Marketing
Introduction
The Master’s specialisation in Marketing welcomes students eager to perfect their skills and academic thinking at a graduate level in the field of marketing. Students will benefit most from the specialisation if they are genuinely interested in the analysis of both consumer and technology trends, and in learning how to design marketing strategies for present and future technology-intensive consumer and business markets.
Contemporary consumer and business markets are increasingly characterised by a move towards the knowledge economy, globalisation, innovation and customer value chain management. These important trends are all driving forces for growth in today’s Western economies and businesses. Even so, they demand new advanced skills from marketers, able and willing to thrive in markets that are becoming more and more international, technology-oriented and knowledge-intensive.
Therefore, the mission of the Master’s specialisation in Marketing is to create marketing leaders for the knowledge economy, who are able to analyse consumer and technology trends and to shape present and future consumer and business markets. Our aspiration is to see students who have completed this Master's specialisation emerge as marketing leaders who thrive in international innovation-intensive and knowledge-intensive markets.
Marketing typically consists of three components; marketing strategy, organisational and consumer behaviour, and market analysis. The Master’s specialisation in Marketing focuses on the advanced study of one of these components in international knowledge-intensive and technology-intensive economies.
Facts
Start | September 2009 |
Duration | Full time (1 year) |
ECTS | 60 |
Language | English |
Programme coordinator | Dr A. Lemmens |
Title | MSc |
Study Association |
Curriculum
Courses | Student Workload |
Knowledge-based Marketing | 4 cr. |
Marketing Research and Analysis | 4 cr. |
Two courses to be chosen from: | 8 cr. |
One elective to be chosen from: | 4 cr. |
Seminar Marketing & Account Management | 12 cr. |
One seminar to be chosen from: | 12 cr. |
Master’s thesis | 16 cr. |
The Master’s specialisation in Marketing consists of core courses, electives, seminars and a Master's thesis distributed over five blocks of eight weeks. Core courses and electives help students to get acquainted with a wide range of topics that are essential for marketing, and provide a solid background for attending the seminars. Seminars are the most important component of the Master’s specialisation. For these intensive courses, active participation and commitment is a prerequisite. Students are expected to present pieces of the literature or case applications, ask questions, mention doubts and express your ideas in class discussions. The last two blocks of the programme are devoted to the Master’s thesis. The thesis is written individually under close supervision by one of our academic staff members.
The Master’s specialisation in Marketing offers as a primary emphasis three core concentrations:
- Technology Marketing
- Consumer Channel Dynamic
- International Marketing & Research
For more information about the specialisation please go to the study guide and select your specialisation.
Technology Marketing
High-technology industries are increasingly assuming a central role in modern economies. These markets are characterized by high knowledge-intensity and abrupt technological shifts. To maintain their competitive advantage, firms in these markets have to constantly readjust their marketing strategies to ever-changing demand patterns and a shifting technological landscape. Marketing managers in high technology markets need to understand unarticulated customer needs and forecast the development of nascent markets. This seminar will give you a detailed understanding
of these markets - technological evolution, network externalities, consumer lock-in, technological compatibility and standards, the Internet, technology acceptance - and how they are critical in developing successful marketing strategies.
Consumer Channel Dynamics
Increasingly firms and consumers work closely together in the value creation process. For example, firms such as Dell allow their customers to tailor products to their own tastes, while other firms such as Amazon rely heavily on consumer input to provide in-depth information about the products or services that they sell. These types of interactions often use non-conventional marketing channels and strongly rely on new information technology such as the Internet.
The objective of this seminar is first to provide students with a good understanding of the stages in the value creation process at which firms and consumers can interact to create greater consumer value and the marketing channels that can be used for these interactions. Secondly, students will learn how to analyze consumer channel usage decisions in each of these stages with a specific focus on: consumer information search, consumer purchase decisions, and consumer product use and evaluations. Finally, the seminar will provide an overview of current examples of firms’ usage of
the Internet to support consumer decisions.
International Marketing & Research
In the current globalisation context driven by the increasing mobility of consumers, the emergence of global media, as well as the growing availability of various distance-spanning technologies (like internet), one of the most important issues facing managers is the development of international marketing strategies. The objective of this seminar is to focus on the international aspects of the marketing research process. Several international-oriented issues will be envisioned like the choice between standardising and localising marketing strategies; how to develop branding, product, services, pricing, distribution, promotion, advertising and communications strategies that are global in scope; and how to size the opportunity to enter new markets.
In addition, this seminar will provide an overview of the methodological aspects of international marketing research. Specifically, the students will learn how to conduct cross-national research and which specific issues are related to cross-national research.A secondary emphasis is on in-depth training in a set of marketing skills connected to these primary topics; Innovative Branding, Advertising, Marketing Research & Analysis, Marketing Models and Large Datasets, New Product Development & Innovation, and Knowledge-Based Marketing.
Application and Admission
The application and admission procedure differs for Dutch university students, HBO students and international students. Please click on this link and then choose to which group you belong and you will be directed to the correct application and admission procedure.
Career Prospects
This Master’s specialisation in Marketing will prepare you for positions such as:
- Business/marketing strategist or market researcher in consulting firms like McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Accenture, or Deloitte & Touch, or in marketing research & strategy houses.
- Marketer or business development manager in technology-intensive industries like Philips, Vodafone, Pfizer, Roche-Genentech, IBM, Microsoft, or Oracle. Or in marketing functions in knowledge-intensive companies like P&G, Unilever, KPN, or ABN-Amro.
