MSc Brand Leadership

Where brand managers control and protect what already exists, brand leaders create something new, either by developing new brands, or by taking existing brands to new places or greater heights. On this course you will gain the skills, experience and contacts you need to become an innovator in branding. You’ll graduate ready to begin a hugely rewarding career, leading the way for the brands of tomorrow.

Across lectures, seminars, masterclasses, field trips, group work and project work, you’ll discover critical concepts, tools and techniques. You’ll build your leadership skills and your creative capabilities. You’ll also gain valuable hands-on experience by working on live branding briefs and completing your own creative projects.

Our course is unique in that you’ll work closely with the branding industry. You’ll tap into our network of branding experts, including some of the most distinguished branding professionals in Britain. You’ll gain practical experience right from the start of the course, working on live projects set by our industry contacts. You’ll have your own mentor – someone who works in the branding industry to support and guide you.

You’ll be part of a small, carefully chosen and globally diverse cohort. That means you’ll not only benefit from close contact with lecturers, guest speakers, tutors and mentors. You’ll also learn a great deal from your fellow students who will each bring their own unique perspective and experience to the course.

Taking only around 25 students each year, the course is highly selective. We are looking for the best of the best; those people who truly will create the leading brands of the future. If you think you have the potential to change the face of branding, then we want to hear from you – we interview every applicant. You will need to have a degree that was at least 25 per cent business, management or economics. Or have a degree in a different subject and two or more years’ experience working in marketing or strategy. We will accept exceptional experience in place of a degree.

You don’t need to have a background in branding, but you do need to be able to demonstrate your passion for the practice, through internships, holiday or full time work either for a brand, or at a branding agency. Exceptional students may also come straight from a first degree.

You should be able to demonstrate your interest in brands and talk confidently about your favourite brands – what they do well, what they could do better and how they are communicated. Most of all you will be curious and ambitious, and the sort of person that never stops exploring new ideas, fields and frontiers.

You might be currently working as a researcher or assistant in a marketing department. Or you could be working in some other aspect of business such as operations. You might even be working in a completely different specialism such as engineering. You may have a brand in mind that you want to focus on during your studies, for example, a brand associated with your family business.

We welcome international students as an essential part of our community. However, due to the demanding nature of the course, we have a high IELTS requirement score of 7, with no element below 6.5. If you don't yet meet that requirement, you can take a pre-sessional course with INTO UEA. Over the past nine years we have had students from 45 different countries, including Brazil, US, UK, Germany, Nigeria, Russia, India and China.

About

Train to create and lead the brands of the future, on the first UK course to focus on brand leadership.

Brands are everywhere. They shape our decisions as consumers. They reflect and influence culture and society. Brands are ideas that help us navigate an increasingly complex world. They are shortcuts to ‘meaning’, that are essential for businesses, charities and other organisations to define, produce and communicate value. They are big business too. The Apple brand alone is estimated to be worth $184 billion, according to Interbrand. Branding is an industry in its own right, with an estimated 60,000 people working in the field in the UK alone.

On this course you’ll learn how to excel in this fascinating sector. You’ll discover how to create your own brands, and how to take existing brands to new and exciting places. And thanks to our links with industry you won’t just graduate ready to launch brands, you’ll graduate ready to launch your career too.

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Robert Jones

Course academic

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What is Branding?

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The Five Best Books on Branding

To brand is human, says practitioner and professor Robert Jones. He recommends the five best books on branding.

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Important Information

Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the courses listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the regular review of course programmes. Where this activity leads to significant (but not minor) changes to programmes, there will normally be prior consultation of students and others. Changes may for example consist of variations to the content and method of delivery of programmes, courses and other services, to discontinue programmes, courses and other services and to merge or combine programmes or courses. The University will endeavour to keep such changes to a minimum, and will inform students.

Assessment for Year 1

We’ll assess your knowledge and understanding through coursework, assessed presentations and two exams.

Throughout the course you’ll hand in formative and summative assessments – from which you’ll get extensive feedback to help you identify areas of strength and areas for improvement.

Structure

You will build your theoretical knowledge, critical skills and hands-on practical experience over seven taught modules. By the end of this intense year of study you’ll be ready to create new brands and take existing ones to places they haven’t been before.

In your first semester you will learn everything you need to know to get your career in branding moving. You will discover how brands are created, managed, and how they can change organisations.

In your second semester you will work with real clients, explore new frontiers of branding and examine how brands are adapting to the new digital world.

In the third semester you will complete your dissertation, conducting a substantial piece of research on a branding topic of your choosing, with guidance from an academic advisor. Your dissertation is a chance to delve deeper into an area that you’re really interested in, and to begin to establish yourself as a specialist. Your finished piece of work will act as a calling card, showing potential employers what you’re capable of. For example, if you aspire to work in the charitable sector, you might wish to tackle a branding problem in that area. Past dissertation topics have been as broad as examining what it’s like to interact with brands if you are blind, how to brand places and the challenges facing luxury brands.

Over the year you will visit ten companies. For example you might get to go behind the scenes at iconic brands such as Burberry, innovative brands such as Girl Effect, and challenger brands such as Wonderbly, (the personalised children’s book makers who raised the largest ever stake on the business investment television show Dragon’s Den). You could visit branding agencies such as Wolff Olins and SuperUnion or experience design agencies like Foolproof, where you’ll have the chance to work on a live brief for a real client. Past students have been tasked with designing a brand experience for Halifax for Rufus Leonard before presenting their work to the brand. This resulted in internships for two of the participating students.

You will also have the chance to take part in around ten masterclasses, where you’ll learn from leading industry experts. Past masterclasses have included sessions with Karen Jones, Founder of Café Rouge and Chancellor of UEA, James Tipple, brand director for Virgin, and Michelle McEttrick, Group Brand Director of Tesco.

