The MSc Marketing & Consumer Behaviour equips you with a comprehensive grounding in approaches to understanding consumer preferences, judgements, decision-making and behaviour.
Why study MSc Marketing & Consumer Behaviour
You'll learn how to use this knowledge to improve organisational strategy and success, in terms of targeting, product placement, advertising, marketing, influencing and protecting consumers.
The programme aims to enhance your employability by fostering the development of the real-life and job-relevant competencies and skills that are required to succeed in today's competitive job market. You will be provided with the strong knowledge base and hands-on research experience needed for succeeding in careers such as marketing, media, communications, advertising, consumer research, consumer insight, entrepreneurship, and public relations.
You will develop the skills necessary to conduct independent research and to understand:
the psychological and cultural processes underlying consumer behaviour
the psychology of consumer preferences and choices
psychological theories of attitude change, persuasion, and influence
the psychology and strategy of branding
how to create and sustain customer experience
behavioural economics (including the psychology of pricing)
the psychological impact of various types of media and advertising
The MSc Marketing & Consumer Behaviour contributes to and strengthens Goldsmiths’ reputation as being one of the premier institutions of its kind in the United Kingdom.
Contact the department
If you have specific questions about the degree, contact Dr Shaheen Hosany.
What you'll study
Overview
The MSc in Marketing & Consumer Behaviour consists of:
All lecturers on this programme have a strong research profile, which they bring to bear when presenting the theoretical, technical, and applied components of consumer behaviour.
Compulsory modules
Module title
Credits
Consumer Behaviour
15 credits
Psychology of Marketing and Advertising
15 credits
Research Design and Applied Statistics
15 credits
Marketing Strategy
15 credits
Creating Customer Experiences
15 Credits
Consumer Culture
15 credits
Research Project/Dissertation
60 credits
Option modules
You can also choose up to 30 credits of option modules. The list of approved modules will include those run by the Institute of Management Studies and by other departments at Goldsmiths that have modules relevant to Marketing & Consumer Behaviour.
A list of modules will be published annually by the department, and may include the following:
Please note that due to staff research commitments not all of these modules may be available every year.
Entry requirements
You should have (or expect to be awarded) an undergraduate degree of at least upper second class standard in a relevant/related subject.
Appropriate work experience will be considered in place of an undergraduate qualification on a case-by-case basis. This may include (but not be limited to) sufficient experience within a design agency, and/or marketing or advertising department.
These are the fees for students starting their programme in the 2024/2025 academic year.
Home - full-time: £15980
Home - part-time: £TBC
International - full-time: £22640
If your fees are not listed here, please check our postgraduate fees guidance or contact the Fees Office, who can also advise you about how to pay your fees.
It’s not currently possible for international students to study part-time under a student visa. If you think you might be eligible to study part-time while being on another visa type, please contact our Admissions Team for more information.
In addition to your tuition fees, you'll be responsible for any additional costs associated with your course, such as buying stationery and paying for photocopying. You can find out more about what you need to budget for on our study costs page.
There may also be specific additional costs associated with your programme. This can include things like paying for field trips or specialist materials for your assignments. Please check the programme specification for more information.
You'll be able to save your progress at any point and return to your application by logging in using your username/email and password.
When to apply
We accept applications from October for students wanting to start the following September.
We encourage you to complete your application as early as possible, even if you haven't finished your current programme of study. It's very common to be offered a place conditional on you achieving a particular qualification.
If you're applying for external funding from one of the Research Councils, make sure you submit your application by the deadline they've specified.
Late applications will only be considered if there are spaces available.
Selection process
Admission to many programmes is by interview either in person or via Skype.
The following staff members all teach on this programme and are complemented by visiting tutors and industry professionals in the delivery of the programme curriculum.
Dr Adele Gruen, PhD Courses: Consumer Behaviour, Dissertations
Adèle Gruen is the Director of the MSc in Consumer Behaviour. She holds a BSc in Management, an MSc and an MRes in Marketing Research and Strategy from Université Paris-Dauphine in France. She holds a PhD in consumer behaviour at that same university. Adele’s research interests lie in the field of the developing access economy (i.e., collaborative consumption or sharing economy). Her research is grounded in consumer culture and aims to understand the relationship consumers develop with objects and places they access and share with other consumers. She studied the fields of car sharing and coworking spaces. She is interested in understanding the connections between consumption and work in new ways of working.
