Marketing BA (Hons) (with Foundation Year)

The Foundation Year is a great opportunity if you have the ability and enthusiasm to study for a degree, but do not yet have the qualifications required to enter directly onto our degree programmes. A significant part of the Foundation Year focuses upon core skills such as academic writing at HE level, becoming an independent learner, structuring academic work, critical thinking, time management and note taking.

Successful completion of the Foundation Year will enable you to progress into the first year (Level C) of your chosen honours degree. Further details can be found here.

Introduction to Marketing

You will be introduced to the underlying principles of Marketing and the relationship between Marketing and the global business context. Study of this relationship can help to contextualise Marketing theory and practice and further help you understand the dynamics of contemporary marketing management, as you explore concepts such as the marketing mix, segmentation, targeting and positioning, and consumer behaviour.

You will also be introduced to the broader underlying principles of Business Management. You will study four component parts (4Cs) to understanding what a business is (the Company), how it interacts with its environment (the Context), how it serves its customers (the Customers) and how it manages its competition (the Competition). Additionally, in your first year, you will gain an appreciation of fundamental business structures and functions and the management challenges posed by the contemporary and ever complex business environment.

Topics typically studied in this year are:

• The Marketing Mix: (7 Ps: Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People, Process, Physical Evidence)
• Customer segmentation
• Introduction to Business Management Theory & Practice (Major and Single hons)
• Economics
• Analysing Business and Marketing environments
• Introduction to Organisational Behaviour
• Understanding Buyer Behaviour*
• Introduction to Quantitative Research Methods*

In order for you to gain a clear understanding of the applicability of the theoretical marketing knowledge from the very beginning of the academic year, industry speakers and up-to-date organisational applications of marketing will be part of the curriculum. This allows clear links between theory and practice to be made from the very start of your studies.

Explorations in Marketing

Building on your first year, the curriculum in year two explores key issues and marketing concepts in greater depth, advancing your knowledge and understanding to an intermediate level. You will become adept at the use of a number of marketing tools such as the Marketing Plan, Ansoff’s Growth Matrix, The Boston Consultant Group Grid, as well as statistical tools such as SPSS.

On successful completion of this year, you will have developed a critical knowledge and understanding of marketing communications, stakeholder marketing, marketing information and research. In particular, you will have gained a critical understanding of what shapes consumers buying behaviour and how companies harness and exploit these forces to create and capture value from their customers.

Single Honours students will develop a deeper understanding of social media and critically examine the increasingly current area of social marketing and how marketing can be used to influence and change behaviour of both individuals and companies. The areas of retail and relationship marketing will also be investigated.

What you will study:

Social Media

This examines the growing importance of social media marketing. It focuses on social communities and the role that influencers play in affecting consumers’ decisions. The other three zones of social media are explored: social entertainment; social publishing; social commerce. 

Marketing Planning

Market planning is the process of organising and defining the marketing aims of a company and employing strategies and tactics to achieve them. Students will study this crucial area and will examine the complexities of producing a marketing plan – one of a marketing professional’s key tools.

Consumer Behaviour

This studies the activities associated with the purchase, use and disposal of goods and services. The various types of buying behaviour are studied along with the internal and external influences that affect the behaviour, preferences and brand loyalty of consumers.

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)

Students examine how organisations seek to create and effectively communicate a consistent message across a range of communication tools and channels: advertising; PR; direct marketing,; sales promotions; and personal selling. Effective IMC campaigns of prominent organisations are critically analysed.

Marketing Research

The year ends with the study of marketing research techniques. Students examine how organisations collect and analyse data in order to make effective, evidence-based decisions. Concepts such as sampling, measurement of attitude, and questionnaire design are studied.

*If you study Marketing as a Single Honours degree, you will also study:

Social Marketing

Students will study this fast-growing discipline, which uses principles from commercial marketing and the social sciences to change people’s behaviour for the social good and to benefit both individuals and wider society. Campaigns such as “5 A Day” and “Don’t Drink and Drive” are critically analysed.

Sales Management

A number of inter-related concepts such as the motivation of a salesforce, sales forecasting and its relationship with budget setting, and the evaluation of salesforce performance are analysed. 

Relationship Marketing

Students end the year exploring how and why organisations aim to attract, nurture and retain loyal customer bases. Issues such as CRM, data mining, and customer lifetime value are examined.

Advanced Studies in Marketing

Building on previous years, the curriculum in the final year investigates key advances in the academic and professional marketing literature. You will deepen your knowledge and understanding of contemporary issues facing marketers today, as well as increase your knowledge of the leading edge theory and practice being developed for the future.

Examples include the move towards smart living and smart cities, mobile marketing, Big data, developments in conceptualisation of brands, usage and social media influence, and neuro-marketing. Single Honours students also consider how societal and business innovations such as 3D imaging and drone technology will impact on marketing and communications. In order to apply knowledge and skills developed to date on the degree and to allow you to explore an area of marketing that is of particular interest to you, a marketing research project is undertaken. This requires you to become an active researcher, applying the marketing research theory covered in the second year and exploring in detail a specific area of marketing.

What you will study:

Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods

In preparation for the integrated dissertation, students study the various quantitative and qualitative data analysis methods. The various hypothesis testing methods are explored, along with an examination of such techniques as content and thematic analysis.

New Product Development

Organisations expend often huge amounts of time and money on ensuring that new products are adopted successfully in the marketplace and provide a suitable return on investment. Students will analyse the many reasons why new products may fail and how organisations can implement systematic methods to ensure that their new products have a better chance of being successful. Patents, trademarks and copyright are also explored as ways of protecting intellectual property rights and ensuring that new products are protected as they enter the market and grow their revenue streams. 

Brand Management

This block traces the evolution of branding from proto-brands in ancient times through its various incarnations to the brand equity models of Keller Aakers. It then examines the recently adopted belief that brands are co-created and we, as consumers, play a major role in making and breaking a brand.

Services Marketing

Students will explore a number of strategies for designing and managing effective and efficient service processes. The concept of Customer Delight is also examined and when the reverse of this occurs, organisations need to be able to effectively recover the service processes. Students will analyse the various methods of service recovery.

*If you study Marketing as a Single Honours degree, you will also study:

International Marketing

This block considers the motivations and triggers for a company deciding to internationalise and enter new markets. It explores the issues that such a company faces and ways that they can mitigate the risks involved with such issues. It also explores modes of entry into new international markets and the degree to which it needs to adopt its products and marketing to be able to operate effectively in the new market.

Destination Marketing

Students will examine how Destination Marketing Organisations use marketing techniques to promote the benefits of specific cities, regions and countries to travellers before they make their travel choices.

Sensorial Marketing

This block of study examines how retailers can use the five senses to elevate the shopping experience of consumers. We will examine the benefits of creating a hedonic shopping experience, where appropriate, to drive customer footfall and purchasing decisions.

Neuro Marketing

This contemporary area of study explores how our often unconscious physiological reactions to stimuli can drive our buying behaviour. It examines how techniques such as neuro-imaging, eye tracking and facial coding can be utilised by brands to push our “buy button.”