M.Sc. in Strategic Brand Management

Branding is critical to decision-making processes for businesses, organizations, and NGOs. The MSc in Strategic Brand Management at The American University of Paris prepares you to influence your employer’s strategic direction in roles such as CMO, brand consultant, managing partner – or even founder.

You’ll learn to use branding as a core strategic tool, placing it at the center of business development processes and using it to drive growth. You’ll also learn to balance these management strategies with the evolving economic and ethical demands of consumers, while critically analyzing how brands engage with diverse issues such as global inequality, sustainability, and racial justice.

Through workshops and masterclasses led by a range of branding sector professionals, you’ll gain first-hand insight into using branding as a tool for business development, data management, and corporate identity. Case studies extend beyond products and services, covering the brand identities of cities or nations and branding for international development.

Program Highlights

• Branding Practicum : The practicum allows you to apply strategic branding principles to the creation of an international brand in a category of your choice. You will analyze your chosen industry, create a brand proposition and identity from scratch, and develop a global marketing strategy to launch your brand in international markets.
• Place Branding : Focusing on place branding’s role in destination marketing, civil society development, public and political diplomacy, and social and environmental sustainability, the place branding course includes a Cultural Program study trip to Iceland, where you will meet local brand managers and place promoters while studying their campaigns.

Four Reasons to Study Brand Management in a Liberal Arts Context

A differentiating skillset: A liberal arts education provides you with invaluable soft skills that differentiate you from your competitors in key areas such as collaborating across departments, communicating in a team setting, offering creative solutions, challenging conventional thinking, and adapting to changes in an industry. A problem-solver mindset: The liberal arts also expose you to a myriad of academic disciplines and intellectual methods – among others management, communications, branding, business, and data science – which enable a critical thinking mindset leading to problem-solving, personal growth, and social progress. Lasting connections: Your professors get to know your strengths, challenges, and passions. They provide mentorship in a way faculty at larger institutions can’t always offer due to the sheer volume of students. An environment conducive to learning: Class sizes of 15 students, rather than massive lecture halls of over 200 peers, meaning you will benefit from an intimate, interactive teaching environment.

American University of Paris (AUP)

In a world where accelerating change and ever-shifting personal, cultural, and economic connections are the norm, everyone—at least occasionally—is a foreigner.

Today’s world demands our ability to see the world as another person sees it, even if we might disagree with that person’s ideas and perspectives. We must know enough about the world and ourselves to function effectively in a variety of professional and social settings. We must be comfortable living at the edge of our own comfort zone.

And it is only through that comfort—that feeling of being at home in the world—that we can pursue our own ambitions, champion our own causes, further our own ideas. An American-style education in one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities AUP is itself a successful experiment in international, interdisciplinary education. AUP brings together all the best elements of the American university model—small, discussion-based classes; a collaborative relationship between students and faculty; a special emphasis on critical thinking and clear communication—with the cultural, social, and professional opportunities of one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities.

Ours is an academic culture of engagement, global citizenship, and community. Our mission and values reflect this as we seek to foster in students and faculty alike a critical sense of commitment to a world of interdependence. An international reputation for excellence AUP’s credentials are unimpeachable. We are accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. Our faculty members hail from some of the finest universities in the world. And we engage in special academic partnerships with such prestigious institutions as Oxford University, the Université de Paris Sorbonne, and New York City’s New School. Learn more—and join us To find out more facts about AUP, our history, and our academic programs, we invite you to explore our website and get to know the exciting possibilities that await you when you join our dynamic international community in Paris.