Marketing, PR and Advertising

Marketing, public relations, and advertising together constitute the creative and strategic communications landscape that every organisation navigates. Marketing asks how you understand and reach customers; public relations focuses on reputation, relationships, and the broader stakeholder environment; advertising is the craft of making persuasive messages that land with their intended audience. Studying all three together gives you a rounded command of how organisations communicate and compete in crowded markets.

This three-year full-time degree at the University of Derby develops your understanding of key marketing, branding, and communication concepts, preparing you for roles in both in-house marketing teams and agency environments. You will explore consumer behaviour, brand strategy, digital marketing, media planning, campaign development, and the ethical dimensions of persuasion, building both the theoretical knowledge and the practical competencies that employers in the communications sector require. The programme includes a sandwich year, giving you the opportunity to spend an extended period in a professional marketing, PR, or advertising environment before you graduate, and work placement activity is embedded throughout the degree so your professional development is continuous.

Graduates from this programme go on to a wide range of communications roles. Account management, campaign planning, digital marketing, social media strategy, content creation, brand management, media relations, and public affairs are all common destinations. The combination of marketing, PR, and advertising knowledge makes you particularly flexible, able to work across disciplines and to move between agency and client-side roles as your career develops.

Some graduates go on to postgraduate study in marketing, communications, or business, while others build careers as freelance practitioners in the creative communications world.