Principles of Marketing introduces you to the central philosophies of marketing thinking and practice. Topics covered include the marketing concept, the marketing mix and the theories of segmentation, targeting and positioning. This is because attracting customers and successfully meeting their needs are at the heart of any successful business organisation. The module will introduce you to a number of the basic building blocks of marketing.

Understanding Consumer Markets encourages you to develop an awareness of the need for market intelligence and a knowledge of the mechanisms by which market intelligence is gathered. This module focuses on the nature of information required to make informed marketing decisions, the methods used to gather such information, the ways of interpreting and applying the resulting data and the means by which the information is stored and retrieved.

Fundamentals of Marketing Communications addresses some of the central themes in marketing. The purpose of marketing communications is to influence and encourage customers to accept or adopt goods, services or ideas. This is achieved through promotional activities in a variety of forms including advertising, selling, sales promotion, public relations and direct marketing. This module introduces these communication tools alongside the range of media options.

Introduction to Digital Marketing recognises that the ubiquity of the internet has changed much of our consumption and has also affected marketing substantially. The module introduces a broad range of topics in the area of digital marketing including website marketing, social media marketing, e-commerce and digital advertising. You will examine how organisations can best use digital marketing to influence consumers and customers, discuss theoretical concepts and apply them to the development of digital marketing strategy, and identify issues related to the planning, design and implementation of digital marketing.

Business Economics covers the basic principles of micro- and macro-economics. The micro element will provide a theoretical base, and thus allow for the study of organisational behaviour in the marketplace. The macro element will equip you with an understanding of the broader national and international environment in which business operates.

Business Start-Up is a review of entrepreneurial skills and small business development through theoretical concepts of enterprise, self-employment and small business management, evaluating differing environments within which enterprise operates. This includes the rise of the digital economy. The module will provide you with an awareness of emergent business types and their markets and the factors behind small business start-ups, entry routes, funding and barriers.

Marketing Research is a hands-on project where you will work as part of a small group to design and undertake a small scale practical research project. Marketing research is a crucial means of enhancing marketing decisions by providing relevant, timely and accurate information. Such information allows organisations to identify and define marketing opportunities and marketing problems, while also initiating appropriate marketing responses. The module provides you with the opportunity to conduct a real life marketing research project from conception to analysis, enhancing both your practical skills and understanding of the research process.

Research Methods for Business are crucial to personal, academic and vocational development. Employers are increasingly looking for graduates who have specific skills, including those significantly developed through learning about methods of research. This module introduces these methods and considers how they are required to undertake specific academic projects, enhance knowledge and understanding, and address specific business issues and practical managerial problems.

Retail Marketing Planning recognises that effective marketing planning is essential for all organisations. This module offers you the opportunity to place tactical marketing activities in the context of the marketing planning process. Specifically, this module provides you with the opportunity to examine the complex nature of marketing planning for organisations in the retail sector which constitutes a dynamic and vital element of the British economy.

Branding: Integrated Digital Campaigns is designed to link brand strategy and positioning to the creative aspects of branding, thus preparing you for the marketing, marketing communications and branding industry by building a clear bridge between creative solutions and formulating strategy. The module requires you to examine the elements required to build successful brands and specifically the use of traditional and contemporary media.

Employability encourages you to contextualise and evaluate theoretical perspectives in a practical setting while at the same time providing an alternative learning environment which informs your future learning processes and outcomes. Workplace experience is increasingly seen as essential in contributing to graduate employability. It is an opportunity to hone employability skills, relate theory to practice and gain experience in a working environment. The module is designed to enhance your understanding, skill-base, personal development, aptitude for self-promotion and ability to reflect upon your experience in the workplace. It will also help familiarise you with professional business etiquette.

Graduate Enterprise enables you to experience running your own company with a number of your colleagues. You can create your own product or service, launch it into the marketplace and experience at first hand the issues faced by small business owners. You will be supported by your own business consultant who is on secondment from industry and the full resources of the Graduate Enterprise Company.

