MA Advertising

Content

MA Advertising combines cutting-edge thinking with practical project work, enabling you to develop the skills and gain the relevant experience to succeed within this dynamic and challenging industry.

The course addresses the nature of consumer behaviour and psychology, including the role of persuasion and influence; you'll critically assess methods for researching and measuring them. You will be encouraged to develop your own creativity and produce high quality and creatively persuasive advertising work.

This blend of academic rigour with practical experience, is designed to give you a critical insight into advertising. Throughout the course you will improve your understanding of the impact the media, society and culture has on individuals and organisations, and in turn, the role advertising plays in shaping society and culture.

Benefit from being immersed in the vibrant energy and creative community of London College of Communication; from photography exhibitions to film screenings, animation shows to interactive design installations, and master classes delivered by experts across the creative industries.

Our emphasis on practice-based creativity and learning by doing will provide a unique and inspirational context for your own work, both on the course and in your future career.

If you're interested in a career in advertising, the creative, cultural, or communication sectors, in professional research and analysis, or more broadly, you wish to become a more critical and strategic thinker, MA Advertising is for you.

MA Advertising is a full-time course, delivered in the Media School. This Masters programme builds on the outstanding reputation and award-winning success of our undergraduate advertising programme BA (Hons) Advertising.

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24 September 2018

Course units

Each course is divided into units, which are credit-rated. The minimum unit size is 20 credits. The MA course structure involves six units, totalling 180 credits.

Units summary:

Creative Industries (20 credits) – This unit focuses on the advertising industry and its location position within the broader context of creative and cultural economies and their increasing centrality to contemporary society. One of the core focuses of the unit is the role that creativity plays within these industries/economies, how it is conceptualised, operationalised, and measured. This provides the context in which you will work on the first of the creative projects that you will develop during your time on the course.

Innovative Methods (20 credits) – Explore the dynamic interaction between the creative business of advertising and the methods of research and analysis required to successfully develop creative briefs. This unit equips you with the skills to carry out research, analysis, and measurement and to critically reflect on how research strategy and technique can respond in fast-changing cultures and technological environments.

During the Autumn Term, you will also take part in networking events and attend a regular speaker series.

On completion of the first term, you will have a good understanding of the realities of the modern advertising industry and its location within the creative sector, a more reflexive understanding of your own creative processes, and an active knowledge of research methods and methodologies. You will have also produced your first piece of advertising work related to ideas that have been explored throughout this phase of the course.

Units summary:

Creative Laboratory (40 credits) – This unit builds on the creative work done in Term 1 and allows you to extend the range of your practice. The focus is on media convergence, multi-platform and networked communication, and the impact of new technologies and the capacity to produce coherent narratives or experientially meaningful experiences. You will produce work across a range of media and relate your practice to the theoretical insights previously explored.

Collaborative Unit (20 credits)

Units summary:

Creative Laboratory (continued)

Technological Futures (20 credits) – Explore a range of issues closely related to the work you have done within the Innovative Methods unit and Creative Laboratory. You will learn about challenges of researching big data within the industry and explore emergent themes around the relationship between technology and society. You will have the opportunity to work collaboratively on a practice-based project and be encouraged to reflect on the wider context within which you are working.

Final Major Project (60 credits) – Represents the culmination of your studies. Here you will engage in a self-generated research project, either through combining practice with theory or in a dissertation. In either case, the work you produce will be self-directed and will build on skills and knowledge developed over the Autumn and Spring Term.

Units summary:

Final Major Project (continued)– Represents the culmination of your studies. Here you will engage in a self-generated research project, either through combining practice with theory or in a dissertation. In either case, the work you produce will be self-directed and will build on skills and knowledge developed over the Autumn and Spring Term.

If you are unable to continue or decide to exit the course, there are two possible exit awards. A Postgraduate Certificate will be awarded on successful completion of the first 60 credits and a Postgraduate Diploma will be awarded on successful completion of the first 120 credits.

MA Advertising Programme Specification 2017/18 (PDF - 176KB)

Staff Course Leader

Cui Su

Adrian Crookes

Dr. Paul Caplan, Steve Spence