Advanced Marketing Communication

Students are expected to have knowledge on theories and practices of marketing communications and advertising management, equivalent to the contents of the course “Markedskommunikation & reklame” on the bachelor programme in Economics and Business Administration.

See for example Percy and Rosenbaum-Elliott (2012) Strategic Advertising Management or  De Pelsmacker et al (2013) Marketing Communications, a European Perspective that are textbooks indicative of the expected prior knowledge.

Marketing communications, both as a pragmatic and academic field, is facing new challenges from several directions. Traditional forms of marketing communications such as advertising are under pressure as it seems that the impact of advertising is decreasing in general (as conventional effects measures).

Even though the ‘tools’ and rationale of marketing communication has been adopted in many other fields, Marketing Communication still needs renewed legitimacy, and accordingly it is important to take a reflexive and critical look at the field of Marketing Communication, investigating its classical discourses in the light of new contexts and media, and also examining ‘new’ discourses within the field such as neuromarketing, apps and ‘social media’, and ‘old’ reinvented forms such as placements, AFP, branded content, cause related-, and social marketing.

The aim and purpose of this course is to provide students with a reflexive understanding of marketing communication. Advanced Marketing Communication aims to qualify the students with competences to reflexively manage communication primarily in market contexts, with state-of-the-art knowledge of theory and skills in application of the theories for analysis of a specific issue. Further, it is the aim that the student acquires skills to identify areas with need fordevelopment within the field, and the ability to evaluate and appropriate new academic and pragmatic research.

As such, this course is complementing the courses Corporate Communication and Advanced Brand Management.

Overarching question to frame the content is:

How is current Marketing Communication conceived, performed and received by advertisers, managers, scholars and consumers/cititizens/stakeholders?

The content and themes are a mixture of state-of-the-art issues and critical examination of classical theories and practices within the broad field of marketing communication.

For example:

• 
  Digital marketing strategies
  
• Integrated marketing communication
  
• Response & persuation theory, e.g.ELM/ELAM, mere exposure, lo-inv. processing)
• 
  Rhetorical advertising theory
  
• Marketing communication and attention economics
  
• Branded content, placement, adver-gaming, apps
• 
  Marketing communication and social media, remediation of MC, viral and WOM
• 
  Theories of ‘postmodern’ advertising and contexts (or other sociological contextualization)
• 
  Communication ethics (intrusion/obtrusiveness, privacy, placement, fairness-issues)
  
• The examples mentioned above are subject to continued evaluation, and is not a complete or exhaustive list.

Students are expected to be able to demonstrate knowledge in the form of clear and concise application of the central concepts, theories and practical challenges of marketing communication as presented in the course. They must be able to define, illustrate, identify, discuss and critique the underlying assumptions of the competing theories of marketing communication and the related theoretical fields (as presented in the course curriculum).

In addition, students are expected to demonstrate skills in researching an issue relevant for the challenges of marketing communication and communicate the findings in a written form of academic prose with a reflexive and nuanced discourse, adhering to scientific standards.

These goals can be summarized as the student’s ability to, for a specific emperical marketing context:

• 
  clearly state the marketing communication problem and its relevance and delimitations
  
• demonstrate an academic and methodological approach to explain and analyze the problem
• 
  account for, justify, and discuss chosen scientific literature relevant to the problem
• 
  reflect upon, and appraise the assumptions of the theories and of the analysis of the problem
• 
  suggest and discuss the implications for management and research with precise and nuanced argumentation
• 
  communicate the results in a well-structured independent academic paper adhering to academic standards.

A compendium consisting of journal articles and book chapters.

Examples:

• Jenkins, H., Ford, S. & Green, S. (2013) Spreadable Media, University of New York Press.
• 
  Lien, Mariannne Elisabeth (2003) Fame and the Ordinary: “Authentic” Constructions of Convenience Food, in Advertising Cultures, (eds.) Malefyt & Moeran, 165-186
• 
  McQuarrie Phillips (2008) Go Figure, New Directions in Advertising Rhetoric. M.E. Sharpe. (excerpts)
• 
  McQuarrie Phillips (2010) Narrative and Persuasion in Fashion Advertising, Journal of Consumer Research, 37 (3)
• 
  Frith, J. (2013). Turning life into a game: Foursquare, gamification, and personal mobility. Mobile Media & Communication. 1(2), 248-262.
• 
  Gershon, Richard A. (2013) Digital Media Innovation and the Apple Ipad: Three Perspectives on the Future of Computer Tablets and News Delivery. Journal of Media Business Studies 10 (1), pp. 41-61
• 
  Rydén, P., Ringberg, T., & Wilke, R. (2015). How Managers' Shared Mental Models of Business-Customer Interactions Create Different Sensemaking of Social Media. Journal of interactive marketing, 31, 1-16
  
• Kozinets, R. V., de Valck, K., Wojnicki, A. C., & Wilner, S. J. S. (2010). Networked Narratives: Understanding Word-of-Mouth Marketing in Online Communities. Journal of Marketing, 74(2), 71-89
  
  

Please note: the final syllabus is not the above, but is indicative of the contents of the course.

At the end of the course, the student must be able to produce an academic paper demonstrating to which extent the student meets the learning goal by analysis of a marketing communication problem. To support the student in reaching the goals, the learning activities for the course consist of a series of workshop activities with exercises on issues related to their self-selected marketing communication problem. The workshops thus give the students material and feedback which forms the foundation for writing an academic paper in which the student can demonstrate to which extent he or she meets the learning goals (a term paper). Active pariticpation in workshop activites is part of the final grade.

The workshops are organized along a series of portfolio assignments. Workshop exercises, written exercises such as project focus, problem statement, method, literature and structure of the final report, and presentations. There is no extended individual supervision outside of interactive workshops.

The course use e-learning tools for communication, portfolio work and feedback.

Scheduled classes:
6 weeks of 3 hour lectures alternating with 9 weeks of workshop activities and guest lectures.

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The workload of the course is, on average, distributed as follows:
Lecture: 18 hours.
Workshops: 27 hours.
Preparation for lectures: 68 hours.
Preparation for interactive workshops including portfolio work and feedback: 102 hours.
Preparation and final writing of term paper: 55 hours.
Total: 270 hours.