Dual City Courses - London Barcelona

Zelda Malan and Marcel.lí Zuazua

Who should attend?
Professionals working in marketing and communications departments of mass market companies; designers working in communication and advertising agencies; interested, participative people who want to innovate or change what they have always done.  Any creative person interested in advertising from a design perspective or considering graphic design and advertising for future studies. Professionals working in marketing and communications departments who feel they need training to update or refresh their advertising skills. Interested, collaborative people who want to innovate or change what they have always done. 

London (9 day course)

Monday 25 June to Thursday 5 July

London is internationally recognized as a capital of strategic advertising. Therefore this course will begin with an investigation of advertising in general, finding evidence of how it works and following the process of writing and creating successful advertising using proven methods of idea generation. Projects will be set that utilize London, its architecture, street life and creative atmosphere to inspire solutions to the projects set. 

The first week will deal with the essentials: How? Why? Where? Who? and When? Lectures with examples will be followed each day by practical creative work on advertising briefs, which will be of varying lengths and increasing complexity. You will be involved in truth games, single-minded propositions, targeted market research skills, moving images, the art of persuasion and how to become a ‘media sponge’. Time in the studio will be complimented by visits to urban spaces in London that will inspire your practical projects.

With these new skills you will then tackle the second week that will explore the potential of words and images. This will include ambient, online and simple human interactive projects. You will work at a fast and dynamic pace in teams of two or more on big ideas and an investigation of shock culture. There will be an agency visit to see how contemporary advertising campaigns are being created and managed.

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Independent Travel (4 days)

Friday 6 July to Monday 9 July

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Barcelona (9 day course)

Tuesday 10 July to Friday 20 July

The internet, new technologies, new platforms and interactivity have opened new ways to create and propose communication strategies to transmit persuasive messages. This course will focus on the different strategic possibilities and on the creative potentiality offered by the net and new technology platforms, placing a special emphasis on how people and media have an impact on the messages and in which way interactivity, user experience, alone or by means of social networks, become key factors for the success of a campaign.

Goals

• Providing knowledge and skills needed to understand the mechanisms of current flow and dissemination of persuasive messages through digital media.
• To conceptualize and design a strategy based on advertising and interactive digital media, considering its repercussions in the media and the network these can create.
• Building a vision and strategic thinking about digital communication and interactive solutions in order to resolve specific problems.
• Providing practical tools and skills, so that students are able to design and formalize a creative and ingenious digital advertising campaign.

Structure
The course is structured according to a practical project, by which the student will put into practice theoretical and methodological notions, creating and devising an advertising campaign, using digital media. 

Theoretical Frame
The evolution of socioeconomic models, the engines of change, technologies, society, globalisation, new models of communication, the concept of communicative strategy, interactive communication and advertising communication. (Old models against new models).

Methodological frame: modus operandi; stages of the project; tools for the organisation and representation of the strategy and the concept. Creativity: Generate ideas; concept definition. Tools and methods.
Practical project: think up and create a digital interactive campaign that allows to implement all the theoretical notions and concepts.

Topics Covered

• New technologies, new platforms and interactivity, publicity, digital advertising, new strategies.
• Current practices in advertising
• Design skills
• Idea generation and presentation
• Working in a team and to a brief
• New technologies, new platforms and interactivity
• Publicity
• Digital advertising and new strategies.
• Who should attend?
• Professionals working in marketing and communications departments of mass market companies; designers working in communication and advertising agencies; interested, participative people who want to innovate or change what they have always done.
• Any creative person interested in advertising from a design perspective or considering graphic design and advertising for future studies. Professionals working in marketing and communications departments who feel they need training to update or refresh their advertising skills. Interested, collaborative people who want to innovate or change what they have always done.