Marketers play an important role in society by bringing products, services and, more generally, solutions to consumers. This role comes with important responsibilities.

Because they are adept at understanding people and communities, and at delivering effective messages, marketers can actually have an important positive impact on society, particularly by addressing some of the key challenges faced in our modern communities. Some of these challenges also require a great deal of creativity and problem-solving skills. Our Managing for Social Impact module is a highly innovative social entrepreneurship,
experiential-learning module running through the four terms of the MSc in Marketing & Creativity.

The module is designed to encourage students to reflect upon pressing social problems, such as poverty and access to basic needs, and focuses on the growing realisation that sustainable social impact can best be achieved by applying market-based solutions.

During the module, the students are challenged to employ their marketing and management skills to develop creative solutions for a better world, working alongside social entrepreneurs either in the UK or in the context of an emerging economy.

Students are offered the choice between taking part in one of two experientiallearning missions overseas or completing a London-based social consultancy project with an organisation closer to home. Previous year groups have travelled to Uganda and worked with grassroots organisations to develop revenue-generating businesses and to build local competences; they have also worked during term time with a range of organisations on issues such as international microcredit, disadvantaged child and orphan care, corporate transparency and social entrepreneurship.

In addition to the impact they have through their projects, students hone their Creativity Marketing skills and develop greater understanding of important but often overlooked segments of consumers. These consumers, whether in western countries or in the developing world, are increasingly relevant to the strategies of forward-thinking companies. The module combines lectures on some of the conceptual bases underlying social impact in business, case studies showing best practices, presentations by social entrepreneurs, seminars and discussions with business leaders who embrace social business, and hands-on social entrepreneurship projects.