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Southampton Business School ➞ Who we are
Phone:
(023) 8059 1952
Email:
P.R.Alford@soton.ac.uk

Dr Philip Alford BA, MSc, PhD

Lecturer Digital Marketing

Dr Philip Alford's photo

How can small and medium sized firms leverage digital marketing for competitive advantage? This is the central question that drives Philip’s research, teaching and professional practice. He is also a strong advocate of experiential learning and bringing the worlds of academia and practice closer together.

Philip joined the Marketing Group at Southampton Business School in September 2018. He has over 20 years’ experience in higher education, having worked in marketing and tourism prior to that. He teaches a range of digital marketing modules at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Philip also works with SMEs and micro businesses advising them on how they can develop more agile and data-driven digital marketing plans. He is a member of the VisitWiltshire Board of Directors and also leads VisitWiltshire’s Online Marketing Group. He recently joined the Bournemouth Tourism Marketing Group. Philip is a visiting professor at ESSEC Business School, France where he has taught a range of marketing courses both at MBA and executive education levels. He also teaches courses at the Management Center Innsbruck, and Zillertal Tourism School, in Austria.

Research interests

SME digital marketing and digital transformation. Philip has been PI on an ESRC-funded project studying the adoption of technology for marketing by small firms in the tourism sector.

PhD Supervision

I am currently supervising 3 PhDs:

1) The digital transformation of marketing communication in small hotel businesses: Influences, behaviours and outcomes.

2) Customer Journey Mapping: An Analysis of 'Active Senior' Buyer Personas

3) Digital Technology Adoption in SMEs:  An Entrepreneurial Learning Perspective

Research Projects

Currently Philip is the PI on an Erasmus-funded project with partners in Denmark and Portugal, benchmarking current digital marketing practice among small firms and designing best practice interventions.

Philip is a member of the VisitWiltshire Board of Directors and also leads VisitWiltshire’s Online Marketing Group. He recently joined the Bournemouth Tourism Marketing Group. He is a regular contributor to the Global Research on Marketing and Entrepreneurship community where his work focuses on the interface between digital and entrepreneurial marketing.

Philip teaches digital marketing modules on both Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses. These modules equip students with the theoretical and practical knowledge and competencies to evaluate and develop innovative approaches to digital marketing strategy and delivery.

Philip has developed a number of partnerships to ensure that the student experience is of a high quality and relevant to the world of practice. These include a partnership with Digital Visitor a social media marketing agency which will provide unique insights and a range of client case study challenges to form real world learning opportunities for students. A second partnership is with Vancouver-based Riipen , a collaboration platform for project-based experiential learning between students, industry partners, and educators.

Dr Philip Alford
Southampton Business School, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK

Room Number : 2/5041

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