Home > Post Graduate > MSc - Advanced Marketing > The Physical Place and the Virtual Space

MSc - Advanced Marketing

The Physical Place and the Virtual Space

Marketing is not just a profession; it is an art, too. Marketing combines creative and communicative skills and has strong roots in critical strategic and analytical thinking at the same time. This makes marketing interesting, but also complex.

The last two decades have changed marketing tasks significantly and marketers need to be up-to-date with their capabilities and knowledge. Consumers have become a market power. Concepts such as post-modern consumers, tribalism, but especially the technologisation of the marketing context have shaped a new and very different marketing agenda, which is addressed in the individual modules. In addition to these direct requirements the increasing request for respecting ethics and the environment, two of the attributes at the core of the request for sustainable (marketing) management, are permanently embedded in the taught content. This awareness adds to the Degree's objectives to offer students the highest standards in marketing knowledge.

The MSc - Advanced Marketing provides students with the latest knowledge on marketing for the physical place, e- and mobile marketing.

Degree Programme Objectives

The marketing discipline has seen most significant changes in the last two decades, but has not been fully able to meet these in the same speed. The mission of the course is to embrace the radical changes and to adopt the new market(ing) realities consequentially. This leads to a distanced and critical consideration contrasting old theory with new approaches, which are expected to have more power and relevance for students and graduates, who have to work and manage the new complexities.

The programme is designed and structured to build a sound understanding of the key areas of strategic, tactical and function-oriented best practice in the complex and challenging environment of global markets in the 21st century. Its vision is to provide the necessary backgrounds and future-oriented paths for managers and students, who are seeking their careers in the marketing function.

Key marketing skills and specific tools and techniques are taught, which support students in their management roles to improve the performance of both their organisations and employees in turbulent and hyper-competitive marketplaces. The course’s objective is to enable students of the MSc - Advanced Marketing to apply their knowledge gained to the specific market(ing) situations of organisations.

Benefits

Shared aims unite the modules in the MSc - Advanced Marketing. These common aims are:

Understand current practices and issues in Marketing and to apply this knowledge and understanding in practical terms.
Apply effectively analytical and critical evaluation skills.
Undertake the formulation and apply problem-solving skills for all levels of Marketing.
Critically understand the various philosophies and methods of research and selection of the most appropriate application to solve Marketing’s strategic, tactical and operational problems.
To develop the reflective manager engaged in a lifelong cycle of learning, who respects corporate responsibility and sustainability by high standards of moral actions and ethical behaviour.

Programme Content

Introduction

In today's and tomorrow's marketing specialists in both areas are needed. How- ever there are strong assumptions, based on increasing evidence, that the im- portance of the physical place will decline further. The rule that "what works of- fline, does not work online" expresses marketers' need to understand both fields. This is of importance since this knowledge will support superior decision making and strategy formulation.

The physical place still is an important field facing many challenges by horizontal and vertical competition. To such pressure adds the virtual space with its mani- fold advantages. Shopping in stores of High Streets is about the shopping experience, haptic perception, the personal experience with good staff. Despite, speaking tactically, that the marketing mix has little relevance for the virtual space, in a physical environment a well-structured mix of the Ps can create many advantages. The virtual space is a thriving world of different experiences. Facilitation, hyper- choice, but especially interactivity are some of the key concepts making online shopping interesting to consumers, but also for professional buyers. The strategic and the tactical level in the world of the Internet is very different and this is not only respected by just creating a fan site in one of the popular social networks.

Key concepts of the physical place and the virtual space are critically discussed in this module, contrasted and the interactive teaching and learning is focused on understanding the drivers of both channels. Commonalities, such as value crea- tion, but especially differences are core elements of this module.

Learning Outcomes

Students should be able to:

Set out a sophisticated understanding of key concepts of the physical market place
Understand commonalities and differences of online and offline theories and frameworks for application in the relevant channel
Identify strategic and tactical issues, which each of both channels require with regard to designing channel-specific solutions on superior level
Evaluate advantages and disadvantages of the physical place and the virtual space based on latest research for applied decision-making; and using criteria of sustainable marketing to that evaluative end.

Set Texts

Parsons, E. and Maclaran, P. 2009. Contemporary Issues in Marketing and Con- sumer Behaviour. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Tollin, K. and Caru`, A. 2008. Strategic Market Creation: A New Perspective on Marketing and Innovation Management. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Research papers from academic journals either published on the Course Website before the module start or disseminated by the lecturer during the module.