Queen’s University Department of Film & Media

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Course Description FILM 340 is a survey of selected topics in integrated marketing and communications (IMC) and integrated brand promotion (IBP) in North American context. We’ll consider issues and ideas related to 360-degree branding and positioning, content marketing and virality, audience segmentation and engagement, sponsored event planning, cross-platform and social media strategies, luxury branding, e-commerce, and marketing in the digital age, celebrity endorsement and media relations, online community management and consumer loyalty initiatives, and consumer/brand co-creation and innovations.

Although we’ll study examples of traditional print, broadcast, in-store and outdoor advertising, the focus of FILM 340 is on emerging online initiatives combining social, digital, and mobile media platforms for IMC/IBP campaigns.

There is no textbook to buy for this course. All readings are on Moodle.

Course Outline 2016 version 1.0: This document is subject to revision.

Contact Information

Professor Sidneyeve Matrix email: matrixs@queensu.ca (expect a reply within 24 business hours)

Office hours by appointment at The Isabel Bader Centre room 316 — online office hour meetings also available

Or contact Queen’s Arts & Science Online office email: cds@queensu.ca phone: 613-533-3322

© All Rights Reserved. Sidneyeve Matrix 2016

       

Advertising & Consumer Culture

Winter 2016

This course has two main objectives. The first is conceptual. FILM 340 introduces a range of key concepts in integrated media, marketing, promotions and communications, while covering recent debates and trends in the field, with the goal of providing a theoretical structure to support scholarly analysis of contemporary advertising and consumer culture.

The second objective is practical. Assignments in FILM 340 are designed to improve students’ ability to think critically, write clearly, research effectively, engage and communicate professionally online, and create digital media texts. To that end, this course will identify and build upon students’ existing knowledge and technical skills, including their ability to work both collaboratively and independently as self-directed learners. To this end, after successfully completing this course, students will have:

• demonstrated and extended their digital literacy through reading, writing, researching, reviewing and creating digital communications and information objects

• improved their visual information design skills, visual literacy and critical vocabulary for analyzing images

• participated in and added value to an online academic community through contributing and responding to peer feedback

• read and responded to a range of scholarly and popular writings on IMC and IBP

• solved a number of technical issues and overcome a range of computer hurdles to experiment with using new web tools, software, apps and social platforms, and a bit of HTML coding

• engaged in critical self-reflection concerning their own learning skills, styles, outcomes, challenges, preferences and processes.

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Course Objectives

Modules

01 Advertising Ecosystem January 4-15 02 Brand Relationships

January 18- 29

03 Connected Consumers February 1-12 04 Luxury By Design

February 21-March 4

05 Events and Endorsements March 7-18

06 Creative and Native Content March 21- April 1

FILM 340 is a 12-week course presented in 6 modules, each including a set of required online readings, lectures, and at least one assignment deadline. All lectures are recorded and posted to Moodle. Selected lectures are also delivered live on campus on alternate Wednesday nights, see course schedule for details. Regardless of which section you sign up for in SOLUS, all registered students can shift between the online and on-campus lectures anytime. Students are expected to participate in the Moodle general discussion forum weekly.

Technical Requirements

Students must have access to reliable high speed internet, and use of a personal computer for the duration of the course. No special software purchases are required, free online tools can be used to complete assignments. For students traveling overseas during the term, note that there have been past instances where access to web sites required to complete the course (e.g. Moodle, YouTube), has been blocked intermittently in some countries (e.g. China). Using a VPN may be an impediment to successfully completing these requirements on deadline. Queen’s Arts & Science faculty does not make accommodations based on lack of reliable Internet access. It’s your responsibility to ensure you have adequate high speed Internet coverage for the entirety of the term.

Assignments

Assignments in FILM 340 involve creative graphic design work for visually communicating research results. Previous experience in digital design is not required. A list of free(ish), easy-to-use, cloud-based tools is provided. FILM 340 encourages students from any disciplinary background to practice and improve their creative thinking and information design skills.

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Course Design and Delivery

Online Participation Weekly contributions to Moodle general discussion forum. 20 points

Ad Deconstruction Advertising analysis using digital moodboard format + short writing assignment. 10 points

Brand Letters Creative self-reflective writing assignment, set of two illustrated letters. 10 points

Content Analysis Analyzing luxury brands web presence using word cloud format + short writing assignment. 20 points

Buyer Personas Comparative research and design using two templates + short writing assignment. 20 points

Publicity Analysis Analyzing celebrity endorsements using concept-map format + short writing assignment. 20 points

Brand Letters (illustrated creative writing) Consumers develop positive emotional attachments to brands for which they feel an affinity. They may use these brands to construct and communicate identity and lifestyle. Conversely, if a brand disappoints, once-loyal consumers may abandon it. This brand avoidance and rejection can be quite emotionally charged. In this assignment you’ll write a brand “love letter” and its counterpart, the brand “breakup letter.” To do so, personify the product/service and write a personal message to it, based on your experience. Reflect on your connections to the brand and describe how it delights or disappoints.

