PhD Programme

Why do your Marketing PhD at London Business School?

The doctoral programme in Marketing produces scholars who go on to become faculty members in the top international business schools.

Research topics

The Marketing faculty's teaching and research topics include:

  • advertising 
  • brands and branding 
  • competitive strategy 
  • consumer behaviour 
  • customer focus 
  • distribution 
  • marketing analytics 
  • marketing ethics 
  • metrics 
  • media 
  • pricing and price promotions 
  • product strategy 
  • related management processes.

Purpose of the programme

The programme trains the future marketing faculty of the world's top business schools. As part of this process, London Business School PhD students are expected to take courses on marketing research and theory, to collaborate with Marketing Area faculty on projects of mutual interest, and to produce a dissertation that focuses on an original research idea.

Structure of the programme

The average Marketing PhD takes four to five years to complete.

The first year

The first year brings you up to date with research in marketing across a broad range of topics. We also include the necessary training in research methods.
Courses include:

  • Microeconomics
  • Probability and Statistics
  • Foundations of Business Research
  • Psychology
  • the Pro-Seminar in Marketing.

During this time you will also choose a dissertation advisor and act as a research assistant to one or more faculty.

The second year

In the second year you should select your thesis topic and develop a literature review and your hypotheses.

To be eligible for a Masters in Research you'll write a research paper, usually 8,000-12,000 words, to be submitted on 1 April of the second year.

The third year

Year three typically involves data collection to test your hypotheses and the subsequent analysis. As this is your original work, you will be expected to devise the data collection and analysis strategy, and to collect and analyse the data yourself.

In this year you will go through the "transfer" from the master's to the doctoral stage. You will be expected to defend your literature review and research proposal.

The fourth year

Year four typically involves writing your dissertation and working on additional research projects. For those interested in starting marketing professorships in September of year 5, the interviewing cycle begins in September of year four.

Teaching experience

We provide Teaching Assistantships which give lecturing and classroom experience as well as some understanding of standards, administration and best practice.

How to apply

For information about the application process, see our PhD Programme pages