Curriculum

This programme trains you to execute effective marketing campaigns and make timely strategic decisions using both qualitative and quantitative techniques. You can choose to specialise in Managerial Marketing or Big Data Marketing, according to your career goals.

To complete the programme, you will need to attain a total of 36 credits of coursework, comprising of 5 core courses, 4 concentration required courses and 3 elective courses worth 3 credits each.

• Full-time programme (1 year)

  PRE-TERM | August
  1 core course (pre-requisite course)

  1st TRIMESTER | September-December
  4 core courses

  2nd TRIMESTER | December-March
  3 concentration required courses
  1 elective course

  3rd TRIMESTER | March-June
  1 concentration required course
  2 elective course

Please note:
Courses and timelines are subject to change.

Core courses

• Marketing Management

  This course is designed to illustrate how marketing management varies the marketing mix (price, product, promotion, and place) to achieve maximum consumer satisfaction. Emphasis is placed on the basic marketing concept that a firm's long-run market position is enhanced by the creation of a different advantage while following consumer desires. Also discussed are marketing strategy (formulation and implementation) and the role of the firm vis-a-vis its various environments (socio-political-economic). Short cases are used to illustrate the various concepts and to provide the student with decision-making experiences in a complex environment.

• Marketing Research

  This course deals with the systematic and objective search for, and analysis of, information relevant to major classes of marketing management problems. There will be a focus on applications of problem structuring and marketing data collection, processing, and analysis.

• Buyer Behavior

  Integrated selected topics in buyer behavior with marketing applications. Topics include: the sociological and psychological aspects of buyer behavior, product adoption and diffusion, and the process of buyer behavior, including search, motivation, influence, and interaction, and examination of normative behavior models. Special emphasis will be placed on Asian consumer behavior.

• Digital Marketing

  This course aims to discuss some new topics in digital marketing. It covers the interaction between online and offline marketing; the challenge of social media marketing to traditional marketing theories; models and problems of sharing economy; a discussion of different pricing models of internet companies; and the development and the influence of artificial intelligence (AI).

• Strategic Marketing

  This course covers major marketing decisions in a problem oriented setting, the in-depth study of general marketing management and the development of marketing plans and strategies. Emphasis is placed on integrating and applying analytical techniques, and interfunctional aspects of marketing.

Big Data Marketing Concentration required courses

• Machine Learning in Marketing

  Machine learning, with its capability of analysing big databases for patterns and insights, is quickly altering the future landscape of marketing. This course uses real business cases from tech companies and aims at providing students with a basic understanding on how machine learning can assist modern marketing decisions. Topics such as the following will be covered: 1) unsupervised learning and recommendation systems; 2) supervised learning and churn rate prediction; 3) A/B testing and the optimisation of advertising offers; 4) natural language processing and the analysis of user generated content. Deep learning and artificial intelligence will also be discussed.

• Marketing Analytics

  Marketing analytics allow firms to measure, manage, and analyze marketing performance in order to maximize its effectiveness and return on investment. Advancements in collecting, storing, and analyzing information have created new business opportunities. Marketing analytics gives students an advantage to allocate marketing resources optimally to come out ahead of competition. Professionals with these skills are highly demanded. This course provides students with solid foundation in marketing analytics. Students will build data skills to turn business data into prescriptive recommendations for the marketing execution process to maximize firms' strategic value. In this course, students will have the opportunity to experience hands on the use of business data to answer marketing questions and to analyze and present results. Learning outcomes will include fundamentals of data analysis like data manipulation, data visualization and statistical tests, as well as advanced marketing applications such as data complexity reduction, factor analysis and choice models.

• Customer Relationship Management

  This course aims at providing students with a basic understanding on what customer relationship management (CRM) is, why it is so important in the contemporary business world, and how it is implemented using recent information technology. Specifically, the following topics will be covered: 1) customer heterogeneity 2) customer lifetime value 3) customer dynamism 4) CRM-based marketing strategies 5) one-to-one marketing The implementation of CRM via Internet marketing, data warehouse, data mining, and database marketing will also be discussed.

