Advertising

College of Arts and Sciences

The advertising major is an interdisciplinary undergraduate major in the School of Media and Communication. The major provides students with a balanced conceptual foundation and professional skills in advertising supported by a strong experiential learning component. Its aim is to develop students to be highly adaptable in the fast-changing media environment with strong writing and analytical skills, aptitude to solve problems creatively, and a solid mastery of professional advertising skills for commercial and non-profit organizations.

The advertising major consists of ten core courses, two internship courses, one capstone course and three concentration courses. The core courses prepare students with a strong foundation of theory and practice in advertising and understanding of the different aspects of the advertising industry. The core also incorporates knowledge from Advertising, Communication, Media Production and Studies with a strong conceptual background in communication and media, and add courses in Marketing and Graphic Design so that the students can understand the needs of the marketers as advertisers and the graphic design aspect in creating advertisements.

Learning Outcomes

Students are expected to achieve the following learning outcomes:

  1. Explain the different functions, regulations, and roles of advertising in business marketing, the media industry, and society;
  2. Utilize consumer behavior and persuasion theories with audience research to select target audience, develop and evaluate advertising campaigns' effectiveness with appropriate data analytics and metrics;
  3. Write advertising copy, understand graphic design principles and develop ethical advertising campaigns and strategies across multiple media platforms including social media for both commercial and non-profit organizations;
  4. Apply knowledge of the strengths and limitations of different marketing communication media and integrate them in advertising campaigns and media advertising sales.

Advertising - Major (44 hours) - Fall 2019 course requirements

With the advertising major, students may choose between two concentrations that best suits a student's talents and interests. The student's concentration options are: creative/production or management/research. 

    The Creative/Production concentration prepares students for careers in copy writing, print and digital advertising or
    commercial production, webmaster for commercial web sites or social media manager.

    The Management/Research concentration prepare students for careers in advertising sales, account management, account
    planning, advertising media planning and advertising research.

For specific courses for those concentrations, please review the check sheet for the major. 

Advertising Minor

The Advertising Minor gives students a background in the advertising industry, interactive advertising, effects of advertising, and advertising campaigns for careers in advertising and media. The Advertising Minor will be beneficial to students interested in broadcasting, online media, marketing, promotion, and other media-related industries and culture.  

Students will need to complete four required courses. MDIA and Marketing majors cannot double count any courses. Gateway courses and elective courses also cannot be double counted. MDIA majors will need to take two additional elective courses that will be be counted in their MDIA major.

1. Gateway courses (6 credits)

  • For MDIA Majors: MKT 3000 (3) and either MKT 4080 (3) or MKT 4100 (3)
  • For Marketing Majors: MDIA 1030 (3) and MDIA 2600 (3)
  • For all other majors, choose MKT 3000 (3) and either MKT 4080 (3) or MKT 4100 (3) sequence or MDIA 1030 (3) and MDIA 2600 (3) sequence

2. Production courses (6 credits, 3 credits for MDIA majors)

  • MDIA 2640 Interactive Online Media (3)
  • Choose one (3 credits): MDIA 2500, MDIA 2610, MDIA 2620

3. Electives (6 credits, 9 or 12 credits for MDIA majors. MDIA majors will need to take one additional course from the list as they will need to make up one course not taken for production course requirements: 9 credits. If MDIA majors used MDIA 2640 for their major, they will need to take two additional courses: 12 credits. The listed courses cannot be double counted between major and minor.)

  • COMM 3030 Persuasion
  • JOUR 3410 Principles of Public Relations for Nonmajors
  • JOUR 4900 Specialized Journalism Skills
  • JOUR 4950 Specialized Journalism Issues
  • MDIA 3520 Online Social Media
  • MDIA 3610 Media & Strategic Communication
  • MDIA 3650 Broadcasting History
  • MDIA 4530 Media Sales and Promotion
  • MDIA 4610 Audience Research
  • MDIA 4630 Media Programming
  • MDIA 4690 Seminar: Contemporary Aspects of Telecommunications
  • MKT 3020 Consumer Behavior

4. Capstone course (3 credits) Choose one - not counted in major

  • MKT 4120 Advertising Management
  • MDIA 4530 Media Sales and Promotion
  • MDIA 4911 Media Management

Updated: 10/18/2019 03:35PM