Course Descriptions

B2000 Research & Awareness (3 credits)

Never before has there been so much media. Never before has there been so much information. And never has the need been greater to ground marketing communications recommendations in solid strategic thinking and evidence of their effectiveness. It is critical that students understand how to use research of all kinds to inform communications designed to motivate audiences and drive brands, as well as demonstrate the value of the work. This course will provide students an appreciation of the different sources of insights and how they can be used along the entire marketing communications development process from situation assessment and objective setting through creative development and program outcome measurement.  We will explore how secondary and primary research from syndicated and custom sources can provide an understanding of broad trends in our culture as well as inform us about specific attitudes and behavior of our target audiences.

B2001 Strategy & Measurement (3 credits)

At the heart of virtually every successful organization is a clearly defined and broadly understood brand idea. Whether called a “Brand Driver,” “Brand DNA,” “Brand Essence” or similar, it is invariably the central, unifying concept or maxim that converts business strategy into desired corporate behavior, driving product and service development, employee engagement and conduct and all marketing communications. In today’s highly transparent world, defining and delivering on a relevant, credible, and inspiring core brand promise has become ever more challenging and important. Students will learn the many tools and processes available to help them define and build strong brand ideas and narratives. They will also learn about the significant challenges and opportunities inherent in institutionalizing strategic branding within an organization.

B2002 Idea Development (3 credits) 

What's the difference between the internal strategic document and the more consumer-oriented concept or story that delivers the strategic message? In this process and critique based course, these distinctions will be explored as students transform internal marketing and communication objectives into creative language, concepts and campaigns that capture the consumers' imagination. Case studies as well as self-generated content will be used to teach students the basics of idea generation, how to recognize “big ideas,” and how to critique them in order to keep the message on strategy and make the work better. 

B2003 Brand Experience (3 Credits)

Anchored by a unified identity and enabled by technology, the way that brands are experienced by consumers takes a wide variety of forms and formats. This survey class explores methods of creating brand experience in physical, digital, traditional and experimental ways and delves into the coordinated application of mass, personal and social media to create rich sensory environments. Emphasis will be given to how effective benchmarks and outcomes can be measured. Students learn the building blocks of brand experience and elements of 'on-brand' tactical execution. 
 

Specialization Requirements:

TRACK ONE: ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT & PLANNING

B3001 Relationship Building (3 credits)

In the complex world of branding, agencies must figure out how to remove client/agency silos and figure out how to be at the center of their clients' business and not just in the service of the business. As unembedded brand agents, how do managers and planners navigate and nurture this relationship – and the supporting relationships? How can they help clients to identify, articulate, and cultivate their brand essence? Students will learn about communication from within the context of marketing, business and commerce. An emphasis will also be placed on vendors/suppliers beyond the client, group dynamics, various selling and negotiation techniques as well as dynamic new ways to package client presentations and RFPs.

B3002 Consumer Behavior & Persuasion (3 Credits)

This course is one part psychology and one part communications theory. Readings will include seminal thinkers such as BF Skinner, Marshal McLuhan, Neil Postman, Malcolm Gladwell, Harold Ennis, Everett Rogers and others. From this point, an examination of the current trends in consumer research will be examined including how to utilize the primary tools as well as design meaningful market research.
 

B3003 Internal Management (3 credits)

Advertising and Marketing Communications is no longer an industry of “idea development” where brand identity is generated through one way forms of storytelling; it must now include new forms of consumer engagement which require managed storyBUILDING. This presents new challenges in the ways in which managers must be fluent in developing strategies, fostering collaboration, evaluating content, visualizing information, reacting to consumer participation, making persuasive presentations – all while breaking down agency silos that inhibit productivity and collaboration. Today's agency manager must not just manage a process-driven environment, but be change agents that create a healthy, dynamic, and sustainable culture. 
 

