MA Luxury Brand Management

This module provides you with a thorough understanding of the unique practices associated with successful luxury brand management. You'll probe the essence of luxury brand management, and explore the diversity of meanings associated with luxury across different markets, as well as the impact of social networks and digital developments.

In the contemporary luxury market, companies have to be connected with customers in increasingly creative ways. Luxury has to distinguish itself through distinctive approaches to retail, information technology and marketing. Luxury provides the opportunity to stay close to one’s customers and to provide the things that they want. Luxury has traditionally been seen in a tangible way, especially with regard to fashion goods, but an emerging field on inquiry is the growth of experiential luxury and the expansion of luxury management skills into new areas such as tourism and hospitality, museums and art galleries, and theatres. The distinctive features of luxury brand management arose from a combination of theory and practice, and consideration is given to emerging future trends. You'll explore geographical and regional perspectives within their historical contexts with regard to the luxury sector or knowledge domain with reference to the development of luxury brands in Europe, and to the use of luxury items in Asian and African court-based societies. You'll examine, in particular, the rapid emergence of Japan as a major consumer and developer of luxury brands and how its own distinctive practices in retail, notably the close relationship between customer and retailer, became influential.

In this module, you'll probe the essence of luxury brand management and explore the differences between mass, premium and luxury brand management strategies. You'll gain a strategic perspective on the dynamic characteristics and opportunities associated with luxury brand management in a global context and examine the main forms of management in relation to the luxury goods and services industry. You'll learn industry perspectives on luxury in relation to new venture creation and product development. There is a focus on the practicalities of management and an examination of the human resource management issues relevant to this sector. We'll discuss corporate social responsibility and environmental issues relating to luxury brand management. You'll consider the different methods required in the management of branded luxury goods and the provision of luxury experiences and their underlying rationales.

This module will provide you with an understanding of the role of the luxury brand manager in relation to intellectual property (IP) legislation and the contexts in which legal advice should be sought.

You'll be introduced to contemporary theory and practice in policy-making and industry by bringing in occasional speakers from ICCE’s networks in the industry. IP refers to intangible assets created by the mind. IP is often afforded time-limited, legal monopoly protection. Intellectual property rights (IPRs) refer to the legal rights, including trademarks, copyright, design rights, patents and, in some cases, trade secrets, that grant the right to control the use of intellectual efforts.

While the importance of IP legislation is recognised by the vast majority of countries, the level of enforcement of IP laws varies. Reference is made to the British legal context, but the emphasis is on international legislation as the student body is likely to be diverse in terms of nationality. There are many historical and contemporary examples of IP infringement, including both commercial and artistic, and sometimes IP infringement is encouraged by brands and artists.

The Dissertation is an extended piece of written work on a research topic of your choice. The dissertation comprises a critical review of the literature and/or original analysis of documentary and/or other evidence on a chosen topic within the fields of your programme.

The dissertation is intended to assess the full range of your abilities and to apply a range of learning outcomes that you develop throughout the degree. In particular, it enables assessment of your ability to design, develop and write an advanced research project using primary and/or secondary materials appropriate to the topic and according to the necessary conventions of scholarly work. It requires independent motivation and self-directed learning, under supervision, and enables you to demonstrate competence for critical analysis and sustained persuasive argument.  

One of the main purposes of the dissertation is to enable you to deepen your knowledge and understanding of the content and capabilities of the overall programme.

This lecture course will introduce you to the fundamentals of consumer psychology and behavioural economics.

It will give you an understanding of the fundamental decision making processes and the factors that influence these processes. It covers topics such as prospect theory and classical economics, brain structures and information processing, heuristics and rules of thumb, and framing and influencing techniques.

It also discloses the various strategies used by marketers to differentiate their products, leverage brands, set strategic prices, reduce the effectiveness of consumer search, and it compares the effectiveness of each.

The course covers topics such as the types and effectiveness of pricing strategies, individual differences in uptake of pricing strategies, value perceptions and subconscious influences (priming), and ethical and legal issues around influencing consumer choice.

