Advertising and Promotion

• Credit value: 15 credits at Level 7
• Convenor and tutor: Dr Rungpaka Amy Hackley
• Prerequisites: please note that the module Principles of Marketing is for non-marketing students and is a prerequisite for all specialist marketing modules
• Assessment: an individual report of 4000 words (100%)

It is critical that resources allocated to advertising and promotional tools are used effectively. To achieve this, a thorough understanding is required of the advertising strategic planning process, including:

• the role of advertising and promotional tools in influencing brand choices
• how to use them effectively to deliver a promotional message
• how to identify the media strategy that will maximise the target audience reached and increase the likelihood that consumers will process the message and act on it.

Millions of people get their ideas on what to buy not from traditional advertising or promotions but from social media and online news and entertainment. Advertising and media agencies, and brands, are responding to changes in consumers’ media consumption patterns by creating new, hybrid forms of promotion, such as content marketing, branded entertainment, product placement, programmatic advertising, and other promotional techniques for urban settings and social media.

In this module you will gain comprehensive and practical knowledge of contemporary advertising and promotional practices within a convergent media landscape and an international arena. We will introduce you to concepts, issues and the theory and practice of integrated marketing communications.

By the end of this module, you will have: 

• a multi-disciplinary perspective on advertising and promotion as a form of social communication, drawing on socio-cultural, psychological and anthropological theories
• critically engaged with advertising and promotion as a strategic managerial tool
• explored advertising and promotion as a feature of consumers’ social landscape, taking in social and ethical aspects.