Analysis of advertising as an institution in a free-enterprise democratic society and its relation to social, legal, cultural, and economic institutions.

Application of contemporary communications theories of attitude change, information-processing, and persuasion as applied to creative strategy decisions.

Analysis of decision making in budgeting, creative strategy, media strategy, research, evaluation, and agency-client relationships. Advertising response functions.

Account Planning focuses on the development of advertising strategy based on insight-oriented research. Emphasis on the use of qualitative research in advertising strategy development, secondary and quantitative data also used.

Seminar on theoretical and practical applications to preparing for and engaging in issues, risk and crisis communication and management.

Theories of leadership and management and organizational structure and functions of public relations agencies and departments in public, private, and non-profit sectors. Analysis and management of problems in communication between organizations and their publics with emphasis on ethics and standards of the profession.

Strategic communication planning to achieve overall goals of organizations. Emphasis on decision making, the budgeting process, including cost-benefit analysis of tactics, and managerial execution of public relations plans. Measurement and evaluation of effectiveness of communication programs.

Group-based development, execution, and evaluation of an advertising campaign for a regional or national client.

Research, planning, and communication and evaluation of major public relations campaigns. Oral and written presentation of written public relations project from inception to completion. Requires extensive out-of-class work.

Capstone project under guidance of faculty. Application of principles from previous course work.

Approved internships and other supervised practice in the field of advertising, public relations, integrated marketing, digital and social media.