The lectures in this course will be supplemented by several assignments designed to develop and enhance practical skills, and further develop familiarity with consumer psychological methods and theories.

This module provides the knowledge requirement for marketing and advertising. The module will provide a critical understanding of what consumers buy, how they buy (i.e., buying patterns), and why they buy the way they do (i.e., why we see these patterns). This knowledge in turn will enable you to improve marketing and advertising strategies of organisations both on large scale and small-scale projects. By using theory, case material and practical examples, you are introduced to the importance of theory and research-based practice in these fields.

Throughout the module you will develop a contemporary, cognitive toolkit for researching, analysing, and understanding buyer behaviour. You will contrast this current approach with traditional models of marketing and advertisement. Finally, you will learn to apply this knowledge for organisational strategy initiatives (e.g., launching a new marketing campaign). This module brings together a wide range of approaches to buyer behaviour, marketing and advertising, both on organisational and project-by-project levels. You will also be offered an opportunity to apply your learning to analysing case studies.

The objective of this module is to equip students with some of the knowledge and tools to analyse the internal and external business environment and devise marketing strategies that help to distinguish businesses from their key competitors whilst adding value to the product/service offering. The module will be divided into two section: one more theoretical and one more practice. The module will start defining the role of marketing strategy within the business strategy and the corporate strategy of the company. It will also help to differentiate the three levels, and it will highlight the relationships between these three levels of strategy. The module will then look into the process of creation of a marketing plan as a core tool for the definition of the strategy. The marketing planning process will start from understanding the market opportunities of the company, through the identification of attractive market segments, to the differentiation and brand positioning. The module will then move on the formulation of marketing strategies such as marketing strategies for new market entries, growth markets strategies, mature and declining markets strategies. Finally, students will learn how to implement and control strategy, and to measure effectively the performance of a specific strategy. In the second section, students will be required to complete a business simulation. In order to show a practical understanding of the concepts of the first part, students will be divided into teams and will be asked to complete in a simulation related to marketing strategy (i.e. Markstrat). This simulation will allow students to draw a parallel between marketing strategy and marketing tactics (4Ps). This will also allow them to apply the knowledge about other elements of marketing management that they have been studying in other modules.

Project Management involves all aspects of defining, designing, delivering, and supporting organisational initiatives and product development. These aspects include planning and controlling for scope, time, cost, quality, HR, communications, risk, procurement, and their integration. It involves all activities from initiating projects to managing, directing, controlling, and closing them. This module will address all of these areas in a rigorous and structured way, using three dominant methodologies currently active in operational environments. It will provide students with an active skillset in project management and prepare them to pursue certification in any of these three methodologies. The curriculum will use lectures, activities, case studies, group work, role-play scenarios, and presentations. Students will be taught in a single lecture environment each week before breaking off into smaller groups for project management tools and software training in labs in five of the weeks.

Recent research in Asia has questioned the widely held assumption that tourism arose in the UK during the mid-19th century as a result of Thomas Cook’s introduction of the ‘package’, a combination of the cost of travel and another service.

It has been shown that travel and leisure existed in early Han Dynasty China as scholars and priests explored mountainous areas giving rise to one of the civilizations most enduring art forms, the landscape painting. Travel and leisure also seem to have gone hand in hand with that other widespread phenomenon, the pilgrimage, with the attendant development of hostelries, storytelling and souvenir production.

Industrial forms of tourism were introduced to Asia by European colonial powers in the late 19th and early 20th century with the development of hilltop stations to provide relief for officials and merchants working in tropical areas. Grand hotels were introduced with the Sarkies brothers opening up famous establishments in Myanmar (Burma), Singapore and Indonesia (Dutch East Indies). The inter war cruise ship industry made Asia accessible to wealthy Europeans and Americans with perceptible impacts on Asian hospitality traditions and visual and performing arts.