Advertising Deconstruction (moodboard) Surrounded by advertising everyday, online and off, consumers develop “ad blindness” and become adept at skipping commercials. This assignment requires you to do the opposite. To deconstruct an advert, you’ll need to pay close attention to every detail of its composition. Based on your observations, you’ll identify, visually represent, and comment on the significance of the form and content, design and message, the brand itself and its target market. Using a moodboard format, this assignment requires you to analyze and communicate the “look and feel” of the brand in your selected advertisement.

Buyer Personas (template) When there’s a clear understanding of consumers’ values, needs, behaviors, it is easier for brands to design marketing communications with appropriate and resonant messaging, creating relevant and successful promotions to convert them to buyers. It’s equally important for a brand to be clear about consumers it does not want to target. For example, buyers who not affluent enough to afford the product/service. Using demographic and psychographic research, you’ll design a portrait of the ideal buyer persona for a brand of your choice—and its opposite, an exclusionary persona of "bad apples” it should avoid, to prevent wasting company resources.

Publicity Analysis (concept map) Publicity is the act of gaining media coverage for a brand, with the effect of increasing public awareness. It can be accomplished via several strategies including celebrity endorsements and event sponsorships. In many cases celebrity/influencer and event marketing are best understood as co-branding initiatives. For this assignment you’ll select either a celebrity brand ambassador or a brand-sponsored event, and draw up a concept map and infographic to analyze and explain the logic, strategy, and positive or negative impacts of the promotional campaign/relationship.

Content Analysis (wordcloud) Luxury (and masstige) brands seek to attract and retain affluent consumers online through websites designed to communicate quality, exclusivity, tradition, and innovation. Delivering a VIP experience online requires e-commerce concierge services, celebrity ambassadors, social good initiatives, and rich multimedia storytelling with evocative photography and high quality video.

Web conferencing Creative Assignments in Brief

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Creative Assignment Rubric

Research & AnalysisThe piece makes a convincing argument and/or presents creative and compelling social commentary, well supported by data.

Topic is timely, sufficiently original and creative, and highly relevant to course subject matter.

Approach goes beyond generalizations, cursory introductions, and material presented in lectures to provide insightful and original response to topic.

Comprehensive synthesis of research data into coherent/cohesive narrative (no tangents). Evidence of external research integration (where required), supplementing references to required readings.

Organized and logical flow of ideas for maximum impact (enabling readability, not random arrangements of facts). Overall clarity of concept.

All sources properly documented and attributed in the piece itself, including image attribution (where required). Information is accurate, reliably sourced, and cited in a standard academic citation format. Hyperlinks are fully functional.

Evidence of creative and critical thinking.

Visual CompositionFlow of images and text is well organized with a clear narrativity. Compelling layout, uncluttered -- not too much text, includes sufficient whitespace.

Effective compositional choices (formatting, typography, graphics).

Pleasing and coordinated colour scheme. Color coding used effectively to visually separate content and reflect links between ideas, for optimized readability.

Uses high-resolution images and minimal amounts of text—but enough text that relationships between images are clear. Copyrighted images used with permission and include attribution.

Finished graphic output (jpg/gif/png) is sufficiently high quality to display well on the Moodle site (no pixelation, blurriness, image stretching) and is properly sized for maximum readability.

Includes informative, relevant title without resorting to sensationalism.

Consistent use of standard grammar, punctuation, spelling. Academic tone, no colloquialisms.

Includes author identification on graphic.

Evaluation of the creative assignments is informed by the following criteria. For additional information on grading in Film and Media, refer to the departmental website: information for students page.

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Online Participation

General Discussion Forum

Peer to peer engagement is a key part of this course, and correspondingly your online participation is factored into your final grade (20 points). Between 4 January and 30 March at 17:00ET (no grace period) contribute a minimum of 10 value-added comments (roughly once a week, minimum) to the Moodle general discussion forum. Start a new thread or add comments to an existing one. Topics must correspond to/complement course content.

Carefully consider the context and audience for this assignment: the forum is an extension of the classroom, not an informal social media site. Avoid excessive colloquialism and ensure all posts are suitably academic and professional. If your thread or comment is removed from the forum by the professor or TAs do not repost it—instead expect to receive an email about the issue. Repeat postings of inappropriate content to the forum result in a grade of F on this assignment.

Expectations and code of conduct regulations for participation in FILM 340 are posted on Moodle. Strictly enforced. Students/content may be removed from Moodle forums for breach of these guidelines. All students are expected to be familiar with the community guidelines.

