What I Learned In: Principles of Advertising

By Kayde Kempen (@kaydekempen)

In Professor Sara Hansen’s Principles of Advertising class, students learned about many topics in advertising while using Twitter and Blogger to move discussions beyond the classroom. Topics covered in Principles of Advertising included: integrated brand promotion, consumer behavior, ethics and regulation, market segmentation, positioning and value proposition, research and planning, diversity, creativity and message strategy, copywriting, art direction/production, media strategy and planning and sales promotion, events, product placement and entertainment.

The class was structured with Professor Hansen lecturing on Tuesdays, and students presenting on the various topics on Thursdays. Students were responsible for writing a paper, blogging and giving a presentation on a topic they chose, which gave their colleagues a different view of the topics covered in class.  After the midterm exam, students were taught how to use Twitter and were encouraged to tweet during class by using the class hashtag #uwoad.  The class also wrote posts through Blogger, which allowed students to learn how to blog by engaging in conversations about advertising with their peers.

Principles of Advertising also had guest speaker Mark Elliott from SPARK Advertising come to class. Elliott spoke to the class about the many clients that Spark Advertising deals with and how each one needs a different approach. Elliott explained how advertising for food products needs to focus on shelf appeal, how important retail branding (appearance of a store) is with examples of Outdoor Outlet and Ariens, as well as the effect packaging has on consumers (like green packaging).

Principles of Advertising gave students an overview of the rapidly changing face of advertising, as traditional forms of media, such as television, radio and newspapers now have to compete with Internet advertising and the use of various forms of social media by advertisers. Students also learned the importance of using social networking sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogger to market themselves for their future careers in the field of journalism.