Western artists used the opportunities provided by tourism to open studios in Asia, notably Bali, often working alongside indigenous artists to create hybrid and highly creative art forms. The post-war era opened up parts of Asia to Western mass tourism, notably the so-called ‘rest and recreation’ of the US military in Thailand.

Tourism was also used as a nation building strategy by Asian leaders such as Suharto in Indonesia to encourage his countrymen to travel and to get to know their country and to project a tourist friendly external image of stability.

As the Asian economies developed, countries like Japan became major sources of outbound tourism with accompanying impacts on Western retail practices, especially with regard to fashion and luxury. By 2014 China had become the largest outbound and inbound tourism market with the introduction of China-friendly hotel ranking systems in Europe, such as the 5-dragons scheme, began to be experimented with in Europe.

Indian outbound tourism also became significant with some novel characteristics, such as an interest in the hybrid Indian-British culinary tradition of the ‘curry house’. Tourism is also one of the drives that has spread Asian culinary traditions around the world.

This module critically analyses the growth and character of cultural and creative tourism and the growing relationship between the creative industries and cultural tourism. We'll discuss notions of the creative class, the creative city, and the experience economy, which have been used to underpin strategies in cultural tourism development. Ideas about the growing sophistication of cultural tourists and their changing tastes suggest that travellers wish to move beyond consumption to ‘prosumption’. We'll connect directly with the way how economies change and how it makes imperative the definition of new touristic products, services, and experiences. 

With increasing competition between tourism destinations, the development of timely, attractive, and innovative tourism products has never been more necessary – whether using the historic environment in creative ways or exploiting contemporary cultural forms and/or tourism resources. 

This module looks at the governance of cultural tourism at different levels (from UNESCO to local government and local partnerships), best practices in destination management, and the development of new tourism products. The geographic spread of cultural tourism and the greater diversity of products, necessitates the examination of issues related to contested meanings, authenticity, ethics, and sustainability which has become increasingly significant in the sector.

In this module, you'll explore the relationship between culture, tourism, and regeneration. Tourism has long played a role in the economic, social and physical transformation of towns, cities and rural areas.  However, in recent decades the nature of tourism, particularly city tourism, has changed, and concerns with sustainability have become of utmost importance. 

You'll analyse the growth and increasing diversity of cultural tourism, the role it plays in urban centres and their regions and the ways in which cities, regions and rural areas, have reinvented and rebranded themselves as centres of leisure and recreation consumption using major cultural infrastructure investment, heritage commodification, events, and festivals.

This module places emphasis on the discussion of current themes and issues at policy and practice level in this transdisciplinary area. It fosters a reflexive and entrepreneurial approach to international cultural relations, by encouraging students to actively engage in the area by developing their own research and projects, relating them to wider debates. The module thus allows for the development of critical, creative, practical and reflexive skills complementing other elements of the MA Cultural Policy, Relations and Diplomacy programme.

The module covers a range of trans-disciplinary contemporary issues that concern those researching and practicing in the areas of cultural relations and diplomacy. It will consider key questions faced by countries, regions, cities, organisations and individuals in creating and delivering policy and projects. The topics are broad and changeable responding to the current issues concerning policy makers, practitioners and the public engaged in the field – an indicative list of topics to be covered in the sessions is provided below.

While providing space for student led education through individual and collaborative presentations, the module works around topical and geographical sessions, each representing a contemporary issue and/or area of current interest in cultural relations and cultural diplomacy. These include for example: culture and international development policies and practices; the role of the cultural and creative industries in cultural relations and diplomacy; migration and (transnational) cultural citizenship; language, communication and identity in international cultural relations; international cultural policies and cultural co-operation; sessions with a geographical focus e.g China’s cultural diplomacy, EU strategy for culture in external relations; project planning, monitoring and evaluation for cultural relations and diplomacy.

Some might say that Museums and Galleries of art have been forced to develop an entrepreneurial strategy so that they can remain free, look after their buildings, realise ambitious new projects, compete with other forms of entertainment, including educational and leisure venues and establish themselves as important players on the international art scene. It may be unsurprising that working in an entrepreneurial way has come naturally to those in the creative industries and museums and galleries have enthusiastically embraced the challenges before them to increase audiences, embrace issues of diversity and offer a visitor experience that is both educational and enjoyable.

