IMAGE MAKING(PBDS 680

PBDS 680

IMAGE MAKING

NOTE: This is representative of the syllabi for this course. It is not necessarily the syllabus being used in any one semester.

Overview: The course introduces students to a step-by-step method for analyzing image and marketing problems, especially those of non-profit organizations; devising conceptual solutions for those problems; and creating strategies and materials with which to create or change an organization's image in the marketplace.

The course requires students to develop and practice disciplined analytical and problem-solving skills and to translate concepts into words and images directed toward specific audiences. This course may also fulfill an advanced writing requirement and thus emphasizes copy writing of several kinds.

Students will write detailed marketing and communications plans and design and write text for materials proposed in these plans, i.e., brochures, ads, and the like. The emphasis will be on print materials, but students may prepare copy for electronic and other media.

The course also includes instruction in presenting and selling ideas to various audiences, and students will make at least two presentations in class.

Structure: All students will take on two major image-making projects. During the first half of the semester, an assigned case study will be the basis for learning the principles involved. During the second half of the semester, students must choose a real or hypothetical problem to solve. The process of analysis and the structure of both parts of the course are organized as follows:

I. Getting Information (market research, focus groups, analysis of the competition, and the like)

II. Shaping Information (interpreting research results; developing concepts or the dreaded Big Idea; and mapping out marketing and communications plans)

III. Conveying the Big Idea (creating the communications tools to match the marketing plans)

A Warning: It is extremely important to understand that this course is not based on a text or dependent upon preexisting models. The basic principles are presented via lectures and discussions, and students must think their way through the process and develop their own plans, ideas, and solutions. This is very hard work, often intimidating, and if students get through it, quite rewarding. But students should recognize in advance that they will be required to think and work independently toward the shaping of original ideas.

Grades: Grades are based on a student's demonstrated ability to think analytically, critically, and imaginatively and to write with style and accuracy for targeted audiences. Students will receive one grade at mid-term, after completing the first image-making case study, and another at the end of the semester after completing the second project. The final grade is an average of these two. In general, an A is assigned to work that is superior in every respect (the quality of the research, writing, and the ideas); B+ to work that is very good in every respect; B to work that has several very good elements; C+ to work that shows promise; and C to work that is barely acceptable.

Texts: Theodore Levitt, The Marketing Imagination, and George Lois, What's the Big Idea?