Teaching and Learning

You will learn through project work and class discussion, learning by doing and learning from your fellow students. You’ll discover how to critically assess the work and ideas of others, as well as how to present, defend and develop your own work. This includes how to give and respond to feedback productively, an essential skill in the branding industry.

You will learn from business experts based in UEA’s Norwich Business School, senior brand professionals, and esteemed guest lecturers.

Your dissertation is a chance to deepen your ability to do your own thinking, backed up by research.

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How to apply

Explore our research

Assessment for Year 1

We’ll assess your knowledge and understanding through coursework, assessed presentations and two exams.

Throughout the course you’ll hand in formative and summative assessments – from which you’ll get extensive feedback to help you identify areas of strength and areas for improvement.

Compulsory Modules

BRAND NOW

Code NBS-7016A

Credits 20

Brand Now is an exciting survey of current thinking and practice in branding. You’ll gain an up-to-the-minute understanding of what brands are, how they can drive businesses, and how they're changing, so that you're intellectually equipped to lead branding work in an organisation or a consultancy.

BRANDS AND STRATEGY

Code NBS-7017A

Credits 20

The module gives you a good understanding of how organisations can use brands to achieve their strategic objectives. You will look at: - what brands mean for both companies and customers - how brand value is built - how to communicate using brands - how brands are managed globally - how brands are managed over time.

INNOVATION AND ORGANISATIONAL TRANSFORMATION

Code NBS-7018A

Credits 20

You’ll explore the relationship between innovation and change in organisations, on the one hand, and brand management and leadership, on the other. Most organisations need to be able to change and innovate in order to survive and thrive in in modern societies. You will learn about how organisational change and innovation take place and the role of organisational brands in helping, and sometimes hindering, change and innovation. You will practice and develop the analytical, critical and creative skills necessary to move from being a brand manager to a brand leader.

BRANDS IN ACTION

Code NBS-7015B

Credits 20

This module will equip you with a wide range of models, techniques and tools so that you’re confident to run your own branding project. You’ll unlock the secrets of what makes a good brand, gain in-depth experience, and have first-hand practice in the art of branding.

UNDERSTANDING RESEARCH FOR BRAND LEADERSHIP

Code NBS-7020Y

Credits 20

This module equips you with theoretically informed yet practically useful expertise in conducting high-quality, leading-edge research on brands. Apart from a foundational overview of qualitative and quantitative social scientific methodologies, you will be able to develop in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience in the most useful and practical techniques for brand research.

DISSERTATION

Code NBS-7019X

Credits 40

The aim of this dissertation is to give you experience of research, new thinking and writing, which will give you a substantial intellectual foundation for work as practitioners, or enable you to continue academic work beyond the MSc.

DIGITAL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Code NBS-7027B

Credits 20

You will develop your knowledge and understanding of the nature of e-Business and e-Commerce as well as the Internet infrastructure and the variety of firms competing in e-Business markets. This module also aims to demonstrate the current successes and failures of e-Business ventures in different industries and markets. You will further explore current developments in Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Business-to-Business (B2B) e-Commerce. In this way, electronic business methods enable companies to link their internal and external data processing systems more efficiently and flexibly, to work more closely with suppliers and partners, to better satisfy the needs of their customers. Lastly, lectures will be supplemented by case studies of e-Business practice, group exercises and exploration of relevant Internet based companies and sites.

LEADING THE FUTURE OF BRANDS

Code NBS-7107Y

Credits 20

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How to apply

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Important Information

Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the modules listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the annual monitoring, review and update of modules. Where this activity leads to significant (but not minor) changes to programmes and their constituent modules, the University will endeavour to consult with students and others. It is also possible that the University may not be able to offer a module for reasons outside of its control, such as the illness of a member of staff. In some cases optional modules can have limited places available and so you may be asked to make additional module choices in the event you do not gain a place on your first choice. Where this is the case, the University will inform students.

Entry Requirements

Degree classification

2:1 or higher or the international equivalent

Degree subject

Business, Management or Economics

Additional entry requirements

This course is designed for people with some experience of the subject, either in their undergraduate degree, or in working life. We will help you build on your existing knowledge and prepare you for a successful career in branding.

For that reason, we ask you to be either:

a new graduate who has studied business, management or economics, with at least 25% of your overall degree in one of these three subjects, or
a graduate in any subject, with three or more years' experience in marketing or strategy work.

Either way, you must have an upper second class honours degree (2:1) or its international equivalent.

If you are applying and you have not yet completed your degree, please send us an official copy of your most recent marks statement. When you send us your marks statement, please make sure that you include details of the marking system that your university uses.

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

To help decide if the course is right for you, we ask you to submit a written statement with your application, setting out why you want to do this course, and why you are passionate about branding.

Students for whom english is a foreign language

We welcome applications from students whose first language is not English. To ensure such students benefit from postgraduate study, we require evidence of proficiency in English. Our usual entry requirements are as follows:

IELTS: 7.0 overall with a minimum of 6.5 in all components
PTE (Pearson) Academic: 76 overall with a minimum of 67 in all components

Test dates should be within two years of the course start date.

Other tests, including Cambridge English exams and the Trinity Integrated Skills in English are also accepted by the university. The full list of accepted tests can be found here: Accepted English Language Tests

INTO UEA also run pre-sessional courses which can be taken prior to the start of your course. For further information and to see if you qualify please contact intopre-sessional@uea.ac.uk

Interviews

We will ask applicants who meet our requirements to take part in a telephone interview with our professional course director, Robert Jones. He will be looking for enthusiasm about, and some knowledge of, brands.