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Marketing is about creating and maintaining exchanges of value between an organisation and its customers that are both satisfying to the customer and help achieve organisational objectives. The course offers participants from different cultural and educational backgrounds the opportunity to develop their marketing potential.
Course objectives
The MSc provides you with an understanding of the concepts and systems underlying marketing practice and to develop your skills of diagnosis and implementation in marketing management and research processes. On completion you will be able to:
- Nurture and consolidate a customer-focused management approach in a variety of different market settings, organisation types and policy situations
- Design, plan and implement research-based marketing strategies
- Plan, implement and evaluate specific marketing programmes and activities
- Conduct research into contemporary marketing practice
Career opportunities
Where are our graduates now?
MSc Marketing graduates are currently working around the world in countries such as Japan, China, Netherlands, Australia, South Africa, Switzerland, Germany, Mexico, India. They are currently contributing to the performance of the following organisations:
- Yves Saint Laurent
- Nokia
- Unilever
- eBay
- Pepsico
- Bloomberg
- NCR Corporation
- Intelligent Media Ltd
- Nestle
- Capital Group UK
To provide you with an indication as to what you can do with your Master's degree, graduates in the past three years are currently employed as:
- Marketing & Communications Officer, Stirling Council (UK)
- Sales Consultant, Yves Saint Laurent (UK)
- Marketing Communications Associate, Eugenides Foundation (Greece)
- Global Sales, Karma Medical Products (Taiwan)
- Social Media Manager, Liquorice - Digital Innovation for Brands (Africa)
Building on that foundation, alumni of Stirlings MSc Marketing degree who graduated between five and ten years ago have since advanced into some of the following positions:
- Brand Manager, Unilever (Greece)
- Senior PR Specialist, National Education Association (USA)
- Sales & Marketing Executive, Alma Lasers (Japan)
- Senior Marketing Specialist, Symantec (Mexico)
- Account Manager, Cheil (Taiwan)
- Account Executive, McCann Erickson (Greece)
- Senior Lecturer, University of Roehampton (UK)
Some of our more established alumni are currently leading and shaping marketing strategy across many different sectors here is an example of how a few former Stirling MSc Marketing students have advanced in their careers:
- Marketing Manager, Nestle (Greece)
- Supply Chain Manager, Aibel Pte Ltd (Singapore)
- Director of Marketing & E-Business, Elsevier (Hong Kong)
- International Sales Manager, Importaco, S.A. (Spain)
Structure and content
Students on the Marketing course will start the semester at Stirling Management School with an intensive period of learning to learn and teambuilding activities. This induction period (15th to 26th September) is introduced to enable students to develop new learning styles and understand the expectations that will be placed on them through an engaged and exploratory approach. Students will learn about themselves and their own interactional and learning styles.
Students also learn about others and gain an appreciation of a diverse range of approaches to learning, along with cultural and individual differences. They will also discover more about the exciting year ahead, and what is expected of them. This induction period provides a foundation of activities to help students to fully integrate with the course and their fellow students so that they have opportunity to gain the maximum out of the course and their interactions with others.
The overall aim is for students to be fully engaged so that they are equipped to embark on the formal teaching course invigorated and committed to the journey ahead with newly developed intellectual, interactional and presentational skills.
The Course
Eight taught modules over two 15-week semesters, plus either an individual project and or a group project (Knowledge Management and Transfer module) which is undertaken over the summer period. Core modules are:
- Professional Skills: Emphasises the importance of individual, team skills and leadership in bringing about market-led strategic change in organisations. Includes a team-building weekend
- Reflective Practice and Learning: Focuses on forming successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors to marketing
- Marketing Research Techniques and Applications: Focuses on doing client-based market research and covers the basic research methods and techniques
- Marketing Management Applications: Entails doing research for a real client, normally external to the University. It demonstrates the practical application of marketing techniques
- Critical Thinking: Concentrates on academic scholarly research. It involves critiquing published research and a poster session in which you present ideas for your project
As part of the Marketing Management Applications module, one group of students participated in a project for EASA Training Ltd. Their objective was to refine their market strategy for China and Taiwan and to provide recommendations.
On behalf of EASA Training Ltd I would like to confirm that we were extremely impressed with the entire project completed last year by the Stirling University MSC MMA students. The project was defined clearly, then conducted with our regular participation throughout. The team was diligent, disciplined, and a pleasure to work with. They produced the resulting report and presentation to a very professional standard.
Their work has helped us to refine our market entry strategy for China and Taiwan and provided us with practical recommendations on how to approach these massively important markets with our tailored English Language Training Experiences.
From the students perspective I believe their engagement with us helped them appreciate the challenges facing a relatively young company trying to penetrate international markets. They were dealing with a real market entry problem and had to communicate regularly with us to understand what we are offering. The methodology they developed and employed will certainly come in useful again during their careers.
We at EASA hope we can work with the university again sometime in the future.
Lauren McQuade, Managing Director
The option modules, from which you select three, currently include:
- Retail Marketing: Investigates the nature of the retail product, segmentation and positioning, consumer behaviour and retailing, marketing communication in a retail context, retail branding, store formats and customer service
- Sports Marketing: Investigates the application of marketing techniques to the sport industry and whether sport is any different from other sectors
- Small Business Marketing: Designed to put into practice marketing theory at the level of the smaller firm
- International Marketing: Considers the process of internationalisation for all sizes of firm
- Retail Buying and Merchandising: Explains the context of buying operations, the issues facing retail buyers in different types of retail organisations and their interaction with other functional areas
- Social Marketing: Marketing techniques can be used to influence health and social behaviour. The module reviews theoretical foundations, planning, research and communication and looks at international and ethical issues
- Logistics and Channel Management: Relates logistics to the economy and to business and develops an understanding of channel management
- Marketing Communications: Helps you to critique the diversity of theories that underpin marketing communications activities and to provide a semiotic analysis of marketing communications content
Other options are available including Consumer-Behaviour, Services Marketing and Retail Buying.
Delivery and assessment
The taught modules of the MSc course are delivered using a variety of methods, for example, lectures, tutorials, case studies, role playing, computer simulations, fieldwork exercises, site visits, guest speakers and company projects. Much of the assessment is continuous and may include research reports, essays, briefings, management reports, case analyses and presentations. Assessed work is often conducted in groups, as developing teamwork and communication skills are seen as important.
Want to improve your English level for admission?
Prepare for the program requirements with English Online by the British Council.
- ✔️ Flexible study schedule
- ✔️ Experienced teachers
- ✔️ Certificate upon completion
📘 Recommended for students with an IELTS level of 6.0 or below.
Stirling Management School Postgraduate Scholarships
Stirling Management School is committed to investing in academically talented students, enabling them to further their education with a reputable qualification from one of the many postgraduate degree courses on offer at the University of Stirling. There are various categories of funding available to support the cost of your studies at Stirling Management School.
For further information on possible sources of funding, visit: http://www.stir.ac.uk/postgraduate/financial-information/
Accreditation
Marketing is part of the Stirling Management School. The School is committed to a research-led approach in all of its activities. This was recognised in the most recent Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), which rated 85 percent of our research activity to be of International Significance.
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