Marketing Communication

Introduction

Communication is a key aspect of marketing. Marketers communicate with their customers and other stakeholders in order to influence perceptions, attitudes, and behavior, and to drive sales. To succeed, they must convey the right messages to the right audiences at the right times and leverage today's complex and rapidly evolving online and offline media channels. This course prepares students for this challenge by equipping them with state-of-the-art knowledge and skills. It provides a deep understanding of marketing communication, both in terms of real-life application, and as a field of scientific research. Throughout the course, students will work in groups on a marketing communication project in collaboration with a real client organization and its agencies. The lectures will provide inspiration for the group project in two ways:

1) We will meet senior guest speakers holding various key functions in marketing communication (e.g., client, media agency, creative agency). These practitioners will provide insights into the daily business and current challenges of marketing communication and mentor the students in their group projects.

2) We will discuss concepts and theories in marketing and adjacent fields that are relevant to marketing communication. These insights may be used in the project. We will also pay attention to theoretical and methodological challenges in these research areas.

Course content

The topics below are exemplary and subject to change.

• The structure of marketing communications (client, agencies, media channels)
• How marketing communications work (psychological models of how marketing communications work, information processing, persuasion)
• Managing marketing communications (budgeting, measuring impact, integrating marketing communications)
• Leveraging today's media landscape, including key online and offline channels, their properties, uses, and KPIs 
• Message strategies and execution
• Multisensory marketing communication
• Persuasion tools