Global Marketing

MSc

Start dates: September 2024 / January 2025 / September 2025

Full time: 1 year or 2 years in sandwich mode which includes one year's full-time paid supervised work experience (a work placement). Sandwich mode is only available for September entry.

Part time: 24 months

Location: Headington

Department(s): Oxford Brookes Business School

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Overview

We are all global consumers who interact with marketing messages in different ways and on a daily basis.

Our new MSc Global Marketing course will immerse you in the exciting world of reaching international audiences through creative and customer focussed campaigns across a range of channels. 

You will develop an understanding of the complex nature of international and global marketing as organisations compete in contemporary global contexts and react to an ever changing international socio economic landscape.

Each student will develop important professional skills by engaging in a week-long immersive learning event, working with live clients or within international contexts. Through this analysis you will learn about consumer psychology, behaviour and culture and be able to refine your messaging to create international campaigns that resonate with your audiences.

You will be taught by tutors who have real-world global marketing experience and are also research active, providing you with a bridge to our research community.

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Why Oxford Brookes University?

  • Marketing and Social Media Lab

    Work on real-world marketing projects. Develop the skills that employers are looking for and become confident using industry software.
     

  • Professional Placements

    Gain 'real world' experience at companies like Aldi, Disney, GlaxoSmithKline, Harley-Davidson, BMW, Nissan, Warner Bros, TNT and Xerox.
     

  • Accreditations
    Accredited by the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing.
     
  • Diverse Optional Modules
    Enjoy the freedom to explore the areas that interest you, whether that's marketing luxury in a sustainable world or understanding consumers in a globalised world.
     
  • Meet Marketing Professionals
    Attend field trips to marketing agencies and hear from a range of guest speakers who are experts in their field.
  • Accreditation(s)

    Chartered Institute of Marketing, Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing

    • Chartered Institute of Marketing
    • Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing

Course details

Course structure

This course can be studied either full-time or part-time. If you choose to study the course full-time, the course duration is either 1 year or 2 years in sandwich mode - which includes one year's full-time paid supervised work experience (a work placement). Sandwich mode is only available for September entry.

If you choose to study the course part-time it will take 24 months for UK and EU students. Teaching is normally structured to provide one whole day or two half days each week in the semester. 

The approach to teaching, learning and assessment on this programme is intended to be developmental, supportive, and inclusive to accommodate the range of learners that this programme caters for. For example, whilst this is a conversion programme, there will be students with varying degrees of previous marketing exposure (knowledge and/or experience). The international appeal of this programme means that students will also enter the programme with very different prior learning and professional experience.

Student in a lecture

Learning and teaching

Sessions include, for example, contextualised academic development sessions such as critical thinking, information/database searching and assessment preparation. This support is picked up in later input sessions, as you near completion of your marketing research projects. The Professional Development for Marketers module, and the experiential events that the module assesses, provide you with the opportunity for personalised skills and knowledge reflection and subsequent action-planning, ultimately enabling you to gain a critical understanding of yourself in relation to your career aspirations. In this sense, learners grow through an individualised continuous developmental continuum, from transition into the programme, to preparation beyond graduation.

Assessment

You will be assessed in a number of ways on this course, including reports, plans, portfolios, reflective statements, and open briefs that encourage individual creativity (e.g. Sustainable Consumer Behaviour and Digital and Social Media Marketing Strategy).

Because of the applied nature of the programme, we exclusively use coursework to assess you. You will be required to produce business reports, address digital marketing challenges and prepare marketing plans, and similar activities which reflect the workplace. The programme, therefore, provides the opportunity for you to learn, practice, and become confident in creating these common types of business communication methods. Our assessment strategy is designed to limit the amount of assessments you complete at the same time, so that you can achieve your best standards.

Field Trips

You will have the opportunity to attend field trips to marketing agencies and other relevant organisations to meet with experts in the field.

You will also hear from marketing professionals both on campus and online.

Visiting speakers have included:
  • IBM Marketing Director on client and project management.
  • SEO Executive, White.Net.
  • PR Director and Senior Accounts Director, Freestyle Interactive Digital Agency.
  • Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Purely Group.
  • Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Fat Face.
  • Member of the Oxford Institute of Retail Management (OXIRM) at Said Business School, University of Oxford.
  • Marketing Director at Fujitsu.
  • Leadership Training Manager, WPP, the largest worldwide advertising agency group.

Start this course in January or September

You can start this course in January if a September start doesn't suit you or is not currently offered for this course.