• Social Media Analytics

  More than three-quarters of the top 100 companies are using at least one social media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc). Definitely, social media marketing has emerging as a tectonic shift from traditional marketing. This course introduces concepts, theories and applications of social network and social media analysis such as network and graph theory applications in social media, as well as network marketing and social media strategy. Through lecture, discussion, guest speakers, case studies and team project, students will come to evaluate how social media has changed the marketing paradigm and practices and many companies are struggling with it. This course helps students implement social media strategies which involve different aspects of marketing and hone their network analytical skills. Due to a strong need for marketing professionals who are attuned to this area, this course is specifically for students who are planning to enter digital/social media marketing, consulting and brand management roles.

Managerial Marketing Concentration required courses

• Managing Service Excellence

  This Course reviews the important concepts in service marketing. It addresses the issues involved in the effective marketing of services taking into account the unique characteristics of services. The issues which are covered include: the interactive nature of the service provider, the consumer and the physical environment in the service provision process; the importance to maintain high quality; and special problems related to the growth and internationalization of services.

• Global Marketing Management

  In this electronic age, multinational marketers will face a fast changing marketing environment. Globalization of business activities will no longer be the privilege of firms in the advanced countries. Existing concepts and theories in international marketing are being challenged for their abilities in solving problems in this electronic era. This course is designed to link theories with business practices. Topics include analyzes of the underlying forces in international business, and the recent development of theoretical concepts and theories in the area of international marketing. Marketing strategies will be discussed for operations in both advanced and emerging economies.

• Integrated Marketing Communication

  Theoretical and practical appreciation of the role of “integrated marketing communication” (IMC) in today’s business environment. IMC differs from traditional advertising and promotion programs by using zero-based planning, data-driven communication and brand touch points. The program focuses on using strategic mix of advertising, sales promotion, public relations, event marketing and direct response promotions along with mass and two-way communication.

• Strategic Brand Management

  One of the most important assets of any business is its brands. As industries become increasingly competitive, it is clear that strong brand-building skills are needed to survival and prosper. The Strategic Brand Management course is designed to preview conceptual background as well as practical approaches to manage brands as a strategic asset as well as a primary source of competitive advantage. Topics include brand creation, brand building, managing brand equity, and revitalizing brands.

Elective courses

• Behavioral Decision Making

  Making decisions, from the trivial to the fundamental, is part of the everyday life of every manager and investor. For the last 30 years, psychologists — and more recently also economists — have studied how people process information and make decisions. This research program has provided an insightful understanding of how people's decisions deviate from "optimal" ones, and the consequences of such biases in financial and personal terms. This course is devoted to understanding the nature, causes and managerial implications of these limitations. It will help the students discover a series of serious yet often overlooked mistakes that most people would commit in a variety of decision contexts, including investment decisions, hiring decisions, purchase decisions and even marital decisions. At the same time, this course will also teach them how to correct these mistakes and how to reach optimal solutions. Instead of overwhelming the students with mathematic models or academic theories, this course will use many in-class exercises and questionnaires to convey the concepts.

• Big Data Strategy

  This is an introductory course for big data marketing. The course introduces to the students the different types of data, data analytics, and their applications in marketing. The topics may include scanner panel data and shopping behavior analysis, web search data and online advertising, clickstream data and internet marketing, social network analysis, text mining and customer relationship management (CRM), machine learning and picture information processing, database management. Methodologies and techniques, including web crawling, logistic regression, and social network analysis, will be introduced and their business applications will be explained.

• Marketing Engineering

  Firms today have access to more data about the market and consumer behavior than ever before. The business world is increasingly characterized by data explosion and information-intensive decision making. Integration between basic marketing concepts and analytical tools can significantly improve marketing decision making. The goal of this course is to help students develop the expertise to identify marketing opportunities/problems, analyze market data, and make marketing plans. Using exercises tied to computer software, students will develop problem-solving skills and critical thinking for various marketing problems. The course consists of two parts. The first part addresses general strategic issues on market and consumers. We learn how to make strategic decisions on segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP). The second part examines specific marketing mix decisions, including new product design, sales forecasting, and promotion, etc.

