Digital Advertising

Are you interested in the impact and design of digital public relations and advertising storytelling? From video commercials, content marketing, social media advertising, influencer marketing, to billboards and sponsorships — advertising and public relations messages are everywhere! This course is designed to provide students with an understanding about the marketplace of attention and create effective narratives of their own creation. Students will be exposed to higher level thinking as media consumers and have the opportunity to test their theories through the final project.

Learn more about a Journalism major and career path here.

Learning Outcomes in this course

• Learn about the marketplace of attention, the ubiquity and impact of modern mass media and the power and limitation of the Internet compared to traditional media.

• Gain experience creating stakeholder relationships and learn about the nature of the relationship and responsibility of an organization with its consumers, employees, community, and other stakeholders.

• Explore branding psychology theories and concepts of influence and building a persona.

• Perform market and consumer analysis to identify key audiences, market segmentation and the makeup of target personas.

• Discover the role of campaign channels and tracking in broadcast, direct and socially orchestrated marketing communications campaigns.

• Develop effective visual storytelling skills using the principles of visual design, character development, tone, coherence and messaging as told through media such as graphic design, photography, video and audio production.

• Learn about the roles and production of real-world jobs and careers in the field that use strategic communication skills through hands-on experiences.

Proposed Activities

• Visit the KPCR radio station to hear about their needs, target audience and requests for projects.

• Visit Verdin Marketing agency and meet with experts from various departments.

• Design and produce a strategic communications campaign, a video commercial and social media content for a client.

Instructor

Dr. Casey McDonald-Liu, Instructor at Cal Poly SLO

Dr. McDonald-Liu received her PhD from the College of Journalism and Mass Communications from the University of Florida; her Master of Art and Bachelor of Science from Brigham Young University.

Dr. McDonald-Liu is a recent PhD graduate from the University of Florida in strategic communications specializing in how organizations communicate to publics using a tonality similar to that of humans on social media.

She began her career working in digital communications at Walt Disney Studios and as an assistant to the Vice President of International Marketing. She also worked as a digital sales specialist for Valpak and ran her own cosplay catering business after spending time in Japan as an ESL instructor. She specializes in strategic communication - public relations & advertising; organization-to-public relationship management; digital & social media; Asian media culture; conversational human voice; organizational trust; social psychology; public relations writing; PR & advertising research; global communications; and, media ethics.