COM 5380 - Advertising

Credits: 4

This course focuses on the development of a basic understanding of strategic brand communication with a particular eye towards advertising in various forms of media (from TV to print to web to social media). This course asks students to critically analyze existing advertising and direct-response communications campaigns for products designed for both for-profit industry and smaller local non-profit organizations. The class also asks students to develop and produce their own Brand Communication Plan in several phases throughout the course of the semester. Finally, the class examines the ethics of the advertising industry with an eye towards how capitalism begets a problematic consumer culture focused on accumulation of wealth, only to be returned at the marketplace for the accumulation of products and services.