• Organisational Marketing

  The major objectives of this course are to develop an understanding of the unique features, behavior and problems of organisational marketing as compared to consumer marketing and to show how to apply the marketing managerial process (e.g., market segmentation, target market selection, development of the marketing mix) to the field of organizational marketing. The course is concerned with the application of modern marketing principles to organisational customers, including profit and non-profit organizations such as industrial buyers, government and social service institutions.

• Pricing Analytics

  Determining the price of a product or service is one of the most important but also complex marketing decisions. The objectives of this course are threefold. First, it aims to familiarize the students with the basic concepts and techniques in pricing decisions. Second, it introduces an integrated framework, which is structured around marketing's three C's: costs, customers and competitors, for assessing and formulating profitable pricing strategies. Third, this course points to analytical tools which are essential for the understanding of both pricing decision and its value creation process from a managerial perspective. Students are expected to not only understand the concepts for setting pricing decisions, but also be able to apply essential techniques for making profitable pricing decisions in current business environment.

• Salesmanship and Sales Management

  Salesmanship and Sales Management is the art of developing salespeople's selling skill and motivating one's own salespeople through an insightful blend of training and management procedures: both “system”-driven and “human”-oriented. Topics will include: sales training, determining the nature and amount of personal sales effort, territory design, quota and other performance assessments, and other control measures. Special emphasis will be placed on the discussion of contemporary practices in salesmanship and the selecting, training, motivating, and directing of salespeople.

• Special Topics in Marketing

  This course will focus on special issues selected by the Marketing Department.

• Practicum in Managerial Marketing

  The objective of this course is to give students advanced practical marketing research techniques as well as hands-on experience in solving marketing problems in the real-world environment. The course consists of some lectures on advanced but practical marketing research techniques and a group project. In the group project, students will work closely with the marketing manager of a firm to solve his or her marketing problem(s) by using primary marketing research. Students will need to do presentation to the firm’s marketing and/or management team as well as submitting a detailed written report or marketing plan.

• Practicum in Big Data Marketing

  The objective of this course is to provide students hands-on experience to solve big data marketing problems in the real-world environment. The course consists of lectures on big data software, big data group projects, meetings, reports and presentations. The big data project can be a data mining project or a text mining project or a voice mining project. Students work on the real world data and collaborate closely with the staff of the Marketing Engineering Center to deliver joint solutions to the big data marketing problems in the industry.

The offering of elective course(s) is subject to department’s decision

Other elective courses

To fulfill the elective course requirement, students may choose up to 3 units of required course(s) from the other concentration, subject to availability of enrolment quota.

You may take 3-credits-worth of courses from other programmes including the Master of Accountancy, Master of Social Science in Advertising or any MSc programmes from the Faculty of Business Administration, subject to approval by Programme Directors.

You may be exempt from taking a course if you have completed an equivalent course in your postgraduate studies and achieved a grade B or above. You may be exempt from a maximum of 6 credits, subject to approval, and will need to replace the credits with other elective courses.

Company visits

As the commercial hub of Asia, Hong Kong is home to world-leading international organisations. You will have opportunities to visit various companies on-site and gain a deeper understanding of current marketing practices.

Guest lecturers

We invite marketing consultants and thought leaders from a wide range of industries to share their views on the challenges, emerging trends and future opportunities of marketing at guest lectures. Recently, we have had executives from Amazon, Dell, Estée Lauder, Nestlé, P&G and Uber sharing their insights on social media and big data marketing strategies.

Orientation

Before the programme begins, there will be team-building activities to help you get to know each other better and develop the kind of soft skills employers are looking for.

Your performance is assessed based on exams and assignments, according to CUHK’s grading system.

To graduate, you must complete the prescribed coursework and achieve a cumulative grade-point average (GPA) of at least 2.50.

Students who obtain a cumulative GPA below 2.50 in the term assessment will be put on academic probation. If the probation is not lifted after 2 consecutive terms, the student will be required to discontinue his or her studies.

Students who receive a grade D+ or below in a course must repeat the course or take an approved substitute course.

Dean’s List

Students in the top 20 percentile who achieve a cumulative GPA of 3.60 or above are eligible to be on the Dean’s List. These students will be issued a Dean’s List Certificate and the honour will be recorded on their academic transcripts.