MSc Brand Leadership

Kick-start a fast-moving career in branding with this unique master’s course. From Chanel to Nike, Tesco to Tesla, Disney to Extinction Rebellion… organisations today invest massively in branding, to attract and keep customers, employees and influencers.

Companies need the brightest people to help build their brands. With this course, you can be one of them. Our students go on to work for businesses like Unilever, Nestlé, Google and TikTok – and for creative agencies like Superunion and Saatchi & Saatchi.

Through the year, you’ll learn the theory of branding – and put it into practice on live projects for real clients. You’ll gain all the skills, frameworks and experience you need to start a spectacular career at the cutting edge of business – in branding.

About

On this course you’ll learn how to excel in the world of branding. 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.

The course blends theory with practice, and gives you the chance to build your knowledge and skills through working with real clients. Throughout all our activities, we emphasise developing your soft skills such as communication, decision-making, team working and leadership.

We typically take 20–30 students from around the world and we like to have a mix of ages and experience. Some students come directly from university with a management degree, a real passion for branding and some work experience. Others have several years’ experience in industry and may be looking to take their branding career further or change direction. Whatever your background you’ll work closely together as a group – our students call it the ‘brand family’.

The course has become well known in the industry for creating great graduates, and our branding contacts regularly offer internships and jobs to our students.

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Robert Jones

Course academic

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What is Branding?

What is a brand? Find out here in just three minutes.

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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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Academics and MSc students describe their impressions of joining the Norwich Business School international family, Produced by Studious UK

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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 exams.

Throughout the course you’ll hand in project work, from which you’ll get extensive feedback to help you identify areas of strength and areas for improvement.

Structure

You’ll build your theoretical knowledge, critical skills and hands-on practical experience over seven taught modules and a research project. 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’ll learn everything you need to know to get your career in branding moving. You’ll discover how brands are created and managed, and how they can change organisations.

In your second semester you’ll explore new frontiers of branding, and examine how brands are adapting to the new digital world. And you’ll work in a team on an exciting real client project. Recent clients have included an electric truck company, a visitor destination, a food producer, a charity, and several tech start-ups.

In the third semester you’ll complete your dissertation, conducting a substantial piece of research on a branding topic of your choice, with guidance from an academic adviser. 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. Past dissertations have covered topics as diverse 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 several companies. You might get to go behind the scenes at iconic brands such as Kraft Heinz and TikTok, and challenger brands such as Wonderbly (the personalised children’s book makers who raised the largest ever stake on the television show Dragon’s Den). You could visit branding agencies such as Wolff Olins and SuperUnion, or design agencies like Foolproof, where you could 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 several conferences, where you’ll learn from leading industry experts. Recent speakers include Jayne-Anne Gadhia (Virgin Money), Michelle McEttrick (Tesco), Susann Johnsson (Telia) and Richard Houston (Zoopla).

Teaching and Learning

You will learn via blended learning, with great content online, and highly interactive discussions in class. You’ll learn by doing, and you’ll learn 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 internationally-recognised speakers like Marty Neumeier.

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

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Open Days

Assessment for Year 1

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

Throughout the course you’ll hand in project work, 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

This module is about the future of branding. It takes an overview of different areas in branding including leadership, digital and non-profits. There will be several speakers addressing specific topics over 10 sessions, each with its own insights into how branding is viewed and its future in a challenging environment.

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Open Days

Important Information

Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the modules listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the annual monitoring and review of modules. Where this activity leads to significant change to a programme and modules, the University will endeavour to consult with affected students. 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. Availability of optional modules may be restricted owing to timetabling, lack of demand, or limited places. Where this is the case, you will be asked to make alternative module choices and you will be supported during this process.

Entry Requirements

Degree classification

Bachelors degree - 2.1 or 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: 6.5 overall with a minimum of 6.5 in all components
PTE (Pearson) Academic: 67 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.