My name’s Carol Blackman and I am the Course Leader of the Marketing Communications MA course, which concentrates on the promotional parts of the ‘marketing mix’. While you’re with us you will study the core areas of buyer behaviour, brand strategy and media research, but you’ll also then go into details on all the tools of communication. We hope when you leave us you will have a good Master’s degree, that you will be an employable person, and that you will have a sound knowledge of all the communication tools. We also hope that you’re going to enjoy your year, studying here in London.
What distinguishes this course from comparable postgraduate programmes?
It’s a very practical course designed to prepare you to work in the industry. We have in the centre of London, many communications industry agencies and they provide us with guest speakers and they provide students with mentoring and internship opportunities. We’ve also got some fifteen-hundred alumni around the world, who work in the communications industry and you will be able to join that network which will stand you in good stead for the rest of your working-life.
What do you think is special about Westminster Business School?
I think its expertise and attitude. All of our staff have worked in the industry before they came into academia. Also, the teaching team cares a lot about the students: about how they study and their career. We keep in touch with our alumni. In fact, a few weeks ago, when I was in Istanbul, I met one of our graduates from our very first course of 1997. And she’s now the Marketing Communications Manager for Costa Coffee, in Istanbul.
What did you do in your career before working for Westminster Business School?
Well, I worked in marketing and marketing research in a large number of industries from the printing industry through heavy industry, – where I sold furnaces, electroplating equipment – freight-forwarding and I also worked for a multi-national company, 3M UK, both in B2B and B2C products. I was also on the Executive Committee of the Industrial Marketing Research Association and for about twenty years, I have been responsible for the Marketing Communications MA in the Westminster Business School.
What motivates and drives you in your career as an academic?
Do you know there was a life before the internet? When I was at work, we had no internet, we had no PCs, we had no tablets, no mobile phones, so the whole area of collecting data about markets and customers and communicating with our customers was a whole different world. Now I find I’m fascinated by how the digital technology has changed the way we implement our marketing plans and how we engage with our customers.
What is your inspiration in life?
If you talk to my students, they’d probably say it’s my cats, because I find an excuse to bring them into my lectures as illustrations nearly every week.
What is the most rewarding part of working at Westminster Business School?
Seeing the smiles on the faces of my students when they go to shake the hand of the Vice-Chancellor at their graduation ceremony and knowing that I helped put that smile there.
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