This ten-week module takes place on Friday early evenings and focuses on Tate Britain, Tate Modern, the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery. Individual sessions examine how museums use their collections for education, interpretation and event programming and have successfully developed a dedicated communications strategy to market, promote, fund-raise and attract sponsorship.

Museums and Galleries of art make an important contribution to income generation in the UK. To achieve this successful outcome it is necessary for them to understand the role that culture plays in our society. The manner in which they display works of art, provide information and education, are committed to making their collections more accessible and generally strive to be welcoming, entertaining, friendly and rich in diverse opportunities shows how well they have understood the part they play in establishing culture at the heart of all that we do. This ten week course will focus on the growing importance of cultural organisations, how taste is shaped not only by museums and galleries but also by designers of fashion and lifestyle products and how commercial organisations are keen to engage in large-scale cultural projects as a way of attracting a new, younger audience and establishing themselves as key players in a modern society.

Individual sessions will focus on the many definitions of culture from Raymond Williams to Brian Eno; the connections between culture and class using the work of Bourdieu and Tony Bennett, the issue of taste as Greenberg saw it and more recently as the type of lifestyle choices we make. The course will also use case studies of large scale public cultural projects like the Unilever series in Tate Modern’s turbine Hall and the Fourth Plinth project in Trafalgar Square.

Although art museums use the words interpretation, education and communication as a way of differentiating between individual departments and the type of responsibility staff members have, there are important fundamental differences inherent within each term that are rarely examined or explained. This module will seek to explore these differences, and look closely at each of the three main concepts: interpretation, education and communication.

Individual sessions will examine the way in which art museums define their relationship to content, meaning and context, how they communicate their message, their interest in creating a suitable brand and image, the role of library and archive, development, fundraising and conservation.
There will be an emphasis on examining education and learning, the importance of access, diversity and the range of activities museums develop to attract new visitors and address the diversity and needs of an increasingly large visiting public.

The module tutor will introduce theories which relate to the writing of interpretative text, and consider how the experience of looking at art might be different if text were not available. There will also be a discussion regarding the role of the aesthetic in art education and the range of expectations visitors have from a museum visit.

The discourses of contemporary 'Leadership' and 'Enterprise Theory' are, much like the wider discourse of Management Theory itself, in a state of critical transformation. The authority, validity, and appropriateness of that type of scientifically influenced or 'positivist' thinking that informed so much of the early 'Taylorist' and 'Fordist' influenced work of the so-called 'first age' (Snowden, 2005) of Management Theory has been thrown into disrepute, as have many of the premises of that more contextually aware and 'constructively' influenced work that informed the so-called 'second age'.

Undermined by both the universalising and de-contextualising tendencies of that type of thinking that defined the 'first age', and the still latent problems of the 'implementation' or 'internalisation' (Nonaka, 1995) of the insights of that thinking that defined the 'second age,' we are now in a position in which – in what is increasing being recognised as the 'third age' of Management Theory – all of the principal discourses of Management Theory from Knowledge Management, to Organisational Theory, Enterprise Theory, Innovation, and Leadership, are having to come to terms with the difficult question of how they can still deal with their various objects of analysis, whether that be the essential nature, qualities, or conditions of successful Leadership, Enterprise, or Innovation, in a relatively organized, structured, and predictable way, and yet a way that does not undermine, foreclose, or delimit the essential 'complexity', unpredictability, and 'emergent' qualities of these phenomena and the contexts in which they arise. This is a problem that has seen a pronounced emphasis in recent years on the analysis of the role that the individual 'creative', 'entrepreneurial', or 'self-actualising' subject plays in the 'narrative' construction of their own relationships to those contexts in which they exist, innovate, lead, or learn (Tsoukas, 2005).