Social Media Monitoring and Analytics equips you with an appreciation of the need for analytics in the market place. As companies are collecting large amounts of data, marketing decisions made by them have become more data-oriented. More and more companies are now heavily investing in marketing analytics. Therefore, analysing the ‘digital footprints’ in a meaningful manner is essential. Due to the unstructured nature of data, understanding behavioural patterns is complex. This module will provide a background understanding of analytics in relation to marketing strategy and communication.

Services and Experiential Marketing examines the implementation of marketing concepts, theories and practices to organisations operating in today’s increasingly competitive environment. As the number of products and services increases, the marketplace as a whole becomes increasingly competitive and crowded. This, coupled with the shift from manufacturing based economies to largely service-based economies, has resulted in a raft of new challenges for today’s marketers. You will develop an understanding of the nature and role intangible elements play in creating value for consumers, critically analyse the major differences between the marketing of services and physical goods, and apply and evaluate a range of relevant services marketing and experiential marketing theories and tools to organisational situations.

Consumer Behaviour considers the factors that influence what, where and when consumers buy and what they buy. Understanding the factors that affect buying behaviour enables marketers to predict the response of customers to marketing strategies. This knowledge can then be fed into the design and innovation process for new products and marketing campaigns. In addition, you will examine the issues of increasing consumerism and addictive shopping behaviours.

Loyalty Generation and CRM centres on how Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is about building relationships with customers in order to develop and build loyalty and so keep customers for longer. This drives higher profits and keeps competitors out. The module introduces CRM, its impact on business strategy, users’ activity, and firm process and functionality. You will also examine CRM commercial packages.

Convergent Media examine the digital communication landscape – for example, the Internet, blogs, social networking, mobile communication and virtual worlds such as Second Life. Additionally, drawing on the concept of guerilla advertising, you will investigate the impact new media forms such as viral marketing and interactive branding have on audience reception and participation. There has been an explosion of the ways in which consumers are contacted both digitally and through conventional media such as print, radio and television. Convergence of media creates new problems and opportunities for brands.  The module therefore intends to evaluate all of the key channels used for communicating. The aim is to ascertain how these channels are evolving while also examining how integration can take place and evolve, lessening channel conflict and dissonance in communication.

Analysing Audiences provides you with a range of approaches to the understanding of audiences and methods of researching and theorising those audiences. You will experience a range of texts in a variety of media. Consideration will be given to the role of the media producer in audience creation and evolution, including the role of new media and new technology in the creation of contemporary audience practices.

Media and PR in the Digital Age introduces you to current debates on the role of digital media and explores the various uses that digital media has in PR in maintaining personal or organisational reputation and in professional advancements in the creative industries. You will master the practical and theoretical aspects of PR in a multimedia landscape and, if you wish to specialise in digital multimedia, will learn how to avoid the pitfalls of digital communication and how to use blogs and networking platforms effectively. The module will also develop your writing and communication skills tailored for digital platforms.

Crisis Management looks at a number of theoretical models relating to how crises develop, to the analysis of crisis situations and to the management of crisis. It focuses on reputation management and related concepts of organisational image and identity. The module includes analysis of past examples of crisis management and workshops simulating reactions to hypothetical crisis scenarios. A wide range of crises are used including crises from the worlds of politics, business and the charity sector.

Marketing Simulation is designed to provide an understanding of marketing management and planning and to engage you in the marketing decision-making process via the use of a marketing simulation package. Working in a group, you will analyse the marketing environment, undertake competitor analysis, manage the marketing mix, and decide the positioning of your product portfolio.

Dissertation enables you to produce a key piece of evidence that shows your development over the degree and how you are now equipped to apply graduate level skills. The module requires the design and implementation of a research project in an area of marketing and/or advertising and should include some element of original research, for example interviews or a questionnaire. Support during the dissertation is given by a specified tutor although you will have overall responsibility for managing the process.

Extended Business Project provides an opportunity for you to undertake an in-depth research project for a sponsoring organisation on a topic of common interest. The nature of the project will be negotiated between you, your supervisor and the sponsoring company.

