects/work experience

A number of units provide the opportunity to work on live projects for companies. The Consultancy Project, for example, has provided research projects for students to complete on behalf of organisations such as Symantec, Southampton City Council, The Leprosy Mission, the Nuffield Theatre, Cunard and Microsoft.

Placements are available for students during the summer vacation where there is an opportunity to work closely with a UK business, and by agreement, undertake research for the dissertation.

Solent's special features

• MA graduates automatically qualify for membership of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). For existing Members of the CIM, the MA and Postgraduate Diploma may contribute CPD points towards Chartered Marketer Status.
• A high quality internationally-recognised programme of strategic marketing management, which includes a consultancy project with a business client.
• Our emphasis on employability means, that through close links with the CIM, with employers and industry experts, we can provide the vital blend of academic with commercial and public sector experience.
• This course has two intakes per year, September and January. Students starting in September will take 12 months to complete; those starting in January will take 16 months, with a four-month break between May and October.
• Supported by Lawton Communications, Carswell Gould and the Institute of Commercial Management, plus guest speakers and Visiting Fellows from industry and commerce.
• Option available: language
• Field trips: Normandy Business School ESC, Le Havre.

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Fees

Fees for the 2011-2012 academic year are:

Full Time: UK and EU students - £4,400; Overseas students - £9,400

 

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