MA Luxury Brand Management Core Module Descriptions

SEMESTER ONE

Leading and Managing the Luxury Business (LBM701)

Students need to have a holistic view of how management and leadership effectiveness work in the context of luxury organisations. They must be aware of the pressure and constraints, which result in less than ideal competitive performance on a wide range of activities and measures. Students will have the opportunity to critically assess the effectiveness of different organisations operating in the wider luxury context. Additionally, students will be reviewing efficiency, effectiveness and organisational performance models and frameworks and will be critically evaluating various management and leadership issues.
Students will also acquire the fundamental management accounting tools necessary to support the decision making process.
Through an action-based business simulation, students will develop strategies, making use of incomplete information, solve business problems and make business decisions.

CATS credits: 20, ECTS credits: 10

Developing Luxury Brands (LBM702)

Brands play a fundamental role in the luxury sector. Understanding the challenges and specificities of brand management is therefore a priority for professionals operating within the global luxury industry.
The module explores processes and phases involved in conceptualising, building and managing luxury brands. Students investigate the complexities of branding and understand the role of brand DNA, brand senses, iconography, typography, colours and experiences.
The module examines how design and creativity is intrinsic within the very nature of luxury brands and investigates how artistry, originality and craftsmanship move brands forward. In addition, design thinking is explored from a management perspective, analysing how it is applied within different organisations.
The module will also offer students a contemporary perspective on the theory and practice of brand management and its applications within the global luxury industry. Students will have the opportunity to critically evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of different brand management strategies and to develop solutions to various real business problems.

CATS credits: 20, ECTS credits: 10

Historical and Cultural Perspectives in Luxury (LBM703)

‘Historical and Cultural Perspectives in Luxury’ travels through Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the religious narratives of ages past and present, the global capitalist vernacular and many other historical and current contexts in a phenomenological exploration. In order to engage with luxury brand management, it is crucial for students to understand the concept of luxury itself. This module provides a platform to explore the notion of luxury, its conception, its influences and historical positioning. It delves into the interplay between need and desire and its impact on formulating the idea of luxury. It explores the importance of luxury as a value in the society’s self-definition versus individuals’ processes of identity construction. Positioned on such foundations, the notion of luxury brand is developed, where the module curriculum supports the investigation of the creative processes communicating luxury and how a brand attains luxury status. Furthermore, the module looks at the cultural definition of luxury and how it is created and used in an organization by probing into the cultural significance of luxury and the cultural fabrication of the sensual and prestigious. Upon successful completion of the module students should not only be able to discuss and reflect upon the current notion of luxury and its implications for business organizations and the process of branding. They should develop their own conceptual framework for defining and questioning what luxury is and what the implications for brand management are.

CATS credits: 10 , ECTS credits: 5

Understanding the Luxury Client (LBM704)

Consumer behaviour within the context of the consumption of luxury products and services is complex and is influenced by many factors. A thorough analysis and understanding of these factors allows organisations to plan effective marketing activities suitable to their target markets.
This module enables students to recognise the importance of understanding the luxury client in the process of marketing appropriate goods and services to them. Firstly, the module aims to establish an appreciation of the individual psychological factors that influence the purchase of luxury items and services. Secondly, this understanding is further developed by an examination of the environmental factors that guide and induce conspicuous consumption such as the role of reference groups in forming attitudes towards the acceptance of luxury brands. Thirdly, the processes of consumption behaviour, or the chronological stages that customers progress through when searching for, deciding upon, purchasing, consuming and disposing of luxury goods will be examined.
The concept of Relationship Marketing (RM) is an increasingly important aspect in understanding the luxury client and ensuring their continued loyalty to the brand. The module will therefore examine the field of value and retention focused marketing when dealing with the consumers of luxury products in order to build trust and satisfaction with the company, thus supporting premium pricing and encouraging repeat purchases.
A thorough understanding of the customer lies at the heart of effective marketing including product development and acts as the supporting rationale for the implementation of branding strategies.

