Marketing Courses for Master Students at TUM Campus Heilbronn

The education at TUM Campus Heilbronn focuses on the intersection of management, technology, and data science. Our goal is to offer students advanced marketing courses at this intersection, enabling them to write a master’s thesis in the field of marketing. The courses can be flexibly combined according to the students’ interests.

The following list of marketing courses is organized into four thematic areas*:

• Fundamentals:
  Marketing Research
• Marketing Methods & Analytics:
  Marketing Analytics
  Machine Learning Applications in Marketing
• Marketing Strategy & Tactics:
  Social Media Marketing: Engaging the Digital Consumer
  Customer Relationship Management for Long-Term Profitability
• Marketing & Technology:
  Virtual Reality Research and Applications in Marketing
  Eyetracking Research in Marketing
  MarTech
• Project Studies
  A project carried out by a team of students of the Bachelor in Management & Technology (Heilbronn) (BMT-HN), Bachelor in Management & Data Science (BMDS), Master in Management & Digital Technology (MMDT) or the Master in Management (Heilbronn) (MIM-HN) in collaboration with a company and a professorship of the TUM School of Management. Further information can be found here.
   

*Please note: Course offerings are subject to change. Not all courses may be available every semester.

Application

Applications for a thesis at the Professorship of Digital Marketing and the Professor of Marketing Analytics can be submitted at any time. However, acceptances and rejections are only issued once per semester. 
 

The number of students that can be supervised is limited. You will be notified by email in the calendar week (CW) specified below whether your application has been accepted or rejected.
 

Please refrain from making preliminary inquiries and submit your complete application documents right away. We can only decide on the supervision of a thesis on the basis of complete documents.

Application deadlines:

Winter semester: Application deadline: end of CW 26 / Notification of acceptance or rejection: end of CW 27

Summer semester: Application deadline: end of CW 50 / Notification of acceptance or rejection: end of CW 51

To apply, please contact: marketing.professorship@mgt.tum.de

The following documents are necessary to apply:

• CV
• Transcript
• Research exposé (see below)

Prerequisites

Applicants need to demonstrate that they have the required expertise to work on the thesis topic. Expertise in Marketing and methods is demonstrated by having completed the following courses:

• “Marketing Research” and/or “Marketing Analytics”
• one Marketing seminar at TUM Campus Heilbronn
• Preferred: Proficiency in programming with R or Python

Ideally, applicants have taken additional Marketing courses at TUM Campus Heilbronn to further strengthen their methodological and domain-specific foundation.

Topics

The selection of a topic is made in close consultation with the professor. The topics listed below can generally be used for both bachelor's and master's theses, with the scope and level of detail of the thesis varying accordingly.
 

Theses in cooperation with external companies are possible, and you can suggest partner companies yourself. In this case, a specific practical problem should be addressed without neglecting the essential scientific requirements of the thesis.

We currently offer two types of topics:

• General research topics: These topics serve as inspiration for your exposé. You should develop a specific topic, including theoretical relevance and methodology. We particularly welcome data-intensive research.

   

  • Understanding consumers’ decision-making and information search processes using eyetracking
  • Current trends and phenomena in social media
  • Investigating consumer behavior in virtual environments
  • Investigating the role of choice architecture in shaping consumer welfare
  • Social determinants and linguistic reflections of marketplace behavior
  • How Consumers Create: Processes and Outcomes
• Own topic: You can propose your own topics in all areas related to digital or quantitative marketing

Research exposé

An exposé (1–2 pages) is required for all topics. This exposé forms the basis for finding and agreeing on a topic between you, the professorship, and, if applicable, practice partners. In your research exposé the goal is to demonstrate that you have engaged with and understood relevant academic literature by discussing at least three scholarly references and including the corresponding citations. The exposé should provide a concise theoretical background that explains the chosen research topic and positions it within existing research. In addition, you are expected to present a preliminary outline of their planned quantitative methodology, including an indication of the intended data collection approach, variables, and possible methods of analysis. The document should be structured, academically written, and show a clear connection between theory, literature, and the proposed research design. Please note that we only supervise empirical, quantitative research topics. If your topic is inspired by one of the general research topics below, please refer to this general research topic in your exposé.

Accompanying seminar

We offer an accompanying seminar/colloquium. Participation and holding a final presentation in the colloquium is mandatory.

Duration

In accordance with the TUM examination regulations, the timeline is:

• Master thesis (MIM/MMDT): 6 months
• Bachelor thesis (BMDS): 3 months

Scope

• Master thesis: 45 pages +/- 10% (incl. references)
• Bachelor thesis: 30 pages +/- 10% (incl. references)

Submission

The submission is made via email to the Grade Management  and not to the professorship. The Grade Management forwards it to the supervisor after review and approval:

The following must be submitted:

• Thesis with a signed Declaration of Authorship (a digital signature is sufficient)
• Einsichtnahmeerklärung/Permission to View... (as an additional PDF)