APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2013/2014

GRA 6433 Theories and Methods in Marketing Communication

Responsible for the course
Bendik Samuelsen

Department
Department of Marketing

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
6

Language of instruction
English

Introduction
Communication is a fundamental part of most marketplace transactions. In its purest form price communicates the information necessary for a transaction. In most other deviations from perfect competition, any marketer has to communicate more than price in order to establish, sustain, and grow his business. This course aims to provide deep understanding for theoretical perspectives on marketing communication as a field of scientific research. The course will draw extensively on advertising research due to the richness and maturity of this perspective, and we will give detailed attention to methodological challenges in advertising research. In other words, this is not a course in creating advertising, but a course covering the premisses for how communication works, and how to assess communication effects.

Learning outcome
To address the managerial challenges of marketing communication in an analytical manner, the primary learning outcome of this course is the establishment of a sound platform of knowledge based on attitudes and persuasion research from social psychology, as well as learning and memory principles from cognitive psychology. Dual process theories like the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), and the heuristic-systematic model (HSM) represent fundamental models from which to derive rich insights into the information processing perspective on marketing communication. Through these models, students will learn how attributes of the recipient, the message, the context, and the sender interact in producing communicative effects. As a logical implication, communication effects can be analyzed. An additional learning outcome is the ability to construct experimental designs enabling tests of communication effects. The students should also understand the steps in communication planning from a managerial perspective, and be able to address the role of creativity in marketing communication

Prerequisites
GRA 4145 Brand Management or equivalent from other leading programmes. The course can be taken in the same semester as GRA 6433 Theories and Methods in Marketing Communications.

Compulsory reading

Collection of articles:
Compilation of articles

Other:
During the course there may be hand-outs and other material on additional topics relevant for the course and the examination.


Recommended reading

Course outline
- Overview of marketing communication planning
- The information processing perspective/ persuasion
- Attitudes and persuasion
- Dual process models
- Learning and neural networks
- Priming and Fluency
- Communication process entities
- Source
- Message
- Recipient
- Context
- Methodological issues in communication research

Computer-based tools
None in particular, however, SPSS latest version will be utilized. It's learning

Learning process and workload
A course of 6 ECTS credits corresponds to a workload of 160-180 hours.

Part one: Marketing communication from a managerial perspective
Part two: cognitive premisses for communication effects
Part three: Principles of persuasion in advertising

Please note that while attendance is not compulsory in all courses, it is the student’s own responsibility to obtain any information provided in class that is not included on the course homepage/It's learning or text book.


Examination
Your course grade will be based on the following activities and weights:
- Term paper 60% -written individually or in groups of max 3 students (in special circumstances individually)
- Three hour written exam 40%

The term paper shall be submitted in two printed copies, and additionally, one electronic copy through Ephorus in It's learning in order to scan for plagiarism.
All activities have to be passed in order to obtain a grade in the course.

Specific information regarding student evaluation beyond the information given in the course description will be provided in class. This information may be relevant for requirements for term papers or other hand-ins, and/or where class participation can be one of several elements of the overall evaluation.

This is a course with continuous assessment (several exam elements) and one final exam code. Each exam element will be graded using points on a scale (e.g. 0-100). The elements will be weighted together according to the information in the course description in order to calculate the final letter grade for the course. You will find detailed information about the point system and the cut off points with reference to the letter grades on the course site in It’s learning.

Examination code(s)
GRA 64331 continuous assessment accounts for 100% of the final grade in the course GRA 6433.

Examination support materials
A bilingual dictionary.
Exam aids at written examiniations are explained under exam information in the student portal @bi. Please note use of calculator and dictionary in the section on examaids

Re-sit examination
It is only possible to retake an examination when the course is next taught.
The assessment in some courses is based on more than one exam code.
Where this is the case, you may retake only the assessed components of one of these exam codes.
Where this is not the case, all of the assessed components of the course must be retaken.
All retaken examinations will incur an additional fee.

Additional information
Honor Code
Academic honesty and trust are important to all of us as individuals, and represent values that are encouraged and promoted by the honor code system. This is a most significant university tradition. Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the ideals of the honor code system, to which the faculty are also deeply committed.

Any violation of the honor code will be dealt with in accordance with BI’s procedures for cheating. These issues are a serious matter to everyone associated with the programs at BI and are at the heart of the honor code and academic integrity. If you have any questions about your responsibilities under the honor code, please ask.