Advertising and Public Relations Courses
This course is designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills to use research to select appropriate media channels to communicate to stakeholders. Students will learn to create media briefings and plans for persuasive communication campaigns that include data-driven recommendations. Students will also learn how to retrieve, assess and visualize social media and web analytics.
This course is designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills to manage relationships with media gatekeepers in order to facilitate communication through their channels, including media selection, build relationships with gatekeepers, and interacting with the media through interviews and press conferences. Students will also learn how to track and analyze media coverage and sentiment using online tools.
This course is designed to introduce students to the practice of managing integrated communication to build, maintain and repair an organization’s reputation. Emphasis will be placed on issues and risk management, corporate social responsibility, cause-related marketing, advocacy advertising and crisis communication.
This course is designed to provide students with an introduction to branding from a marketing perspective, and how integrated communication is used to communicate a brand’s identity to build, manage and protect brand equity. Emphasis will be placed on brand assessment, brand positioning, audience selection and the marketing promotional mix.
Students develop optimal media strategies to reach consumers in a complex media landscape, using advanced media and audience analytic techniques. Students complete sophisticated, research-driven media plans.
Students develop ideation skills and professional identities as either art directors or writers. Students acquire techniques and develop personal discipline inherent to the generation of novel, sophisticated creative work.
This seminar course is devoted to the exploration of leadership theories, strategies, and practices as they relate to supporting and enhancing the creative process within the advertising industry.
For aspiring writers, this course offers an intensive exploration of the craft across a variety of genres. Students gain an understanding of the power of words and the use of distinctive voices, with implications for strategic advertising copywriting. Students are also expected to research and write creative briefs.
For aspiring art directors, this course offers an in-depth examination of formal graphic design principles and their application in advertising via lectures, reading assignments and projects. Topics include color theory, typography, and layout as well as applied skills associated with an art director’s daily work.
This workshop course is devoted to the development and execution of portfolio pieces reflecting the pursuit of sound strategic and conceptual thinking. Student work is reviewed by a jury of creative professionals at an end-of-semester critique.
This workshop course is devoted to the continued development and professional-level execution of a complete advertising portfolio reflecting mastery of strategic and conceptual thinking. The course also covers job search strategies and personal branding.
This course introduces students to the core theoretical and practical approaches to managing social and digital media. Students will begin learning a skill set based on the demands of current industry practice that will allow them to strategically manage digital communications for organizations.
This course is designed to provide students with skills and concepts to effectively create content across digital media platforms. Students will be introduced to frameworks and practices on content creation and strategy, along with tools on how to drive the development of future content through analytics. Emphasis will be placed on creating engaging content for target audiences that is written clearly and accurately.
This workshop-style course is designed to provide students with advanced practical, theoretical and analytical knowledge and skills required to successfully develop, monitor, and execute digital communication campaigns. Students will build upon their already-acquired skill set based on the demands of current industry practice. This course is a combination of lectures and exercises where strategic thinking, attention to detail and creative problem solving are crucial.
This course is designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to plan and analyze secondary, qualitative and quantitative data to draw meaningful academic and/or industry conclusions, monitor and measure outcomes of communication efforts, and present and visualize data proficiently.
This course is designed to provide students with an understanding of the fundamental theories and concepts that drive the research and practice of advertising and public relations and how to apply those theories and concepts for academic and industry inquiry.
This course exposes students to the main quantitative research methods required for analysis in social scientific research, whether academic or applied. Students learn the main quantitative methodological approaches from the field of communications, and also provides essential skills required for analyzing and tackling major research issues.
This course is designed to acquaint students with the ethical and professional practice of advertising and public relations. Students will prepare for the job and internship search by creating resumes, CVs, cover letters and portfolios that will make them viable on the job market. Students will also discuss networking, job etiquette, building relationships with stakeholders and clients, creating presentation-ready documents using Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite, and presentation and pitching skills.
The practice of creating, writing, editing, and producing persuasive communication for advertising and public relations. Writing skills are exercised extensively in this course.
Problems and decision-making processes involved in the management of advertising and public relations programs and organizations.
This course is the second part of a two semester course designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to plan and analyze secondary, qualitative and quantitative data to draw meaningful academic and/or industry conclusions, monitor and measure outcomes of communication efforts, and present and visualize data proficiently. This course includes an introduction to social and digital media analytics.
This course is designed to provide students with exposure to and the ability to enact computational approaches to research. It will introduce students to methods of data collection, management, analysis, and visualization using Python, arguably the most widely used general programming language for computational research, and R, a dedicated interface for computational data analysis. These two resources jointly represent the state of the art for computational research today.
The practice of developing ideas and creative strategies for professional evaluations about design and its application. Each student prepares a portfolio.
This course is designed to provide students with skills and concepts to communicate to stakeholders effectively using a variety of media channels (mass, controlled, digital, social, interpersonal) and focusing on communication as an art and a science. Emphasis is placed on assessing research to guide strategic decisions and on evaluating writing for persuasive content across various media channels.
This industry-driven course is designed to provide students with the skills necessary to lead persuasive communication departments and agencies effectively on an international scale. Emphasis is placed on understanding how to use critical thinking and problem solving to make ethical, cultural, financial and personnel decisions that affect multi-market organizations.
This course is designed for graduate students who have chosen to complete the comprehensive examination as their capstone experience for the degree.
This independent study course is designed to allow students to pursue independent exploration of a particular field or topical area, under the guidance of an advisor. Material covered will be of an advanced nature aimed at providing students with an understanding of current developments within the field. Discussion and advisor guidance will be focused on readings and methodologies that allow students to develop their research capacity, independent thought, and the ability to interpret professional and/or research materials in their field.
Research and planning to develop an integrated communication campaign for a specific organization. This is the preparation stage for the campaign planbook prepared by the student for APR 598.
Development and presentation of an integrated communication plan or applied research project for a specific organization under the supervision of an instructor of record or committee. Integration of theory, concepts, and techniques in a complete communication program.
This independent research course partially fulfills required master’s-level research thesis hours toward the master’s degree in advertising and public relations. The course is conducted under the guidance of the thesis advisor. Material covered will be of an advanced nature aimed at providing master's students with an understanding of the latest research and current developments within the field. Discussion and advisor guidance will be directed towards readings of research articles and development of research methodology, with the aim of producing an original research contribution that represents a novel development in the field, or a novel perspective on a pre-existing topic in the field.