CATS credits: 10, ECTS credits: 5

SEMESTER TWO

Promoting Luxury Brands (LBM705)

Promotion and marketing communications play a vital role in supporting and maintaining a brand. This is particularly crucial within the luxury market where products and services are not only sold based on quality and value but also through their symbolic meanings.
Luxury brand managers need to understand the specificities of the different promotional tools and master their use to successfully communicate their brands to an increasingly more sophisticated customer.
Luxury brands exist in an exclusive market niche requiring a more targeted approach to marketing communications in order to create a strong and unique positioning strategy. Thus, the integrated marketing communications approach would give the ‘one voice’ to the once separated marketing communications mix and enable a luxury brand to create and project a clear and consistent identity. Luxury brands are now able to capitalise on a variety of marketing communications strategies, incorporating “traditional” tools such advertising, direct marketing, public relations, personal selling, sales promotions, sponsorship and endorsement, with “new”, digital and more interactive tools.
This module builds on Developing Luxury Brands and contextualises the role and importance of promotion and marketing communications within the strategic management of luxury brands.

CATS credits: 20, ECTS credits: 10.

Recruiting and Retaining Talent (LBM706)

This module is designed to address some of the key aspects involved in employing people, whether they are employed in a manufacturing or service industry context. People, or rather Intellectual Capital, comprise some of the largest fixed costs in any enterprise. Achieving and retaining competitive advantage is about attracting, retaining and subsequently developing this intellectual capital.
This module takes a line manager’s perspective on how the maximise the contribution of this very costly asset. It explores some basic principles of human and organisation behaviour and combines this with several key people management responsibilities of any senior line manager or department head.
The module includes an opportunity for students to learn more about themselves both individually as well as in a team-work environment. Key tools employed in this module include the Myers Briggs personality profile, the Belbin preferred team roles analysis and Honey and Mumford’s learning styles inventory.

CATS credits: 10, ECTS credits: 5

Research Methods (LBM707)

This core module introduces students to the discipline of conducting both primary and secondary research. The module therefore plays an essential role in introducing students to the concepts of empirical enquiry and forms the basis of independent thinking relevant to the majority of other modules studied in Luxury Brand Management. It introduces students to the discipline of project planning and time management as well as to subsequent reflective practice. A core theme throughout the module emphasises that ‘if you fail to plan; it follows that you are planning to fail.’

Here, students are encouraged to consider what they would like to do, following the completion of the course and to use this project as a stepping stone to fulfil this goal. Students are therefore encouraged to focus upon a topic of relevance and interest to themselves and to draw up a feasible research proposal which can be adequately researched and analysed within the tight time constraints of the overall course.

CATS credits: 10, ECTS credits: 5

SEMESTER THREE

Students must choose one of the following two modules for their final semester:

Consultancy Project (LBM712)

In this module, students undertake a consultancy project in a sector of the luxury brand market. The students operate in effect as trainee management consultants for their luxury brand client, are expected to undertake research into an issue related to luxury brands, to develop conclusions and recommendations that are intended to benefit the client organisation and perhaps the sector as a whole. At the end of the project, the participating students prepare an individual reflective report on their experience, a group client report that is informative and beneficial to the client, and also make a presentation to both the client and academic staff.

This is the final module in the programme, takes place in the final semester, and builds upon what has been learnt in the previous modules to allow the opportunity to apply that knowledge in a real luxury brand working environment. Students negotiate the structure of the project with the client and are expected to take a high degree of responsibility for their own learning. The learning and teaching strategy builds on the independent and inter-dependent skills that are developed in the whole programme.

Please note:
Students are primarily responsible for securing their own consultancy project, in conjunction with the support of the Faculty, Careers and Business Relations and the Alumni Network as necessary.

CATS credits: 60, ECTS credits: 30

Dissertation (LBM713)

In this module, students undertake research to produce a dissertation on a topic related to luxury brand management. At the end of the module, the student submits a dissertation report. This is the final module in the programme, takes place in the final semester, and builds upon what has been learnt in the previous modules to allow the opportunity to apply that knowledge through research to a luxury brand management topic of interest. Students are expected to take a high degree of responsibility for their own learning. At postgraduate level, students need to demonstrate their ability to critically evaluate research and demonstrate self-direction in identifying and tackling problems of a complex nature. The dissertation gives students on this programme the opportunity to demonstrate independent thought and evaluation, yet with the help and under the guidance of a supervisor. Students choose a topic that may be related to their career aspirations and bring together the knowledge and understanding gained through the various modules on the programme to identify a problem, investigate and throw light on their chosen topic, drawing in particular on the skills developed in the Research Methods module in their consideration of the appropriate methodology, and drawing on current research and advanced scholarship in the discipline. The dissertation allows students to demonstrate that they are able to conduct research that is rigorous and to develop creative solutions to complex problems.

CATS credits: 60, ECTS credits: 30

Page last updated 5/9/2012