Edinburgh Napier University

This module will explore and evaluate the impact of integrated advertising campaigns. The effectiveness of single-minded, original thinking across a significant range of media will be examined; what makes a brand famous, what makes an advertising message memorable and how classic campaigns evolve, engage with the consumer and endure for years. This module will also cover the role of the campaign slogan, the importance of a strong visual identity and style, the impact of music and associated key elements (such as Voice Overs) that trigger brand recognition. You will be encouraged to refer to great advertising campaigns, past and present and to develop your ability to ‘stretch’ the idea across a wide variety of communication channels and learn the principal skills, techniques and practices associated with creating effective advertising campaigns.

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Through practice, you will explore the creative process from strategy to final concept, and the various triggers that can be used to produce credible, memorable advertising. You will learn to interrogate the advertising brief and critically reflect on your own creative strategy and that of others. You will consider key elements of successful advertising, including the effectiveness of a “headline” as a stand-alone communication and the impact of a strong visual that needs no copy to explain it, and the role of photography, illustration, design, branding and language. You will be introduced to the different writing styles, formats and technical terms required for a range of media platforms. The generation of ideas will be formalised into projects, culminating in a series of creative presentations, where you will showcase your work and debate and defend their advertising.

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The lecture programme and workshops will cover industry standard applications, including Adobe Creative Suite. The student will learn about essential graphic design principles, page layout, typography, image enhancement, saving and transferring documents as final digital artwork, ready for publication and presentation. This module is designed to give the student an understanding of the creative possibilities that today's software applications can provide, raising student confidence and utilise applications to their best advantage.

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This module will engage you with creative possibilities in fast-moving, multi-channel digital environments. You will work on live industry and/or competition briefs that demand total media integration to develop unified strategies and creative campaigns. Reflecting current industry trends this module will be asking you to carefully reflect on the nature of advertising in a highly interactive and globalised digital environment.

The module is: interactive (reflecting the nature of digital media); inter-disciplinary (reflecting the complexity of digital media); and inter-cultural (reflecting the nature of digital space and use of social media.)

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In this module you will use a combination of planning theory and practice-based creative briefs in our advertising studios. The focus of this module will be on modern communication strategies that use socio-cultural innovations to establish a two-way relationship with the consumer. In responding to creative tasks, you will apply planning theory, and test and critically evaluate ideas in the context of the brand values and audience, and use audience insight to determine effective methods for consumer/customer engagement. In commercial and social contexts, you will critically explore the role of planning in the advertising industry, and the use appropriate media and trans media strategies. You will evaluate precedents in advertising planning, and record the process of the implementation of your own ideas and strategies.

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