Specialization Requirements:

TRACK TWO: CREATIVE
 

B3010 Creative Concepts (3 credits)

An advanced studio course in the BIC Creative Track for development of campaign concepts in the print medium. Based on strategic thinking, students will have the opportunity to create a number of campaign concepts that unite “art & copy” with an eye towards further development and inclusion in a spec book – or pre-professional portfolio. Students learn how to identify specific problems a brand may face and how to solve them through persuasive print advertising.
 

B3011 Multi-Media Executions (3 credits)

An advanced studio course in the BIC Creative Track that allows copywriting and art direction students to further refine rough campaign concepts in the creation of multi-media executions – from traditional print and broadcast to new media hybrids, out-of-home, digital, and experiential. Emphasis will be placed on developing a  “voice” and “visual style” as students explore the convergence of brand and media in a series of individual projects.

B3012 Design & Portfolio Development (3 credits)

An advanced studio course in the BIC Creative Track where students work in teams as art director/copywriter to apply design skills, polish writing, and utilize design software basics in order to digitally produce their existing campaigns for inclusion in their spec book and to upload to an online portfolio. Final critiques will include a formal portfolio review with industry professionals.
 

Specialization Requirements:

TRACK THREE: PUBLIC RELATIONS
 

B3020 Branding Influentials (3 credits)

This course explores how certain individuals in a market have outsized influence on the market behavior, and how professional communicators can work with these particularly influential individuals. The practice of public relations is founded on a premise that communications is a self-perpetuating process that can be guided and focused by appropriate interventions. It is not a process of communicating to “everyone,” but a process of communicating to the “right people” whose behaviors and whose own communications will affect others. At times, public relations practitioners work with professional shapers of opinion: securities, technology, and economic analysts, cultural and fashion reviewers, and, nearly always, the media. At other times, public relations practitioners work to reach the Innovators and Early Adopters of the classic Production Adoption Curve. In recent years, the development of social and new media technologies has added another – and evolving – dimension to marketplace influentials.

B3021 Internal Corporate Branding (3 credits)

This course explores how professional communicators understand the dynamics of nurturing and maximizing the potential employees in the brand development process. Our experience of Starbuck’s Coffee baristas, Apple Store geniuses, Southwest Airlines flight attendants, Ritz Carlton doormen, and any number of other organizational employees is an integral dimension of the brands of those organizations. Even when employees do not interact with customers, their sincere belief and support of brand attributes and claims is a strong motivator of quality production. Whether it is in person at the barber shop or over Twitter, employees are often the front-line representatives of their employers’ brands. Students will gain insights into how organizations educate employees about brand attributes, and how employees are empowered and guided to embody and communicate the brand.

B3022 Public Relations Branding Campaigns (3 credits -- AKA Branding Issues and Intangibles)

This course explores how organizations create, sustain, and defend their brands through association with issues and intangibles. Brands are always, in part, based on intangible conceptual and emotional assets such as integrity, stability, leadership, innovation, and being cool. Brands also are associated with commitments to values such as environmental sustainability, human rights, community partnership, and national patriotism. Students in B302X will examine and draw actionable insights from how organizations consciously choose commitments to issues and intangibles and then how they express those commitments in communications programs and strategic market position defense.
 

Electives
 

B2050 Strategic Media (3 credits)

Back in 1964, Marshall McLuhan stated that “the medium is the message.” That is never more true than today. However, our ability to be more mobile, immersive, and essentially ubiquitous has made achieving a clear brand identity in today’s media landscape more challenging – and exciting – than ever. Developing strategic goals and understanding the means and methods to realize those goals will save us from turning strong messaging into expensive wallpaper. This course will build on the Foundational Brand Experience course by more specifically examining the convergence of media and creative solutions that give dimension to the brand and meets strategic ends as students study media outlets, planning, and buying – including the use of digital communication channels. It will make theoretical and applied connections to other social sciences, such as sociology, anthropology, and economics. Topics will include effective web content construction (information display, navigation atmospherics, etc.), interactive media and advertising planning, use of digital media as a PR tool, and online metrics to measure brand effectiveness.  

