Description. This 15-month, part-time program is designed to permit professionals to earn their degree online while continuing to work. The program combines online sessions with  face-to-face sessions in Madrid spread over the duration of the program. The program is divided into three terms that focus on developing a range of key competencies, including Corporate Business and Management, Strategic Communication and Marketing, Communication and Marketing Plans, and Tools and Skills for Communication and Marketing. The skills gained through the program range from branding and corporate identity to digital marketing to measuring intangibles and KPIs. The program culminates in a final project where you’ll devise a solution to a communications dilemma faced by a real-world company.

PRE-PROGRAM. PRE-PROGRAM. . FOUNDATIONS OF MARKETING. This course provides a clear perspective on some critical Marketing concepts following an online learning journey, which you can complete at your own pace. You will start by understanding marketing strategy based on marketing goals, brand positioning, and value proposition. Then, you will learn how to design a marketing mix that meets the needs and wants of your customers, using the 4 Ps and the 4 Cs. Finally, you will understand how to optimize the customer journey using digital marketing tools.. EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION FOR LEADERSHIP. This tutorial explores the aspects of oral communication that research and observation suggest can make a speaker appear more charismatic. It focuses on one of the least frequently taught elements of charismatic communication: the content of the speech. The first part shows you how to frame your message by communicating values, presenting a compelling vision of the future, showing that individuals are capable of achieving that vision, emphasizing the group’s ability to succeed and presenting the leader as a role model. The second part explains which rhetorical devices are most effective for conveying the message. The third part examines the attributes and behaviors most commonly observed in charismatic leaders. Finally, the fourth part identifies uses of language that can reduce the speaker’s perceived power.. ONLINE PRESENTATION SKILLS. A session designed to help you present effectively online, use different digital tools and become familiar with academic platforms.

Terms. First term. 6 months. Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is at the heart of changemaking and is the art of business. This course will provide you with the knowledge and skills needed to capitalize on your creativity and set up a successful business venture. This course addresses how to gather the resources needed to convert opportunities into businesses, and how to team up with others to establish a business plan and work toward a common objective. You will learn to recognize opportunities, understand the perspectives of various stakeholders, troubleshoot, lead a team, and write and present a business plan—all key components to success in the entrepreneurial process.. BRAND STRATEGY IN THE AI ERA. While manufacturing processes can be duplicated, the beliefs, attitudes, and emotions linked to brands cannot. Understanding how to build a brand is fundamental to the creation of a distinctive identity for a company. And the context is changing fast, so firms need to incorporate AI into how they build, measure, and capitalize on brand equity—while navigating increasingly personalized and algorithmically mediated consumer experiences. This course focuses on branding and identity management and examines how managers can increase consumer connection and marketers can develop consistent strategies by studying consumers’ behaviors and profiles. You will learn to build powerful brands based on three all-important branding points: (a) building brand equity, (b) measuring brand equity, and (c) capitalizing brand equity. The course explores how AI is reshaping each of these dimensions, from creating distinctive brand experiences and identities to measuring brand perceptions and identifying new opportunities to strengthen and monetize brand equity. By the end of the course, students will have better marketing knowledge from a brand-equity perspective.. Business Strategy. This course is an introduction to strategy that will provide you with a thorough, practical understanding of the issues underlying value generation in business. During the course, you will become familiar with the realities of general strategic management and various models, theories and tools to effectively analyze complex, competitive situations and make decisions that increase a firm’s competitive standing and its adaptability to current and future market situations. Through discussion of cases and current articles, the course focuses on strategic analysis and building competitive advantage at both the business and corporate levels.. GLOBAL STRATEGY & CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION. Globalization is one of the most controversial phenomena of modernity. The aim of this course is to examine globalization from every angle, addressing its many economic, political, cultural, and social perspectives both independently and in conjunction with one another. In this course, you will fine-tune your understanding of how globalization is manifested in different societal domains. You will address the challenges and conflicts it has unleashed, its media coverage and distinct socioeconomic and political angles, and the difficulties you may encounter in your professional life when building a communication framework that addresses burning globalization issues and cross-cultural differences.. AI-POWERED MARKETING FUNDAMENTALS. The marketing and communication function has been fundamentally disrupted