Business Strategy and Digital Goods examines the implications of the internet and the rise of ubiquitous mobile devices that are changing business and society. Specifically, the module will explain how a new economy of creativity, opportunity, connectivity and content has been created. You will consider this ‘digital economy’, the key concepts underpinning commercial activities and investigate how the application of existing theories of competitive advantage and added value can be applied to, or are changed by, digital goods and services that have no physical form.

Global Marketing Management encourages you to develop an informed appreciation of international marketing in the context of emerging world markets and increasing globalisation. The module provides you with the means to integrate aspects of operational marketing within a strategic and international perspective. In particular, you will study how and why companies choose to operate internationally, the entry strategies available to them, globalisation and the international marketing environment.

Marketing and Society will help you to define and understand how marketing in society is utilised as a tool for public services such as charities, government and the health service. This will involve the study of the business and social environments in terms of their target audiences, resources, planning, education and current changes. The module will familiarise you with key models of behaviour change and the role of stakeholders, values, beliefs, emotions and lifestyles in influencing such change, with emphasis on environmentally sustainable behaviour. You will also be introduced to a practical and reflective campaign process that supports the use of social marketing to achieve behaviour change.

Advertising in Marketing Communications enables you to study the role of advertising in online and offline integrated marketing communications strategies. You will drill into the elements that comprise individual adverts and consider how the range of online and offline media vehicles available to deliver them have blurred the boundaries between advertising and other elements of the promotional mix. It is important that you understand the strategic role of advertising and the rationale that underpins the design and development of individual adverts. In addition, you need to understand the place of advertising within the marketing communications techniques available to marketers, whilst understanding the effects advertising has on the consumer and the debates that emanate from those effects.

Entrepreneurship and Innovation considers how to turn a good idea into a successful market-leading product. Entrepreneurship and innovation go hand in hand and involve the development and release of a new product/service or the repacking of an existing one to provide competitive advantage or even create new markets. This module explores a variety of concepts around strategic entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship. We will examine the difference between an idea, an invention and an innovation and provide you with a case-led understanding of the process in action, from creation to implementation. Moreover, it provides you with a number of tools and techniques to critically evaluate success and build on your previous experiences of work-based learning or enterprise education.

Media Policy and Political Communication provides a critical excursion into the role of media within modern democratic politics, providing you with a good grounding of political theory and also covering the role of power and counter-power at national, European and global levels, the communication strategies deployed by political actors, and the outcomes of the consultation and decision-making processes in the creative industries. The module critically assesses the shift from national to transnational level in media policy making, in direct relationship with the development of media and communication technologies, and investigates the delicate balance between consumer autonomy and corporate interests.

PR for Charities and Non-Governmental Organisations is centred on the voluntary sector often being a destination of choice for PR professionals. Its characteristics, however, mean to be successful in the sector you need to understand a range of legal and ethical factors unique to charitable status. Lack of resource means that communication is nearly always driven by PR rather than by other marketing communications disciplines which means a PR professional in the voluntary sector is likely to be highly influential.

Media Futures involves the study of contemporary media practices, the impact of technology on creative industries, developments in global and local media, and changing paradigms of media production and audience consumption. You will develop a critical awareness of a number of key themes including social experience and shaping of media forms, access, participation and engagement, and the relationship between public and private spheres. By considering these themes through a range of different theories and research, you will discover a variety of approaches to gaining understanding of what is a rapidly expanding frontier of creative and cultural practice and media knowledge.

BUS1030 Marketing Research (20 credits) replaces BUS1023 E-Commerce and M-Commerce (20 credits) in Year 1. BUS1023 E-Commerce and M-Commerce was compulsory, however BUS1030 Marketing Research will be optional.

BUS1031 Introduction to Digital Marketing (20 credits) replaces BUS1025 Designing for an Online Presence (20 credits) as a compulsory module in Year 1.

112-120 UCAS Tariff points are required to join this programme with effect from September 2020 entry.