If you start in January you will study a range of modules between January and May. During the summer months of June, July and August you will study further modules and begin work on your dissertation. Between September and December you will complete your final modules and focus on your dissertation.

Study modules

Be industry ready when you graduate

By undertaking an optional work placement you can gain valuable and relevant industry experience and develop transferable skills such as communication, teamwork, networking and problem solving. A work placement can help you decide on your long-term career objectives and may lead to a job offer after graduation (would require visa sponsorship for international students).

The WAVES (Work and Voluntary Experience Service) or Careers Office will provide you with support and advice to get ahead in your career, and help you with your CV and applications. The team has access to a wide range of small, medium and large employers that offer postgraduate student work placements.

If you wish to pursue a placement at a particular company, our WAVES team can support you in making an approach to the company. Our Careers Office can also provide you with advice on how to use professional social media channels to pitch yourself to prospective employers.
 

Taught modules

Compulsory modules

  • Digital and Social Media Marketing Strategy

    Digital technologies have transformed marketing, they offer new sources of customer insight, they have dramatically changed customer behaviour, enabled new business models and impacted how organisations interact with their customers and key stakeholders. This module aims to take a strategic perspective of the digital and social media environment. It focuses on the interaction between consumers, businesses and other organisations and how thinking digitally can assist in effective marketing. Web based media, mobile platforms, social media and digital tools are reviewed, practised and critically evaluated to identify successful performance and to create contemporary digital marketing strategies.
     

  • Professional Development for Marketers

    This professional and academic skills development module helps you to become a lifelong learner and enhances your employability. Starting with a focus on how to achieve your best academically, you will then develop your skills for employment and career planning. You will work through a self-development plan, taking the lead in your own learning and development. You will be coached in identifying, engaging in and reflecting on how you can gain from developmental activities within the University and externally.
  • Research Methods for Marketers

    This module delivers the skills that enable you to conduct marketing research independently. Students on the MSc programmes are expected to undertake effective research drawing upon a range of secondary and primary data sources in the preparation of coursework. It is important that you are exposed to a range of methodological issues, data collection techniques and study skills. In addition, this module is geared towards the preparation for, and successful completion of, high quality, rigorous and systematic research for business and management.
  • Sustainable Consumer Behaviour

    You will critically appraise the behaviours of customers and their interactions with marketing. Informed by behavioural science, you will analyse why customers behave as they do and how marketing activity influences their behaviours. This analysis informs your critical understanding and implementation of both strategic and responsible marketing practice. An innovative dimension of this course is the investigation of change agents that will significantly influence the behaviours of customers in the future, for example neuroscience, climate change and technology innovation. This is an analytical module that utilises research evidence to inform evaluation, behavioural and communications research.
  • Sustainable Global Marketing Strategy

    You will build on the Responsible Marketing module, and explore the global marketing environment. There is a particular emphasis on internationalisation and the creation and development of global markets. You will understand the principles, influences, and institutions affecting the development of international trade and global marketing strategies. You will analyse opportunities and constraints in the context of global marketing strategy, and the associated organisational and control issues associated with the development of global markets. This includes an appreciation of the importance of ethical and social issues.
  • Responsible Marketing in a Global World

    This module introduces the key principles of responsible marketing by studying the theories that underpin ‘Better Marketing for a Better World’ which works towards achieving the UN Sustainability Goals. The module will explore the marketing environment including the changing needs of customers, and how brands make choices about the marketing mix to meet those needs in a long-term sustainable way. This includes the ways in which marketers plan, manage and implement marketing programmes in the context of the international interconnected global environment of the twenty first century.
  • Marketing Practice (compulsory for sandwich students only)

    This module provides you with the opportunity of applying the conceptual knowledge and skills gained in their previous modules, while embedded in an organisational environment. Specifically, you are tasked with conducting an investigative project related to a specific marketing issue. You will hone your analytical and critical thinking skills, while also developing practical skills needed for the job of the marketer, such as exploring how needs are identified, how resources are allocated and used for the purpose of achieving marketing objectives, and how the success of marketing initiatives is defined and measured. You will conduct your research while embedded in a professional environment, and, thus, will be able to observe, interact with, and solve problems alongside marketing professionals. 

Optional modules

Choose a minimum of two modules from:

Marketing Luxury in a Sustainable World

As one of the fast-recovering sectors in the post-pandemic period, the future of luxury is promising with a few significant changes taking place in global markets. 

