The marketing & communication sector of the Northern Netherlands

Throughout the provinces of Groningen, Friesland, and Drenthe there are a series of Marcomms agencies that work for some of the largest brands in the Netherlands. This is mainly due to the amount of talented graduates within the field of marketing and communications that leave the University of Groningen, Hanzehogeschool, and NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences each year.  

At the University of Groningen, there are several undergraduate level degrees in communications and/or marketing. Taught in English, the BA in Communication and Information Studies is very highly regarded, whilst the MSc in Marketing is accredited by EQUIS and the AASCB, and has also been named the best Marketing Master’s in the Netherlands on two separate occasions.  

At the Hanzehogeschool, the School of Communication, Media and IT takes a multidisciplinary approach to the subject, meaning that students can take ‘minors’ in everything from journalism, to multimedia production, to game design. The International Communication Bachelor’s programme has an exceptionally high rate of graduate employment- as final year students work as ‘junior consultants’ at a number of companies, on real-world projects.  
Finally, NHL Stenden has a huge range of marketing and communications-related courses, from full-time undergraduate degrees in Marketing Management, Communications, and Media Management, through to associate degrees in Online Content Creation and Creative Media. These degrees also feed into the highly rated International Business Bachelor’s degree. 

With such high-quality courses at university-level, it is unsurprising that the cities of Groningen, Emmen, Assen and Leeuwarden are well-stocked with creative agencies: from full-service Marcomms, through to freelance designers and writers. The growing International population in the region also means that companies can easily access translators, copywriters and communications specialists that are native speakers of other languages.