Advertising Campaigns

 

Advertising Campaigns

Fall 1999

Thomas Gould
Fall 1999 310 McCain
2:30-3:20 Tuesdays and Thursdays 532-3449
Kedzie 210 tgould@ksu.edu
Office Hours: 3:30 - 5:30 M/W
or by appointment

What You Will Learn
Materials to Help You Learn
How You Will Demonstration What You Have Learned
Class Participation and Attendance
Grades
Policies
Class Schedule
Special Links

What you will learn

It is the creative executions themselves that create the personality of a brand. Thus, a creative idea may enhance or alter the personality statement that was conceived before creative work began. This is not only permissible, but desirable, and there is no rule against going back and changing the personality statement to fit the creative, provided two conditions are met. One, the new personality is compatible with the product, its benefits, and the target audience; and is unique versus competition. And two, the new personality is not merely a temporary deviation from one that has already been built and which should be maintained.

After all, creativity is at the heart of the business we're in. And great creative should win out over unyielding strategy at every opportunity.

Bob Kuperman
Chiat-Day, LA


Strategic Creative Communications

This course is an exploration of advertising campaigns. It is the the capstone course in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication's advertising sequence. The course prerequisites include Principle of Advertising and Ad Writing.

In the course, you will learn that ad campaigns blends many talents into one seamless -- hopefully flawless -- presentation intended to win the account or boost your client's product into the history books as that amazing whatchamacallit that outsold everything. Okay, campaigns are a bit self-conscious, a little egotistical, and a lot about innovation. That's okay, since all of us can be -- to varying degrees -- all of these.

We will do a lot of researching, planning, writing and thinking in this class. We will cover a spectrum of advertising media, from traditional print ads, to direct mail, to television. You will work in teams of three or four (so be careful who you team up with!) and produce two campaigns for two specific products or services. The work requires that you apply yourself on specific assignments from two companies to be named shortly. The first assignment must be ready by Oct. 31, the second by Nov. 28. These finished campaigns will be one way to get a job . . . there are others.

This will be fun.

 

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Materials to help you learn

Text: TBA

Assigned readings from various sources. These will be on file in the school library and available online (perhaps) through the class schedule.

This course will include several online assignments, including web site readings. Again, refer to the schedule for daily assignments. If you have an e-mail address, please send it to me now!

Contrary to popular belief -- at times subscribed to my me -- merely owning a book is not sufficient. Your text books will be an invaluable guide in this course only if you actually read it. This text has been used by classes before you and has been found very useful. Of some note, you will find that your ability to participate in class and fully appreciate the daily discussions will be greatly enhanced if you read the text.

To this end, it is essential that you read the assigned material before class. It is important that you read everything in the assigned pages, including the examples provided and case studies. Past students have found it useful to do the exercises in the chapters, whether assigned or not.

Instead of lecturing, I may at times ask you questions about the assigned material, and I will not always rely on volunteers who raise their hand to answer. I will call on you whether you volunteer to answer or not.

We will spend a great deal of time looking at great campaigns from the past. These examples will touch on several areas.

My expectation is that you all know how to do all of the components of a campaign. The one area lacking is management. We'll talk.

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How you will demonstrate what you learn

You will have different ways to demonstrate what you learn in this course. One, I expect you to do the assigned reading in advance of the specified date. I expect students to take active participation in class discussions, and I will call on individual students to answer questions and discuss material from assigned readings. Make sure you can participate fully in such discussions and demonstrate what you have learned from the reading. I also urge you to come to class with questions and opinions about advertising you see or are curious about. Consequently, you should pay increased attention to advertising and relate it to what we are talking about in class. This counts 10% toward your final grade.

Two, you will be able to demonstrate your ability to apply the principles you learn in this course to an advertising problem by working in a cooperative learning experience to develop a campaign for two products or services and present your campaigns to the client and the school. This is designed to help you to learn by doing. Early in the course, you will organize yourselves into teams (3-4 students each . . . let's talk about this) and will begin to work on advertising for a product or service. Near the end of the course, we'll take a look at what you've done . . . yes, this is a little vague, but let's talk about this before we nail things down. Some class time will be set aside for group work, and I will monitor the progress of group work. It is absolutely essential that all students be present on the days set aside for group work in class. Students who do not attend those class sessions or who otherwise do not carry their share of the load on the group project will be penalized when grades are determined. The project counts 60% toward your final grade.

Three, you will have a mid-term over materials from class discussion and readings. The mid-term will be short-answer in format will count for 30% of your final grade. Please bring a blue book to class for the test.

 

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Class attendance and participation

Mandatory.

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Determinants of your course grade

Mid-term exam: 30 percent

The campaign: 60 percent

In class: 10 percent


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Copyright 1999 Thomas Gould
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