Year:12/13
Department:Marketing
Level:Part II (final year)
Learning Hours:300
Credit Points:30
Weight:1
Course Convenor:Dr J Freund
Status:Live
Syllabus Rules
back to top
The student must take 1 modules from the following group:
Assessment Rules
back to top
CMod description
back to top
This course provides students with the opportunity to engage in 'live' research projects for advertising agencies and their clients, or in academic research projects. Students will develop the research and creative skills necessary to take a project from client briefing through research design and implementation to report writing.
Curriculum Design: Outline Syllabus
back to top
In general terms, the timescale will be as follows although this will, of course, depend on the nature of your project:
Michaelmas Term:
- Introduction to groups and group project.
- Possible visit to client/agency to receive brief.
- Design research and develop formal research proposal for client's agreement.
- Conduct secondary and/or exploratory research
- Research and work on individual assignment (submission date to be arranged by/agreed with your supervisor)
Lent Term
- Conduct and complete research
- Prepare final report
- Internal presentation of research (usually week 9 or 10)
- Presentation of research to client (possibly at their offices, possibly during or even after the Easter vacation)
Summer Term
- Complete and submit final report (2 bound copies) by Senate deadline at the latest
The groups will be chosen so as to provide a balance of skills and experience in relationship to a particular project. You will be allocated to groups with 4 or 6 members.
The initial brief for the project will have been agreed in general terms before the project starts but renegotiation of the brief may occur at any time and at the instigation of the group and with the involvement of the group. However your supervisor must be involved and must agree the brief after renegotiating.
Each group will be responsible to an academic supervisor who will help set the parameters for the project, meet the group regularly to review progress (at both pre-specified times and ad hoc when required), offer help and advice to the group and act as the ultimate contact between the Department and the client.
The groups will be responsible for the quality of the work that they do in terms of both client and supervisor assessment. Projects will usually begin early in the Michaelmas term and must end by the Senate deadline. However because of the involvement of outside clients projects may begin later and end earlier resulting often in quite different work patterns. Students will need to learn how to accommodate these requirements.
Educational Aims: Subject Specific: Knowledge, Understanding and Skills
back to topThe overall aim of the Advertising Research Project is to provide you with an opportunity to relate your theoretical studies to the advertising context by undertaking a live project for an advertising agency, or one of their clients.
Learning Outcomes: Subject Specific: Knowledge, Understanding and Skills
back to top
The project which you and your group undertake will:
- help develop your individual research skills in a practical situation.
- allow you to learn the language of the advertising industry, and to discover at first hand how it operates.
- give you practice of working in small groups, organising yourselves partly on your own initiative, working to an agreed brief and completing the project to the satisfaction of the client and the academic supervisor.
- foster good relationships between agencies, their clients and the Department.
- allow you to decide whether you wish to have a career in advertising and to provide contacts should you decide to do so.
Curriculum Design: Select Bibliography
back to topThere are a number of books that are a good starting point, and you should read in order to increase your understanding of why we use qualitative research and quantitative techniques, and what the relative benefits of each of them are. These include:
- Chisnall, P. (1995) Consumer behaviour. McGraw Hill.
- Foxall, Goldsmith and Brown (1998). Consumer psychology for marketing. Thompson Business Press.
- Gordon, Wendy (1999). Goodthinking : a guide to qualitative research. Henley-on-Thames: Admap. (Classmark: TJQG <G>)
- Gordon, W. and Langmaid, R. (1989). Qualitative Market Research: A practitioners' and buyers' guide. Gower.
-
Mariampolski, Hy (2001). Qualitative market research: A comprehensive guide. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. (Classmark: TJQG <M>)
- Mason, Jennifer (1996/2001). Qualitative researching. London; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, (Classmark: K4 <M>)
- McGivern, Yvonne (2003). The Practice of Market and Social Research: An Introduction. Essex: Pearson Education.
- Robson, S. and Foster, A. (1988) Qualitative research in action. Edward Arnold.
- Silverman, David (2000). Doing qualitative research: A practical handbook. London: Sage Publications (Classmark: K4 <S>)
-
Baker, Michael (2003). Business and management research: How to complete your research project successfully. Westburn Publishers Ltd (On order)
You should also download and read a copy of the following:
