MSc Marketing Science Sets Him on the Path to Hybrid Marketing

Roy Ng has been a creative producer for seven years before he embarked on Nanyang Technological University, Singapore’s (NTU Singapore) Master of Science in Marketing Science (MSc Marketing Science) in 2020. In his role as Chief Creative Producer at Scribesnap, he conceptualises and creates marketing content for digital campaigns, where his skills are in video, photography and social media.

Upskilling in the Time of Pandemic

Challenges from the 2020 pandemic motivated Roy to go beyond the status quo. “The pandemic has caused an unexpected downtime for my industry,” he says. “I decided to turn this into an opportunity for an upgrade.”

Although the benefits of attending school again were clear to Roy, it was still a daunting move for him, as it was seven years ago that he was in an academic setting, and in an entirely different field. , He had graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in creative producing from Chapman University (California, USA/Singapore) back in 2013.

Doubts of going back to school cleared quickly when Roy reflected on his years as an industry practitioner. He says: “I’ve created different types of content for companies for their marketing use. I used to believe in simply having good content – just upload it on social media and it would speak for the product. I could not be more wrong. There is more, and now, I want to see how the dots can connect in the larger picture.”

Marketing in the Digital Age

Roy soon came to realise the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to his marketing work. “When I started collaborating in closer proximity with different marketing departments on my clients’ side, I found that my progress as a creative producer will be limited if I can’t participate in content distribution,” he explains. “In other words, I want to go beyond creating content to making business decisions.”

If creating content has always been the “what”, he adds, then he wants to know the “why”, “where”, “when” and “how” of content in relation to a strategic marketing plan.

He hopes to root his understanding in the context of the current marketing landscape, where digital disruption is rapidly transforming how marketing works. Today, marketing technology is not only automating and streamlining decisions, but also providing new means to reach and engage with target audiences.

To empower digital age marketers, the NTU MSc Marketing Science has been designed to develop comprehensive marketing expertise with the latest thinking, techniques and technology, and includes modules such as AR/VR, AI and Robotics in Marketing and Consumer Neuroscience and Neuromarketing.

 The Learning Journey So Far

“All the modules in the first trimester have been great!” Roy says. “The one module that stood out for me was Strategic Marketing. In this class, we were split into teams to pit against each other in a simulation game called Markstrat. This experiential learning process, as Professor Lewis Lim put it, has really enhanced and amplified my learning.”

The simulation game comprises player groups representing different real-world companies. They all begin with the same product, but as the game progresses, they must develop better products or enter a new market. To aim for a win with the best performance, the players must make wide-ranging decisions in innovation, marketing and finance, including carrying out real R&D. Such learning experience allow participants of the programme to apply their textbook knowledge to real-world situations.

The MSc Marketing Science programme has also grounded Roy with tools to measure marketing results. “Marketers enjoy creating fancy campaigns that are on point with trends,” Roy says. “But as I learn more, I can see why there are other equally if not more crucial marketing considerations – having financial responsibility, being answerable to profit and loss and measuring KPIs – which help a business to function well.”

Roy also describes how he wants to focus on long-haul rather than short-term thinking – and this begins with market research. “Knowing the market even before the R&D stage is what sets a marketing-centric company apart from its competitors,” he says. “Marketing is not just about pushing ads or content. Rather, good marketing links various initiatives effectively in a strategy. One-off tactics usually yield short-lived results, but a properly formulated strategy can truly strengthen a brand, personify it beyond generations and rally loyal consumers.”

Roy is looking forward to practising as a hybrid marketer, where he can be a one-stop marketing and content solution for his clients. “I hope to build up an exciting and a complementary mix of skills as a creative and a marketer,” he says, “and that will be what I want to offer my clients in the near future.”

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