B2051 Leadership, Ethics, and Legal Issues (3 credits)

B2053 Integrated Communications in a Shrinking World (3 credits)

Integrated communications in a multi-language, multicultural context is becoming the norm rather than the exception.  This course examines the challenge of communications and advertising across linguistic, cultural, geographic, perceptual and national boundaries. This course also focuses on working with global actors beyond nation-states, including NGO's, private standard initiatives, value chain certification, transnational entities and activists groups. 
 

B8501 Special Topic: Digital Integration (1 credit)

This intensive four session, one-credit course dives into Digital Marketing’s interdependence with other forms of brand communications. This course will provide you with the vocabulary and concepts behind both the strategic and tactical implications of consumer behavior in the digital space.  
 

B8502 Special Topic: Competition Ready (1 credit)

Nothing elevates your game like entering a high level competition. This intensive course will leverage the annual Young Ones College Competition from The ONE Club, one of the most acclaimed advertising, interactive and design student competitions in the world, dating back to 1986. Winners of the competition are not only awarded  Gold, Silver and Bronze Pencils at the annual One Show Young Ones Education Festival ceremony, but finalists are published in the One Show Annual as well as online in the Young Ones Awards Archive. This course provides structure and support for the intense creative development process while offering instruction on how to translate the client brief into award-winning campaigns. 
 

B8503 Special Topic: Native Advertising (1 credit)

Native advertising and brand sponsored content – the practice in which paid promotion mimics the form and style of the media where it’s featured – isn’t new. The FTC made its first ruling that defined the line between editorial content and advertising promotion back in 1917. But today, the explosion of digital communication platforms has created new delivery models and business relationships that has accelerated its use. Spending is expected to grow to $21 billion in 2018 from just under $5 billion in 2013. Native display ads like the ones seen on Yahoo will see the greatest growth. But with organizations such as The New York Times entering the realm of sponsored content, the sacred wall between editorial and content seems more blurry than ever. What are the new rules? How does it impact the consumer – and society? What are both sides in this business relationship gaining…and losing?  Is its effectiveness measurable? 
 

B8504 Special Topic: The NEW New (1 credit)

The communications landscape is changing so rapidly that identifying, assessing, and harnessing trends has become a critical business skill. New and disruptive technologies as well as new forms of message distribution cause fundamental changes and significant opportunities that will result in shifting power structures. Some pillars like Facebook and Google are in place, but the rise of retailer as media owner, and service players (like Uber and Airbnb) have yet to play out to anything like its full extent. This intensive course brings trend-spotting executives and visionary entrepreneurs into the classroom to share their expertise on emerging trends that will transform the future.  
 

Internships/ Co Op Education (3 credits)

Students may take a one semester internship, working 12-15 hours per week over 15 weeks (or during summer) in a marketing communications capacity that offers them professional experience to complement their classroom work. Students write a comprehensive paper on their experience and are evaluated by their on-site supervisor.
 

Required Convergence Workshops
 

B3201 BIC Campaign Practicum Not-for-Profit (3 credits)

Working in teams as competing, fully functioning “communications firms,” students take this practicum in their penultimate semester to work on a real-life project: an integrated marketing communications campaign for a non-profit organization using an actual client brief and budget. Because the assignments are based on the challenges faced by a non-profit, how students achieve their goals will vary depending on the individual organization and its needs. Final work will be produced and act as content for student portfolios required for completion of the program. 

B3202 BIC Campaign Practicum -  Corporate (3 credits)

Working in teams as competing, fully functioning “communications firms,” students take this practicum in their final semester to work on a real-life project: an integrated marketing communications campaign for a corporation using an actual client brief and budget. Because the assignments are based on an industry-based project, how students achieve their goals will vary from semester ot semester. Final work will be produced and act as content for student portfolios required for completion of the program.