Sven is the Director of the MSc in Marketing and Technology. Prior to joining Goldsmiths, Sven worked at Cass Business School, City University London, as a Lecturer in Marketing, and was a Research Fellow at Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. He obtained his PhD in Management from the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. Sven’s research lies at the intersection of Marketing Strategy, Innovation Management, and Entrepreneurship. He examines how inventors, managers, and entrepreneurs explore, identify, and create new market space for early-stage ideas and technologies. Sven’s research work is mainly set in the empirical context of university technology transfer, with a special emphasis on science-based start-up companies. He aims to extend his research efforts to purpose-driven start-ups in the near future. With his research, Sven seeks to help individuals faced with ambiguous and undefined market spaces achieve commercial success.
Dr Annemijn Loermans, PhD Courses: Psychology of Marketing and Advertising, Dissertations
Annemijn Loermans is a Lecturer in Marketing and the Graduate Careers Coordinator for Marketing. Prior to joining Goldsmiths, Annemijn worked as a postdoctoral researcher at ESSEC Business School, in Paris, France. She holds a BA in Social Sciences from Utrecht University, an MSc in Behavioural Science from the Radboud University Nijmegen, and a PhD in Psychology from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, all in the Netherlands. Annemijn’s research lies at the intersection between marketing, psychology and management. She examines differences in the cognitive representation of abstract concepts, concepts like time, future selves, and brands, and explores how these differences drive our (consumer) behaviour, motivation, and emotions. She mainly employs quantitative techniques in studying these topics and with her research seeks to contribute to a better understanding of cultural differences, how people navigate career transitions, and how consumers interact with brands and consumer goods.
Christian A Eichert is a lecturer in Marketing and Consumer Behaviour. He is currently finishing his PhD in Marketing and Consumption Studies at Cass Business School. Christian started his first company aged 14 and has more than 15 years of experience in founding, managing, and consulting for businesses in Europe and the United States. He has worked in a variety of industries, including online B2C and B2B services, data centre and IP infrastructure, blockchain technology, education, and investment management and advisory. His current research projects encompass three topical and theoretical domains of inquiry: (1) vulnerable and marginalized communities and subcultures, for example how consumers avoid, manage, and resist social stigma in the marketplace; (2) gender and sexuality, for example how consumers navigate markets for casual intimacy on smartphone apps such as "Tinder" or "Grindr"; and (3) digitalisation and globalisation, for example how new technologies facilitate the emergence of location-independent work and consumer lifestyles.
Dr Nigel Guenole BA (Hons), MA, GradDipApplStat, PhD Courses: Research Design and Applied Statistics, Dissertation
Nigel is the Director of the MSc Global Leadership programme and teaches the Leadership and Talent Management course on the MSc Management of Innovation. His research focuses on the measurement of high performance for leadership and talent management using advanced psychometric methods. His consulting work focuses on the design and validation of psychological assessment instruments for employee selection and development purposes. He supervises MSc Management of Innovation dissertations focused on quantitative methods and advanced statistics.
Careers
Skills
You will become adept at assessing marketing techniques, problem-solving, interpreting human behaviour, influencing consumer choice, analysing complex information, working in teams and excelling in individual projects.
Careers
Possible careers for graduates of the programme include:
‘Culture is a paradoxical commodity. So completely is it subject to the law of exchange that it is no longer exchanged; it is so blindly consumed in use that it can no longer be used. [...] The whole world is made to pass through the filter of the culture industry.’
–Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, ‘The Culture Industry’, 1947
Shape the future of work by training as an Occupational Psychologist in the Institute of Management Studies (IMS). Gain the scientific knowledge, practical skills, and professional network to challenge the status quo and offer innovative workplace solutions.
This programme will equip you with the fundamental business and social enterprise knowledge and skills needed to manage innovative product and brand or policy development, service delivery, and integration of emerging technologies in fast-paced industries.
The MSc Marketing & Technology aims to transform students into uniquely-trained individuals possessing the knowledge and skills required to be successful marketers in dynamic and technology-driven industries.