The summative assessment for the module is a 2500 words individual essay worth 100% of the overall module marks as this is a 10-credit module. Formative feedback regarding the assessment will be provided in pre-assessment clinics and Q&A sessions in weeks 29, and 34. The assessment is designed so that students can achieve one or more of the module’s learning outcomes.
Topic
As a marketing expert, you are asked to develop a market trend report by choosing one of the following product categories: beverage, food, hospitality (e.g. hotels), fashion, smart technology, vehicles or other product that you want to investigate. The context can be a market of your choice.
• You are expected to consult different sources to help you gather relevant information.
• You are expected to demonstrate a holistic understanding of the selected product category in terms of its current trend, market information, marketing activities, consumer behaviour and the psychological changes underpinning these behaviours. Please make sure you include the critical discussion in the final
section of your report.
You may consider covering the following key aspects:
1. Provide a brief background about the selected industry;
2. Demonstrate brief information on the current product trend, market information, and existing marketing activities within the industry;
3. Identify changing customer behaviour or psychology (e.g., needs, attitude towards life, and consumption behaviour) via secondary data;
4. Provide creative, detailed and well-justified recommendations regarding upcoming product trends, and market and consumer changes.
5. Include necessary supportive information in the appendix.
In preparing this report, you should draw on a range of information sources (e.g. company reports, reports in magazines/press/journals/websites, social media, relevant readings from academic journals, etc.). Searching and collecting information is important but you should be aware that you will be assessed not so much on the quantity of the information you collect but how you interpret and use that information as well as the quality of the
information. You should seek to employ appropriate evidence to support your arguments.
The report itself should have a clear logical and well-developed line of argument.
Submission details
Your essay should be submitted electronically via Turnitin (Canvas) by 10 am on 15th
May 2023. You will receive confirmation of the submission of your work, which you will have to keep until the end of the academic year. If you do not receive such a receipt, your submission was unsuccessful.
To submit the report, the following guidelines apply:
• The report should be a maximum of 2,500 words with +/-10% of waivers
(excluding reference list and appendices).
• The report should be word-processed, page-numbered and written in reportwriting style: i.e. it should have a cover page, table of contents, and main body of the report (covering introduction, all areas mentioned above), followed by a reference list and appendices. The text should be organised according to
logical sections and subsections (please see NUBS guide to written assignments for detailed requirements).
• All student coursework should be properly referenced. Standards of academic integrity are expected to be upheld by all students at all times. This means that you must ensure that you do not use the words or ideas of another person without proper acknowledgement of that source. This is very important because plagiarism is an academic offence for which there are severe penalties.
