Marketing Communication

Introduction

Every day, you are the target of thousands of messages—but only a few actually stick. This course moves you from a passive consumer to a strategic creator of marketing communication. You will gain a competitive edge by mastering the cutting-edge intersection of art (creativity), technology (media and AI), and science (psychology), learning how to design communication that reaches the right audiences and changes how they think, feel, and behave.

Your Professional Portfolio: The Agency Experience

The centerpiece of this course is a high-impact, semester-long project for a real-world client. Working in self-managed teams, you will function as a boutique agency to solve a live business challenge. This is where you build your professional resume, navigating the full strategic lifecycle:

• Insight & Objectives: Defining what success looks like and uncovering deep audience truths.

• Strategy & Budgeting: Developing creative and media strategy and allocating the available resources.

• Execution & Measurement: Designing final messages and proving their impact with data.

• Presenting, Teamwork, & Ethics: Presenting your work convincingly to your client, managing professional dynamics, influencing consumer choice responsibly.

Core Learning Pillars

• The Science of Persuasion: Go beyond "gut feeling." Use applied psychology to decode human behavior and master the triggers that drive attention, memory, and persuasion.

• The Tech of Delivery: Learn from one of the world's largest media agencies how to navigate the modern media landscape. You will evaluate digital and traditional channels, working with KPIs that define today’s communication industry.

• The Art of the Message: Creative experts from a leading creative agency will show you how to craft the message and how to produce clear, compelling, and differentiated content.

A Roadmap to Excellence

To ensure your work meets professional standards, the course follows an iterative feedback model. You will move through three critical milestones—Situation Analysis, Strategy, Execution & Tactics—receiving customized expert feedback to refine your plans before the final grade.

The journey culminates in a high-stakes finale: every team produces a professional Video Pitch, and the top-performing teams earn the exclusive opportunity to present their solutions to the client’s management (with an accompanying certificate for their CVs).

Engagement & Professional Commitment

Because this course mirrors a professional agency environment and relies on teamwork and guest expertise, your active presence during lectures is vital. Physical attendance is mandatory for a minimum of 11 out of 15 sessions. This ensures you are present for critical updates, guest lectures, and team-based work that cannot be replicated elsewhere.

Course content

The topics below are exemplary and subject to change.

• Psychological models of how marketing communication works
• The structure of the marketing communication industry
• Developing a communication plan
• Budgeting considerations
• Determining communication objectives
• Generating and leveraging insights
• Positioning
• Creative strategy
• Message strategies and execution
• Persuasion tactics
• Media strategy across digital and traditional media
• Integrating marketing communication channels
• Measuring impact and testing
• How to use important digital and AI tools
• Current trends in marketing communication