SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION

CMNS 323-4

(CULTURAL DIMENSIONS IN ADVERTISING)

Communication Design and Research in the Promotional Culture

Prerequisite:

75 credits including two of CMNS 200, 220, 221, 223, 226.


Strongly recommended:

CMNS 362 or 363.


Outline:

As part of the applied media analysis stream this course develops a critical overview of the contemporary debates about the consumer society. This exploration of consumer culture begins by examining recent characterizations of the psycho-social dynamics of consumption in consumer culture. It goes on to trace the historical formation of advertising as a key cultural practice, mediating the market transactions between producers and consumers. The marketing communication model is the focus of a detailed examination of the increasingly sophisticated coordination of communication and consumer research activities.

Throughout the course, the market is viewed as a multi-dimensional promotional communications system in order to familiarize students with the core set of design strategies and audience research methods which constitute the lexicon of marketing communication practioners. Through a series of research, analysis and design exercises students should also expect to be exposed not only to the key approaches to promotional communication strategy (design branding, targeting, positioning, pricing, synergies) but also to various aspects of the social-psychological research methods (diaries, surveys, focus groups, interviews, trend analysis) employed in promotional communication research. Lectures and exercises will explore all levels of the marketplace communication activities spanning from the maco-economic management of consumer confidence and credit, to merchandising, branding, strategic marketing management, media buying, promotional communications design and evaluation.


Topics to be Covered:

1) Defining Consumption: Re-thinking the Dismal Science
2) Mediated Markets: Modernization and Marketing Communication
3) Getting and Spending: Managing the Cash Nexus
4) Channelling Products: Retailing, Malls and Shopping
5) Objects of Desire: Branding, Packaging, Designing Goods
6) Beyond Needs: Fashion, Aesthetics and the Social Context of Consumption
7) Homo Habitus: Life cycle, Lifestyle and Cultural Capital
8) Marketing Mixers: Strategic Management of Synergies and Loops through Advertising
9) Buying Time and Space: Attention, Exposure, Retention
10) Designs for Persuasion: Drama, Values, Character and Credibility
11) Spin: Politics, Responsibility, and Social Marketing in Promotional Culture
12) Consumerism and its opposition: Resisting the goods lifeCourse Texts:
W. Leiss, et al Social Communication in Advertising
Celia Lury, Consumer Culture


Readings From:

Galbraith, Baudrillard, Slater, Lury, Wernick, Giddens, Sherry, Frank, Marchand, Sutherland, Burke, Batra and Ray, Douglas and Isherwood, Strasser, Klein, Frank, Goldman and Papson
Students will be expected to complete all readings, undertake a series of assignments, and submit two research projects.


Evaluation:

Research Paper 25%
Research Projects x 2 50%
Tutorial/Exercises/Log 25%

The School expects that the grades awarded in this course will bear some reasonable relation to established university-wide practices with respect to both levels and distribution of grades. In addition, the School will follow Policy T10.02 with respect to “Intellectual Honesty” and “Academic Discipline” (see the current Calendar, General Regulations section).