Course overview

By integrating two complementary fields of marketing and digital media into one course, BA (Hons) Digital Marketing provides you with a unique study experience, focused on creating future digital marketing professionals.

The broad aims of the course are to link the study of marketing concepts to digital media disciplines and as such this course is likely to appeal to those students wishing to gain employment or a career in the internet, media or services industries (such as retail, finance, tourism or social media). Here, the need is for marketers to understand the importance of the technological aspects of marketing and their application, both to businesses, and the public and voluntary sectors.

Course content

This is a marketing degree, not a degree in computing, and as such it is still important to have a firm grounding in business and more generalist marketing related subjects before concentrating on specific digital aspects and practical applications.

The course will help you to acquire knowledge and skills in a variety of areas including:

• marketing analysis, research and planning
• B2C and B2B consumer behaviour
• global marketing
• integrated marketing communications
• website engineering and design
• 2D and 3D computer graphics
• digital filming and live TV production
• rich internet video and mobile device application (i.e. Smartphone or tablet PC apps) design

There are also optional units from both marketing and/or digital media subject areas, giving you the ability to tailor your studies to your own specific interests.

Students will study both marketing and digital media content in each year, with approximately half of the time spent studying both aspects in the first year. This ensures the critical knowledge and skills are embedded before progressing into the second and final years, where students have increasing opportunities of choosing from the range of optional units. These will enable you to design and conduct your own digital media and marketing projects (see below for final-year details), which can encompass interaction with real businesses.

You will study a total of six 20-credit units in each of the three years of study, with an optional placement year in the third year. Some units also enable you to qualify for exemptions that allow entry to later stages of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) professional qualifications which are internationally recognised awards, adding key value to your CV as you develop your professional career in marketing.

Year one

Year one introduces foundations of both marketing and digital media aspects. These units incorporate areas such as:

• principles of marketing
• the business and marketing environment
• consumer behaviour and consumer law
• introduction to digital media
• digital media software
• graphics applications, such as Adobe Photoshop
• study skills and employability (through First Port of Call sessions)

Year two

Year two introduces deeper understanding of both complementary areas, incorporating areas such as:

• marketing communications, branding and ethics
• customer insight (market and marketing research)
• marketing plans
• career management
• the internet and ecommerce
• web metrics and analytics
• digital media distribution
• social media
• project management
• web authoring applications such as Dreamweaver/Adobe Flash

Year three/Final year

All students must undertake a final-year project. This will either be in the form of a traditional dissertation, work-based learning, or business research project.

During your final year, you will further develop and expand your professional competencies by means of individual group projects, through a range of options from marketing and/or digital media subjects. The final year therefore solidifies relevant learning and asks students to apply their knowledge to areas such as:

• strategic marketing
• advertising and public relations
• global marketing
• managing marketing communications
• professional selling and sales management
• creative platforms
• mobile phone applications
• student enterprise project
• foreign languages

If you are worried that this course might be too ‘techie’ for you, let us put your mind at ease. Although it will help for you to have some experience of computing and feel comfortable with computers (experience in design, media or communication studies, music or sound technology may be an advantage), this course is designed for those who want to learn and develop these skills too.

Optional placement year in industry

You can choose to study over three or four years, with the ‘sandwich’ route giving you the additional opportunity to work in a full-time marketing/creative media paid job throughout the third year. This gives you the advantages of relevant experience, a competitive income for a year (2012 average £15,000) and will add essential value to your CV, directly highlighting your employability.

With employers now requiring graduates to have the key business competencies and experience alongside a good degree, work experience is more vital than ever. Due to its very nature a placement year is the best and most involving type of work experience you can do during your time at university. As such, a placement will help insure you are as employable as possible upon graduation.

The Portsmouth Business School Placements Office will support you not only during your placement search and the subsequent recruitment processes, but also once you secure your placement and are working away from the University. Our students have gained much from their work placement experiences – listen to some of their experiences.

Teaching and assessment

The University of Portsmouth has a long and distinguished record of running successful degree courses in both IT and business management. Staff teaching on this degree have worked in entertainment and the arts, and maintain close links with the world of work locally and nationally, ensuring that the course content is up-to-date and meets the needs of industry.

Teaching sessions include traditional lectures (large groups) and seminars (smaller tutorials), alongside laboratory exercises, ICT suite workshops and other formats to suit every learning style, with plenty of opportunities for you to take the lead too.

Assessment is geared towards the subject matter in a way that encourages a deeper understanding and allows you to develop your skills. It takes many forms which include examinations, multiple-choice tests, essays and portfolio work, mini-projects, seminars, presentations, case studies and extended review articles.

Practical experience is emphasised throughout the course and you will be encouraged to put your ideas into practice, experience application software relating to the area of study, apply software packages and solve problems.

All students on the course are assigned a personal tutor at the beginning of year one, who will be available for regular meetings to discuss your progress, as well as help resolve any problems or questions that you may encounter along the way.

General business, entrepreneurial and employability skills such as interview technique, presentations and teamwork will be embedded in taught units across all levels of study.

Career prospects

The main aim of this course is to equip you with the skills and knowledge to be a professional in marketing with specialist knowledge of digital media.

Graduates are likely to find careers in:

• marketing departments in any type or size of business
• marketing communications
• digital marketing firms
• multimedia production
• knowledge media construction and management
• web design and multimedia delivery
• graphics and digital graphic design
• the application of digital media in computing and IT

Opportunities for further study also exist within the University of Portsmouth, with progression to the existing and growing MA Digital Marketing programme, as well as a research path in Marketing and Digital Media (including PhD bursaries).

Facilities and features

Proficiency in ICT (and increasingly, social media marketing) will be vital to your future career in marketing and we will support your development by ensuring you have access to existing excellent computer suites, which are continuously updated with the latest industry standard and even innovative developmental software.

In choosing to study with us, you will starting on your journey to becoming a marketing practitioner of the future, capable of designing and managing media production – a professional with sound business acumen, capable of evaluating and generating opportunities for their employer or even starting your own creative enterprise through the University’s dedicated Centre for Enterprise.

Entry requirements

View all the entry requirements for BA (Hons) Digital Marketing for the academic year 2013/14 (opens in new window).