Advertising Theories and Communication Design

Knowledge and Understanding

The course explores the multiple forms of advertising discourse through multimedia materials, dialoguing with disciplines as diverse as linguistics, semiotics, aesthetics, philosophy, sociology, history, marketing and economics.
The exploration focuses on the shapes, components and profound attributes of the advertising and post-advertising discourses, analyzing the impact that technology had on the notion of propaganda and its strategies.
The course, therefore, deals with topics relating to communication design, business design and design management such as brand identity, targeting, engagement, conversion, omnichannel retailing and communications, sustainability, distribution, ethics, gender neutrality and storytelling. The student will understand the mechanics underlying the promotion of the activities of a company or organization and the best practices underlying the structuring of a positive brand image and of an effective campaign.

Applying Knowledge and Understanding

The ultimate educational goal is to provide students with the theoretical tools at the base of a critical, profound and therefore personal analysis of advertising discourses and of the role advertising plays in defining brand experiences, product experiences and, essentially, the experience of the reality. The student will be able to critically analyze storytellings, meanings and values associated with a brand or its products.
Finally, students will become aware of the role, power and responsibility of communicative discourses within the society, as well as conscious about the mechanisms underlying the relationship between sensory elements - what the advertising discourse shows - and intellectual elements - what the advertising discourse expresses.