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TEXTBOOK: Belch, Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective, 7th edition, McGraw- Hill, 2007

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

1. To give you an understanding of integrated marketing communications, traditional promotional tools, and new media options such as advertising on the World Wide Web.

2. To show how consumer behavior and marketing communications theories can be used to design effective promotional strategies

3. To give you hands on experience preparing an integrated marketing communications plan

4. To give you experience accessing and using secondary information on the World Wide Web and in the Library

5. To acquaint you with other secondary sources of data used by advertisers and how you can use those sources to help design effective promotional strategies

Your textbook presents some of the most current topics and issues relevant to today's advertising professionals. We will spend class time discussing these timely topics while giving you the information and tools you need to develop an effective marketing plan for the Cadillac brand. You will have short periodic assignments related to the course material being discussed that will be given out in class and handed in for credit. You will also participate in class on collaborative group exercises. These assignments and exercises will be drawn into class discussions and factored into your class participation grade along with actual participation (10%). You are responsible for all assignments given in class and they must be handed in on time for full credit.

COURSE PROJECT:

Cadillac Case Competition: The Task

Your challenge is to create a consumer-focused marketing plan for the 2008 CTS that supports the launch of the new vehicle, showcases its new features and attributes, focusing on how they are relevant to the target audience, and all the while, reinforces the new “Life. Liberty. And the Pursuit” campaign positioning in a way that appeals to the target customer. The deliverables must include:

1. A communications strategy for the 2008 CTS launch (choose the target market(s) [Move-Ups, Busy Moms, Alphas, Boomers and Loyalist] for your strategy)

2. The creative brief(s) for advertising (the advertising objective, audience, message, sample creative and support).

3. A detailed media plan, identifying costs, timing and message; and

4. Any relevant measures to gauge your plan’s effectiveness.

The top two Undergraduate and top two Graduate strategies will be invited to present their recommendations to Cadillac and Modernista! executives on May 16, 2007 at General Motors headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. The presentation is an all-expense paid trip for up to five students and one faculty member. There will also be an opportunity for one student to receive an internship with Modernista!

You will work in groups of 4 or 5 on this project. Each group project and presentation will be graded at the end of the semester. It is expected that group members will contribute equally to the project and presentation and receive the group's project and presentation grades. Lack of participation on the part of a group member will significantly affect their grade. Peer evaluations will be given out at the mid-point and end of the semester.

EXAMS:

You will have two exams covering the assigned chapters in the textbook and class discussions. The exams can include essay questions and problems. Each exam is worth 20% of your final grade. If you miss an exam for any reason, a makeup exam will be given covering material from that exam during finals week.

EXAM 1

EXAM 2

EXAM 3

CAMPAIGN PROJECT and
PRESENTATION

CLASS PARTICIPATION
(also includes assignments to be discussed in class and class exercises)

20%

20%


20%

30%

10%

Two important skills to master (if you haven't done so already) are arriving for meetings/classes/work on time and getting projects/assignments in on time. You will be a more highly valued employee/student and most likely to be rewarded (as opposed to let go or penalized) if you are responsible and effective on these fronts. Anticipate obstacles (e.g. my car broke, my computer crashed) and plan ahead!

Strive to document all of your written work carefully and thoughtfully. According to Webster, plagiarism is "to take (ideas, writings, etc.) from another and offer them as one's own". Plagiarism is a serious offense and University regulations (as documented in the Student Rights and Responsibilities handbook) apply. Material drawn from another source should be cited and appropriately referenced. You must reference materials found on the web as well. You can not copy and paste information found on the web and represent this as your own work. You need to reword (unless you are placing quotation marks around it) and footnote information gathered from any source.