by the arrival of AI technologies. These are reshaping how companies understand customers, design digital journeys, develop business models, create content, make decisions, and organize marketing teams. This course provides a strategic overview of the digital and AI transformation of marketing, equipping you to understand emerging technologies and identify how they can create value across the marketing function.. FINANCE FOR MARKETEERS & COMMUNICATORS. This course examines the process through which relevant financial information concerning an economic entity is communicated to different parties (stockholders, creditors, tax authorities, investors, internal staff, etc.). The course aims to provide the necessary knowledge to negotiate with finance departments, with a focus on marketing and communications expenses. DURING THESE TWO SESSIONS, WE AIM TO PROVIDE YOU WITH AN UNDERSTANDING OF: Staffing, developing, performance, compensation, and culture The framework for making business decisions using financial statements The objectives of different financial statements The process of budgeting, forecasting, and actuals for marketing and communications in a company. MEDIA RELATIONS TRAINING. In today’s world, understanding how to communicate successfully and navigate a range of different media is extremely important. Whether for their own internal media channels or for a critical public interview, companies, organizations, and institutions need to establish strong strategies for handling the communication life cycle from planning to performance. This course will introduce you to the fascinating world of crafting and communicating messages in the most effective way. Taking place over two days in the Media Lab in Segovia, it’s a practical, hands-on training workshop that’s designed to give you an introduction to producing a well-crafted message and delivering it in front of camera.. Management & Leadership Skills. This course equips you with comprehensive insights and practical skills essential for effective leadership in dynamic organizational environments. This 12-class program is structured to cover key aspects of leadership, blending theoretical knowledge with hands-on applications to foster a holistic understanding of contemporary leadership challenges. The course integrates cutting-edge concepts and frameworks from renowned authors such as Frederick Laloux, Brene Brown, Kim Cameron and the professor's own "Inspirable" framework. The classes employ a dual-phase approach, featuring a knowledge segment followed by practical activities.. BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE AND CUSTOMER INSIGHTS. This course addresses how to achieve consumer-driven business growth and combines elements of consumer behavior, customer experience, market research, and applications of brand strategy and communications. Consumer behavior, attitudes, and ways of thinking are key to marketing. To drive business growth, you must discover what your customers think and do, as well as the most efficient ways to influence them. To accomplish this, it is important to first understand how and why your customers think rationally or irrationally and the different ways into their minds. You will explore tools like Buyer Persona, customer journey and touchpoints. Previous knowledge of strategic consumer insights/market research as applied to business growth is desirable but not compulsory.. Second term. 5 months. Integrated Marketing Communication. This course aims to develop your understanding of the practice of integrated marketing communication strategic development, and provide you with the tools to plan and develop integrated communication strategies, allowing for appropriate measurement and evaluation techniques to validate strategic and creative ideas. You will gain generic and transversal skills, including: Analysis and synthesis Problem-solving Applying analysis of problems and professional criteria based on the use of technical tools Motivation for quality and rigorous work Creativity, initiative, and enterprising spirit Interdisciplinary teamwork. STORYTELLING & CONTENT SYSTEMS. Learn the power of storytelling and how to leverage it for specific communication objectives. Evaluate storytelling practices for corporate branding and communication and learn how to pull together storytelling structure and technique in order to develop compelling brand stories. Brands as powerful content producers are the new normal. Creating awareness and engaging audiences and communities go far beyond traditional advertising. From advertising to branded content (B2C and B2B) Brand and corporate communication editorial plans Platforms & Formats. CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT & LOYALTY PROGRAMS. This course provides a comprehensive exploration of loyalty programmes, their strategic importance in marketing, and their role in building and maintaining customer relationships. Through a blend of theoretical understanding and practical application, you will learn how to design, implement, and measure effective loyalty programmes across various industries.. RESPONSIBLE & SUSTAINABLE MARKETING. Corporations are increasingly redefining their business strategies to embrace environmental and social issues. These efforts range from mainstream corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions to more business-related initiatives, such as reducing energy use in operations or supporting local producers. This course brings together strategy, business and society. It will increase your awareness of ethical and social issues in decision-making while developing your ability to implement integrated corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies with a long-term impact. You will become familiar with different types of ethical reasoning and learn to critically reflect on how they can be applied in practice. You will also learn to manage stakeholder expectations and understand how corporate responsibility has evolved from philanthropy and isolated initiatives to more strategic approaches, including CSR and creating shared value (CSV).. PAID, OWNED AND EARNED MEDIA ECOSYSTEMS. This course addresses the complexity of modern media buying, teaching you to integrate online and offline media for effective omnichannel messaging while optimizing reach and ad spending. You will learn about audience profiling and segmentation, paid media planning, and various media channels, including TV, radio, print, digital networks, display and programmatic advertising, SEM, paid social media, and platforms like YouTube, streaming, podcasting, video gaming, and affiliation. Additionally, the course explores the transformation of traditional media planning due to social media and influencer marketing. You will gain insights into owned and earned media, covering digital product and web design, inbound marketing, CRM and marketing automation, social media management, user-generated content, brand advocacy, brand communities, and influencer marketing.. Data Visualization. Master the art of presenting complex marketing data through intuitive visual narratives in this Data Visualization course. You will learn to employ advanced tools to translate marketing metrics into actionable insights and to design compelling visualizations that inform strategic decisions and convey stories effectively to stakeholders.. AI-DRIVEN MARKETING SYSTEMS & AUTOMATION ARCHITECTURE. This course explores how AI is transforming the strategic, organizational, and technological management of marketing channels in an increasingly connected and complex consumer environment. You will examine how AI enables brands to integrate digital and traditional channels, orchestrate increasingly personalized customer journeys, automate marketing activities, and make faster, data-driven decisions. The course focuses on understanding the distinctive role of each channel while exploring how AI is changing the way marketers plan, activate, optimize, and coordinate channel strategies. You will develop the ability to evaluate the creative, technological, data, and organizational capabilities required to manage AI-enabled marketing ecosystems. Particular attention will be given to AI-powered analytics and measurement, predictive decision-making, personalization, content generation, and real-time campaign optimization. By the end of the course, you will be able to design integrated, AI-driven channel strategies tailored to specific business contexts, balancing technology and automation with creativity, human judgment, and customer relevance.. PERFORMANCE MARKETING & CRM MARKETING. Integrating activities at both ends (top and bottom) of the funnel is relevant to the marketing and comms function. Results-driven marketing has become imperative for understanding the last click before buying, and how to combine content, usability and media buying to optimize the rate of sales conversion. At the same time, CRM marketing enables companies to turn customer data and interactions into lasting relationships through personalized engagement, retention, and customer lifetime value. We will discuss critical terms such as PPC (pay per click), CRO (conversion rate optimization), e-commerce and DTC (direct to consumer) strategies and CRM (customer relationship management) connecting to retention and lifecycle management.. THIRD term. 4 months. CORPORATE REPUTATION & STAKEHOLDER STRATEGY. The way leaders and organizations behave in moments of uncertainty and crisis can determine their reputation, credibility, and long-term success. For this reason, reputation, issues, and crisis management have become essential leadership capabilities across industries. This course provides a masterclass in corporate reputation and stakeholder strategy, equipping you with the frameworks and practical skills needed to anticipate emerging issues, build stakeholder trust, and protect organizational reputation before, during, and after a crisis. You will learn how to identify and manage reputational risks, develop issues-management and contingency strategies, map and engage key stakeholders, and design effective communication strategies across traditional media and social platforms.The course also explores the critical role of internal communication in building employee trust, managing organizational change, and maintaining alignment during periods of transformation, restructuring, or crisis. Finally, it explores how leaders can build credibility and influence through consistent, transparent, and strategically aligned communication, enabling organizations to respond effectively to high-pressure situations while strengthening long-term stakeholder relationships.. INNOVATION & GO-TO-MARKET STRATEGY. Innovation only creates value when it successfully reaches the market. This course equips marketing managers with the strategic frameworks and practical tools needed to turn emerging opportunities, consumer insights, and new ideas into compelling propositions and successful go-to-market strategies. You will explore how to identify and evaluate innovation opportunities, define customer value propositions, prioritize ideas, develop positioning and launch strategies, and align marketing, commercial, and cross-functional teams around execution.. PARTNERSHIPS & SPONSORSHIPS. In this course you will explore the basic principles of corporate sponsorship and partnership management. You will learn how to develop different approaches to plan, negotiate and manage relations, while maintaining a focus on critical thinking. Some of these approaches include ambush marketing, product and message placements and buy-in sponsorships, to name a few. Other topics that you will discover in this course include: The role of persuasion in corporate sponsorship in rhetorical and scientific perspectives Theoretical and ethical aspects of sponsorship, with a focus on social influence and compliance gaining Social media as a form of influence Grassroots movements Traditional forms of partnership and sponsorship Key strategies across different areas including sports, entertainments and social causes. COMMERCIAL STRATEGY & REVENUE GROWTH MANAGEMENT. Sustainable growth requires marketing and commercial teams to connect customer value with business performance. This course equips marketing managers with the strategic frameworks and practical tools to translate market, customer, and competitive insights into commercial strategies that drive profitable growth. You will explore how to identify growth opportunities, define commercial priorities, optimize portfolios and pricing, and align marketing, sales, and channel strategies around shared revenue objectives. The course focuses on Revenue Growth Management (RGM) as a strategic discipline, examining the role of pricing, promotions, assortment, pack architecture, channels, and customer segmentation in maximizing revenue and profitability. You will learn how to use data and analytics to evaluate commercial performance, make informed trade-offs, and develop actionable growth plans across different markets, customers, and routes to market.. LEADING MARKETING ORGANIZATIONS. Marketing leadership goes beyond developing strong strategies—it requires the ability to build high-performing teams, influence across the organization, and turn marketing priorities into business impact. This course equips marketing mid-managers with the leadership capabilities needed to navigate increasingly complex, data-driven, and fast-changing marketing environments. You will learn how to shape marketing organizations, define roles and responsibilities, build effective teams, and foster cultures of collaboration, innovation, and accountability.. AI FOR MARKETING ANALYTICS & FORECASTING. Data is the new oil. And data-driven marketing is the new marketing. Data capture, storage and analysis become critical to understand user behavior and deploy the right tactics to increase marketing ROI. From data lakes to web analytics, AI is transforming marketing analytics by enabling marketers to turn increasingly complex datasets into predictive insights, more accurate forecasts, and faster, smarter marketing decisions. In this course, you will understand the data value chain, attribution models (MM), data lakes and digital analytics.

Final Project. The objective of the final project is for you to put your skills and learning into practice. You will dive deeper into corporate and marketing communication by working as a team to design a strategy to overcome a real-life corporate communication challenge. By applying the knowledge you have acquired throughout the course, you will be able to: Develop project management skills Improve teamwork and decision-making abilities Build upon your planning and evaluation skills Produce clear presentations and reports, practicing how to pitch to senior management Display in-depth knowledge of managing multi-stakeholder communication Develop strategic and client-oriented consulting skills

Beyond the Program. Academic Essentials. IMPACT SKILLS ACCELERATOR. A core element of the Executive Master in Strategic Marketing & Communication, the Impact Skills Accelerator builds the expertise that experienced professionals draw on as leaders. Applied courses are integrated throughout the program, building the strategic authority and people skills you need to lead with direction and carry your teams with you.  These courses include:  Thinking Critically Deciding with Data Executing Projects Moving People Transforming Self & Teams Unlocking Creativity Shaping Futures with AI. CAREER ACCELERATOR. The Career Accelerator from the IE Career Advancement Center provides a personalized path with expert coaching, tailored resources, exclusive events, and powerful networking opportunities to help you achieve your career goals with confidence. Based on your unique career goals, discover how you can take the next step in your career with the Career Accelerator: Career Changers:  Build a compelling career story, expand your network, and gain the tools to successfully transition into a new industry, role, or l ocation. Game Changers: Turn your vision into impact by gaining the guidance, connections, and credibility needed to launch a venture or lead a family business with confidence. Leadership Growers:  Strengthen your leadership presence, increase your influence, and position yourself for growth within your organization or business. The Power Network: Connect with IE's global community of alumni, peers, and industry leaders to build meaningful relationships and unlock new career opportunities.. Program Extras. MARCOM SPEAKER SERIES. Once a month, students will have the chance to hear from top speakers from different companies in the Marketing, Communication & Sales (MARCOM) industry. In the past speakers have represented companies as Kantar, McKinsey, Interbrand, Fjord to name a few.. ADDITIONAL CERTIFICATIONS. This program will further boost your career by offering certifications from Salesforce, Google, and IE University’s proprietary Sustainability Certificate. These options are all available and designed to help you progress in your chosen career path.. VENTURE LAB. As a student or alumni you can be part of IE's Venture Lab. Here, you will be trained as an aspiring entrepreneurs to validate, design and prepare their startup projects for launch. Here you will have a full incubation program that takes you from the idea stage to your MVP.