Luxury brands are unique in many perspectives, for instance, offering consumers a high-quality product or service, engaging with the emotional benefits of prestige and exclusivity. In a new era of sustainability, it is critical to understand how the concept of luxury takes shape and continues to develop by adopting fresh ideas such as circular economy, substitute material and green consumption. 

This module introduces luxury from a perspective of both theory and practice on luxury goods and services, such as jewellery, fashion, tourism, and prestige cars and explores a range of luxury marketing areas, including concepts, principles, heritage, people and sustainability in luxury.
 

Strategic and Sustainable Brand Management

This module examines how brands are created and successfully managed. It explores and critically investigates the latest research and practice in strategic brand management. One particular focus will be on sustainable approaches to brand management and how organisations can play a wider role in society as responsible corporate citizens. Key ethical, environmental and socio-cultural implications for contemporary brand management will be analysed within regional, national and global contexts. Latest research and practice will be investigated in regard to strategic brand management and the use of social media and digital communications technology. On completing this module students will have gained advanced knowledge of the latest tools, techniques, and broader societal implications of contemporary strategic brand management.

Digital Marketing for Social Change

This module introduces the key principles of digital marketing and communication strategy for positive social change. The module explores the landscape of socially-motivated agents including non-governmental organisations (NGOs), social enterprise and B-corporations, corporations (e.g CSR) and governmental bodies (e.g. social marketing initiatives). Anchored in ‘marketing as practice’ pedagogy, the module is taught through practitioner examples, guest speakers and case studies. 

This includes the ways in which marketers plan, manage and implement digital marketing programmes to build cognitive, behavioural and emotional engagement with mission-based brands and the strategies and methods employed, including building brand communities (e.g. service user support groups), storytelling, gamification, fundraising events, online volunteering and digital advocacy campaigns. The module is underpinned by the UN Sustainable Development Goals and ‘Better Marketing for a Better World’.

Understanding Consumers in a Globalised World

In the global marketing context, examining how culture shapes what consumers seek, evaluate and choose to purchase is key to reaching a specific country market effectively with the right blend of marketing mix. This module helps learners understand why and how cultural values and other contextual differences influence consumer behaviour across different cultures. The module covers a variety of concepts from cross-cultural consumption to post-globalisation, de-colonisation and anti-globalisation theories as well as customer EDI (Equity, Diversity & Inclusion) localisation and hyper-localisation, to develop an in-depth understanding of how different cultural contexts and factors can shape consumers’ decision making.
 

International Business in Practice: Study Trip

The purpose of this elective study trip is to give postgraduate students a hands-on, intensive experience with the ideas and practices of global business. Students will meet with leaders of global firms, receive presentations from global academic experts, and tour company facilities. Students will have direct interaction with management executives and practices through site visits to major corporations and agencies. This study trip is voluntary and all costs associated with the trip will need to be funded by you. It is not linked to university assessments in any way. If you successfully complete this module you will have it recorded on your transcript. As the destination and therefore precise costs vary from year to year, the programme fee of the study trip will be communicated to students well before the application deadline.

Academic English for Postgraduate Research

The module develops the academic writing knowledge and skills required when undertaking postgraduate level research in a business context.

The module focuses on research writing skills relevant to a range of texts, particularly on research articles, business research reports, case studies, critical reviews, and dissertations. 

It is particularly suitable for postgraduate students of business with limited experience in a UKHEI.
 

Academic English for Postgraduate Studies

The module develops the academic writing and reading knowledge and skills required when undertaking postgraduate level study in a business context. It focuses on skills relevant to a range of texts, including business research articles, case studies, essays and critical reviews. It is designed to develop the academic literacy communication skills required on other modules across students’ programmes.

It is particularly suitable for postgraduate students of business who have had little or no previous academic English training or study experience.

Final project

Compulsory modules

  • Marketing Research Project

    This is your opportunity to undertake a substantial independent marketing research project by applying and extending your study, knowledge and practical skills that you've gained in other modules. You will be able to demonstrate a wide range of skills such as research, critical thinking, project planning, problem-solving and writing/presentation skills. You will choose from four different research project options, so you have the opportunity to explore in detail a particular area that interests you . Your options are;
    • Dissertation
    • Client Project
    • Group Consultancy (places limited)
    • and Synoptic Enquiry.

