MA Advertising
- Study Mode: Full Time
- Location: High Wycombe / Blended Learning
- Duration: One Year
- Start Date: September 2026
Do you want to bolster your existing skillset and gain a deeper understanding of strategic thinking, branding, planning, and advertising? Using the pillars of sustainability, inclusivity, and social responsibility, this MA Advertising degree will give you the freedom to take your curious mind, wordsmithing ways and unique art directional style to create concepts, distinct brand identities and unforgettable campaigns that will turn Adland on it’s head.
The future of branding, marketing, and advertising is to help businesses grow with the promotion of sustainable lifestyles, making brands appeal to diverse customers, and promote products in way that show the good they do for society and the world.
Brands need creatives like you, to help them harness creative and strategic strengths that allow them to drive behavioural change for good. Brands can no longer ‘just sell’, they must become active in promoting ethical social awareness and work with consumers to create an established relationship. It’s about creating creativity with a purpose.
This MA Advertising course has been developed to mirror today’s industry. Working closely with professionals we’ve made sure the course helps you to develop the skills and knowledge the industry is looking for.
Not only does this course bring you 30-years’ experience as an advertising course and a teaching army of advertising gurus both past and present, it also has an extensive networking of advertising experts.
On this MA Advertising degree, you’ll benefit from unrivalled industry links, workshops, mentoring, advice, placements, internships, and job opportunities. There will also be selected alumni and agencies that will be part of the MA’s Hyreus Scheme, who will provide you with an industrial practitioner as a guide, in addition to their University Personal Tutor.
They may also provide internships and or placements should the student prove suitable. This presents students with an opportunity to build a one-to-one relationship with an influential figure from industry, who will act as adviser, reference point, critical sounding board, and ultimately a potential employer.
For the last 25 years BNU Ad students have constantly created great campaigns that have won awards, who’ve then gone on to create the next generation of advertising history, both at home and aboard.
We actively encourage you to get involved with industry awards, including D&AD New Blood Awards and Young Creative Network Awards. In 2022 our students won two D&AD New Blood Pencils and 2023 saw our students bring home four.
The advertising course is located within the College of Creative Arts, Technology and Engineering (CATE), giving you access to a community of creative learners and diverse resources to help you achieve your creative outcomes. These include:
- Mac Suites with Adobe Creative Cloud
- laser cutting and 3D printing workshops
- printmaking workshops
- photography studios
- editing and production facilities (including green screen)
- And library.
To aid your development you will learn practical skills and experience both digital and traditional processes and technologies. Photography and film making are integral to most things we do.
As a Creative Advertising student, you are only 30 minutes from the hustle and bustle of one of the worlds’ most exciting adland communities, London. With the course you’ll get the opportunity to visit top agencies, industry events and museums and galleries.
What will I study?
To become part of the future of advertising, the communication you will create will help shape the more socially aware and culturally important world of creative communication, turning you into an asset for any 21st century communications company.
Here at BNU we don’t just teach you how to apply creative thinking and problem-solving skills. We teach you how to approach a creative problem with insightful planning, research, and transmedia storytelling to ensure brand advocacy and long-lasting social missions.
You’ll learn how to create sustainable and socially aware communication, by looking at how to create active campaigns across a variety of channels, generating fresh content and how to improve consumer engagement, following and reach.
On this Advertising Masters degree you’ll delve headfirst into the world of advertising, looking at everything from transmedia storytelling, brand advocacy, branded entertainment, push and pull conversations, ideation, and insights, to planning, pitching, research, social mission advertising, brand creation and sustainable branding and marketing.
All this make graduates of this MA Advertising program very employable in any branch of advertising, branding or communication industries, in either a creative, account management, strategic or planning capacity because of the up-to-date nature and wide scope of the curriculum offered.
It’s quite simply the best advertising course on offer. Going to BNU felt like you were part of one big family. Still to this day someone will introduce themselves as being ‘from BNU’. It gives you a great sense of family and community. And as a student I loved the close proximity to London, it meant getting in to meet people in the industry was easy.Simon Lloyd
How will I be taught and assessed?
This MA is a full‑time, on‑campus programme designed to immerse you in a wide range of creative projects and industry‑informed experiences. The diversity of briefs and professional input will strengthen both your personal and professional development. Throughout the course, you’ll progress through a carefully structured combination of teaching methods, hands‑on activities, and real industry exposure, giving you a steadily evolving learning experience.
All taught subjects are translated into practical brief-led projects, which are then contextualised in industry through regular workshops. You’ll be learning and gaining feedback from a host of different sources which enables them to create contacts, links, and opportunities to bolster your career in the real world of advertising at every stage of the course.
Written assessments will be accompanied by face-to-face delivery of research presentations, creative presentations, portfolio work, final pitch presentations. Some of these will involve additional assessment from visiting tutors and alumni, or agency personal if the work being assessed is an agency-based project.
You’ll also work on some non-assessed briefs to allow you to get as broad an experience as possible and experiment without detrimental results. If some of these are for working agency practitioners, via the Hyreus Scheme, this will further your potential intern opportunities and final employment chances.
What are the course entry requirements?
There are different entry requirements for this course, depending on where you are in your creative journey.
- A graduate with a good degree, preferably, but not necessarily, in a communications or creative subject.
- A graduate that has studied advertising or marketing to BA level (as listed above).
- A graduate from abroad (with grade 6.5 English or above) with a good degree preferably, but not necessarily, in a communications or creative subject.
- Those with experience within the advertising industry, either here for abroad wishing to take a career break and re-enter the profession at a higher level.
- Employees from the communications industries who want to retrain or undertake staff development. Practitioners who want to refresh and/or realign their career aspirations. Those wishing to progress to higher level research degree work.
Ideally applicants should have a proven ability to undertake MA level qualifications (particularly theory/dissertation modules) OR have up to 2 years’ work experience, BUT anyone with a passion to enter the advertising industry, a strong creative ability and a willingness to learn, should apply.
Modules
This provides a guide of the modules that make up your course. You can find more information about how your course is structured on our Academic Advice section.
What are the tuition fees
Home
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Home, Academic Year 2026 - 2027: £11,420 per year *
International
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Overseas/International, Academic Year 2026 - 2027: £16,280 per year *
Please note all of the 2026/27 fees stated are subject to parliamentary procedure. Tuition fees are expected to increase each academic year in line with the maximum permitted value set by the Government for that academic year. The expected rise for Home undergraduate students (including those on a foundation year course), may impact both new and continuing students.
Additional costs
Your tuition fees cover most course costs, but you may need to budget for additional expenses. These can include specialist equipment, project materials, professional memberships, field trips or placements, as well as everyday student costs like printing, books and stationery.
Contact us
If you have any questions about the fees above, contact our enquiries team by completing this form.
What are my career prospects?
After graduating from this Postgraduate degree, you will leave with the skills and knowledge to be a critically aware and logical thinking professional that understands existing and emerging forms of new strategies and ways of working to lead creative innovation across the advertising industry.
Upon completion of this degree, you will be qualified for a number of roles, including:
- Creative
- Art Director
- Copywriter
- Planner
- Strategist
- Account Manager
- Brand Consultant
- Producer
- Designer
- Graphic Designer
- Content Creator
- Social Media Manager
Course leader