This module will introduce students to all of the main theories that have contributed to the evolution of this discourse from the early scientifically orientated, 'positivist', and 'essentialist' theories of Frederick Winslow Taylor in The Principles of Scientific Management (1911), to Joseph Schumpeter’s work on Innovation as “creative destruction” (1934), to Gordon Allport (1921) and Kurt Lewin’s (1935) early work on 'Trait Theory' and 'Situational' theories of personality as they have been applied to Leadership, to Ralph Stacey (2001, 2003, 2010), and Henry Chesborough’s (2003, 2006, 2010) recent work on 'Organisational Complexity' and 'Open Innovation', to more recent 'Transactional', 'Transformational', and 'Organic' Theories of Leadership, to Ikujiro Nonaka’s (1995) and Hubert Dreyfus’ (1997) 'ontologically' orientated theories of Innovation, and Roger Martin (2009) and Armand Hatchuel’s (2010) recent work on the value of various 'design thinking' lead creative research methodologies to the articulation of how we can most ‘productively’ act, think, innovate, and lead, within the ever increasing 'complexity' of current business environments.

The principal objective of this archaeological analysis of the history of the evolution and development contemporary Management Theory, and particularly as it has been applied to the discourses of contemporary 'Enterprise' and 'Leadership' Theory, is to enable students to develop a comprehensive understanding of not only the history of the discourse but also how the insights of these theories can be practically applied to the conceptualisation and analysis of their own projects—thus overcoming the much debated 'relevancy gap' in so much contemporary Management Theory and education.

Particular emphasis will also be placed on the 'cross-cultural' significance of this work in relation to both Gert Hoftstede (2001) and Richard E. Nisbett’s (2005) work on the differing 'dimensions' of cultural belief, value, and understanding.

This module will introduce students to a range of business modelling tools, and provide insight in to the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs and enterprises. The module has evolved from NESTA’s Creative Pioneer Programme and will use the Modelling Techniques that were designed and have evolved from The Academy and Insight Out which provide approaches to commercialising creativity.

It will critically review the key characteristics of successful enterprises, entrepreneurs and leaders, within the cultural and more commercially focused creative industries. It will look at the range of business models that exist and review how best to build a financially sustainable organisation.

Students will be introduced to a range of techniques:

1. Relationship Modelling – this will assist students to understand the range of business models in the creative industries, and to create the most appropriate route to market; it will consider the relationship that the originator of the creative idea has to the production, distribution and the audience/customer/client; it uncovers the student’s relationship to “reward”.

2. Evidence Modelling – this model uses Marshall McLuhan’s Tetrad Model to review the likely impact of the idea; it helps makes the enterprise tangible and to ensure that the entrepreneur remains in control of the effects of their ideas. Using the modelling technique helps students to articulate their values and the benefits of their ideas.

3. Blueprint Modelling – an approach to creating an operating plan which will move their idea to market, articulating all of the activities and responsibilities required.
Consequence Modelling – using all of the knowledge from the modelling techniques, this will uncover the financial consequences of the decisions made. It will introduce them to basic financial modelling concepts, and ensure they are comfortable with the financial language of creative entrepreneurs.

This module is designed to explore how to engage with retail data and technology applications to optimise retail operations and development.  

Over the last two decades, digital technologies have resulted in a revolution in the retail sector. The web, then mobile and now immersive technologies have opened up new avenues for retail beyond bricks and mortar. Retailers have been making increasingly sophisticated use of data, and can mine it for increasingly complex insights into customer behaviour driving new business innovations.  

This module will focus on two, intertwined, elements. The first is digital retail channels such as e-commerce, mobile apps and new developments such as VR and AR. The second is retail data and how it can be used to drive retail innovation and supply chains. These two are closely connected as digital retail channels are a major source of data and data analytics can be used to update and personalise digital channels in real-time.  

This module will be taught from a global perspective that does not assume that all retail follows the western technology model, for example focusing on the mobile first and digital payment economies in Asia and Africa.  

There is no need for prior experience of mathematical or computer science.