Optional Work Placement year

Optional modules

Marketing Work Placement

This module is a great opportunity to gain one year’s supervised full time paid work experience in the UK or internationally in a marketing role. You will investigate a marketing challenge in a commercial or non-profit organisation. Throughout this placement, you apply the practical concepts you are learning on the course. When you are working for the organisation, you will be responsible for managing a large proportion of your own learning, including tracking and recording your progress. 

We provide lots of support to help you find a paid work experience and gain connections with various organisations. Our placements team (WAVES) has a database which records work placement opportunities and they run numerous placements fairs where you could meet potential employers. Securing a work experience placement is your responsibility and does take a lot of effort, but this gives you valuable experience. You would need to cover your own living and travel costs throughout this duration.

Please note: As our courses are reviewed regularly as part of our quality assurance framework, the modules you can choose from may vary from those shown here. The structure of the course may also mean some modules are not available to you.

Research

Studying for your MSc in Marketing and Brand Management at Oxford Brookes Business School offers you a first-class experience to engage with our excellent researchers. They investigate core challenges facing contemporary societies, ranging from sustainable marketing  and AI to the latest developments in fashion marketing . We also have great expertise in Coaching and Mentoring (leadership development) and Diversity (gender, ethnicity, class) and are keen to include students in our projects where possible. Please visit our research pages to learn about our three research centres: The Centre for Business, Society and Global Challenges; The Centre for Diversity Policy Research and Practice and the International Centre for Coaching and Mentoring Studies (Research in the Oxford Brookes Business School). Being a master's student offers great opportunities to be part of our research culture and to discuss your own research ideas with us.
female student on laptop carrying out research

Careers

Our graduates are employed in marketing roles throughout the world; these include jobs in media, digital, brand and communications agencies, and in-house marketing management positions in areas as diverse as fast moving consumer goods, retail, hospitality, travel, publishing and manufacturing. Current employers include:
  • Johnson & Johnson
  • Hitachi
  • DK
  • Avis
  • PWC
As well as a number of small and medium sized 'digital' agencies.

Examples of our graduates' positions in marketing include:
  • marketing managers
  • marketing planners
  • brand managers
  • corporate communication managers
  • social media community managers
In addition, some of our students go on to start their own companies.

We have strong relationships with companies in a range of industries. These relationships inform the programme design and delivery, and provide opportunities for placements and employment.

In addition to the professional career development support provided within the programme, the University has an active and enthusiastic careers service. This service helps you gain the 'competitive edge' when applying for jobs by offering help with CVs, and mock assessment centres and interviews.

Student profiles

Entry requirements

International qualifications and equivalences

How to apply

Application process

Tuition fees

Please see the fees note
Home (UK) full time
£11,350

Home (UK) part time
£5,675

Home (UK) sandwich (placement)
£2,100

International full time
£17,650

International sandwich (placement)
£2,100

Home (UK) full time
£11,950

Home (UK) part time
£5,975

Home (UK) sandwich (placement)
£2,200

International full time
£18,350

International sandwich (placement)
£2,200

Questions about fees?

Contact Student Finance on:

Tuition fees

2024 / 25
Home (UK) full time
£11,350

Home (UK) part time
£5,675

Home (UK) sandwich (placement)
£2,100

International full time
£17,650

International sandwich (placement)
£2,100

2025 / 26
Home (UK) full time
£11,950

Home (UK) part time
£5,975

Home (UK) sandwich (placement)
£2,200

International full time
£18,350

International sandwich (placement)
£2,200

Questions about fees?

Contact Student Finance on:

+44 (0)1865 534400

financefees@brookes.ac.uk

Fees quoted are for the first year only. If you are studying a course that lasts longer than one year, your fees will increase each year.

The following factors will be taken into account by the University when it is setting the annual fees: inflationary measures such as the retail price indices, projected increases in University costs, changes in the level of funding received from Government sources, admissions statistics and access considerations including the availability of student support.

How and when to pay

Tuition fee instalments for the semester are due by the Monday of week 1 of each semester. Students are not liable for full fees for that semester if they leave before week 4. If the leaving date is after week 4, full fees for the semester are payable.

  • For information on payment methods please see our Make a Payment page.
  • For information about refunds please visit our Refund policy page

Financial support and scholarships

For general sources of financial support, see our Fees and funding pages.

Additional costs

Please be aware that some courses will involve some additional costs that are not covered by your fees. Specific additional costs for this course are detailed below.

Programme changes:
On rare occasions we may need to make changes to our course programmes after they have been published on the website. For more information, please visit our changes to programmes page.