International Strategic Marketing [MSc] postgraduate personal statement example

Personal statement example

In my second month on the export order desk at a food wholesaler in Dundee, a Spanish distributor rang to ask why our pallet labels described shortbread as 'galletas de mantequilla tradicionales' while the retail packs inside simply said 'shortbread'. Neither was wrong, but the mismatch meant their buyer had to explain to a supermarket chain whether the product was a Scottish speciality or an ordinary butter biscuit. That small question about one word has shaped what I want to study: how firms decide what to standardise and what to adapt when they sell across borders, and how those decisions are made by people who are rarely in the same room.

My degree in Business and Spanish gave me a starting point. In a second-year marketing course I first met the standardisation versus adaptation debate, and Theodore Levitt's argument in 'The Globalization of Markets' that companies should sell the same products worldwide. I found it persuasive in theory but hard to square with what I saw during my year abroad in Valencia, where I worked part-time stacking shelves and noticed that imported British goods were often stocked beside each other in a single 'international' aisle, regardless of category. Positioning, I realised, is partly decided by retailers, not brands.

My dissertation followed that thread. I studied how a mid-sized Scottish oatcake producer presented its products to Spanish shoppers, comparing its UK and Spanish packaging and website copy and interviewing two staff members by video call. The firm had kept its Scottish imagery but replaced health claims about fibre with serving suggestions involving cheese and wine, because their distributor felt the health angle was already crowded by local rice cakes. I used Hofstede's cultural dimensions as one lens, but argued that, in this case, practical factors such as retail channel structure and labelling rules explained more of the adaptation than national culture did. My supervisor's main criticism was that two interviews could not support broad conclusions, which was fair, and it made me want to learn more rigorous qualitative and quantitative methods.

Since graduating I have worked on the export order desk for just over a year. My job is ordinary but instructive: I process orders from distributors in Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands, check documentation, and pass queries between customers and our small marketing team. Because I speak Spanish, I have become the person who drafts replies to Spanish customers, and I now keep a shared glossary of product descriptions so that labels, invoices and price lists use consistent terms. It is a modest improvement, but it has reduced the number of repeat queries I handle each week and taught me how much brand consistency depends on unglamorous internal coordination.

Outside work I play five-a-side football on Thursday evenings and help run a fortnightly Spanish-English conversation café at a local library, where I set up tables, choose discussion topics and pair newcomers with regulars. It has nothing to do with marketing, but it has made me better at keeping a mixed group talking and at noticing when someone is lost.

I am applying for postgraduate study in international strategic marketing because my practical experience has outrun my theoretical tools. I can see that our distributors want different things, but I cannot yet analyse market entry options, evaluate a pricing strategy across currencies, or design research that would tell a firm whether its positioning is working abroad. I want to develop those skills properly, to test ideas like Levitt's against evidence from a wider range of firms, and to study alongside people from other markets whose assumptions differ from mine. In the longer term I hope to work in export or international brand management for a food or drink producer, where I can contribute both language skills and sound strategic judgement.