Timely Participation

As in any course, your frequent participation and value-added engagement is valued by your prof and peers alike. When evaluating your online participation in the forum, the quality, quantity, and timeliness of your contributions are all factored in. In terms of quality, your comments are assessed according to the overall level of coherence, writing mechanics, relevance, insight, and  collegiality demonstrated, and whether they advance the discussion and our understanding of the subject.

Make a habit of participating in the forums weekly. To reward timely participation, students who engage regularly will be assessed more favorably than those who add the majority of their contributions all at once or at the end of the course. To discourage students from delaying participation until the end of the course and then flooding the site with rushed comments that add little value for anyone, a maximum of 30% of your total contributions to the general discussion forum can be posted after February 29 at 17:00ET (no grace period).

Posting the minimum required number of comments (10) will not automatically translate into an A+ on this assignment. However, meeting the absolute minimum frequency requirement with value-added, weekly contributions does qualify you for a passing grade (D/50%) on this assignment. Seeking a better-than-passing grade? Be sure to exceed minimum expectations for quality, quantity, and timeliness of your online participation in the general forum. Students who fail to meet requirements for this assignment will receive a grade of F on it.

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Advertising Deconstruction

Description

Surrounded by advertising everyday, online and off, consumers develop “ad blindness” and become adept at skipping commercials. This assignment requires you to do the opposite. To deconstruct an advert, you’ll need to pay close attention to every detail of its composition. Based on your observations, you’ll identify, visually represent, and comment on the significance of the form and content, design and message, the brand itself and its target market.

Instructions

Step 1: Select a digital copy of a print ad. Find it online or scan it yourself. Select an ad from a brand that is telling a story you intuitively “get" over one that is more obscure and unfamiliar to you. Study the ad. Closely examine the elements of the composition. Figuratively “take apart” (deconstruct) its persuasive rhetoric and the ad grammar. Reflect and brainstorm to come up with a range of associated ideas that are part of the ad story, and images and words that reflect the "look and feel" of the product/service or brand represented in the ad. Hint: choose the largest, most high quality digital copy of the ad you can find for optimized display on Moodle.

Step 2: Create a digital collage/moodboard/inspiration board that contains 12-24 image and text samples carefully arranged. Your composition must identify and isolate, unpack and expand on the compositional elements of the advert (and the brand in general, if known). Your collage should closely sync with the advert. What to include on your moodboard: color swatches, key words, taglines, logos, related lifestyle items or concepts, samples from other ads in the series, representations of ideal/target client, other conceptual/creative photosamples that correspond to, and reflect the brand story and "look and feel" of the advert. Include original samples you source, beyond those professionally produced by the brand. Save your composition as a JPG file.

Step 3: Complete and submit the Ad Deconstruction Questionnaire, and publish your composition to the Ad Deconstruction Forum, both by 15 January at 17:00ET. Note: JPG/PNG files only — no DOC/PDF/embeds/external weblinks accepted. The 48-hour grace period for this assignment ends 17 January at 17:00ET. Use the grace period at your own risk: there is no prof/ITS support to troubleshoot Moodle uploads after hours or on weekends.

Assessment

This assignment is worth 10 points of your final grade. Grade for this assignment is based on 3 elements: (i) moodboard composition style and attractiveness (layout and design, image quality and quantity, use of colour and contrast, whitespace management, image/font choices, readability, consistency, graphics trimmed to appropriate size and arranged well, overall clarity of design and layout, readability, comprehensiveness—see rubric in course outline); (ii) substance (appropriateness of advert selected; depth, breadth, conceptual coherence and correspondence of elements to advert, legibility, interestingness, originality, inclusion of key information); (iii) quality of questionnaire responses (completeness, depth of insight, writing mechanics, incorporation of course materials, formal citations). Details on what constitutes successful submission of your assignments in FILM 340 are on the course outline. Students who fail to submit all elements of the assignment before the grace period ends, or otherwise fail to meet assignment requirements will receive a grade of F on this assignment.

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Brand Letters

Description

Consumers develop positive emotional attachments to brands for which they feel an affinity. They may use these brands to construct and communicate their identity and lifestyle. Once a consumer-brand relationship is firmly established, clients may forgive trusted brands for periodic missteps in product design, extensions, or promotions.

On the other hand, if a brand continuously disappoints or fails in some serious way to meet expectations and needs, even once-loyal consumers may abandon it. For disenchanted consumers, brand avoidance and rejection can be just as emotionally charged as brand love. Both consumer attachment and anti-consumption brand responses can reveal important insights about what consumers value and expect from the objects and services in their everyday lives.

Instructions

Step 1. In this short creative writing assignment you will write one brand “love letter” and its counterpart, the brand “breakup letter." To do so, first choose your two brands, then personify each product/service and write a personal message to it, based on your experience as a consumer. Reflect on your (dis/)connections to each of the two brands, using creative license to describe what delights or disappoints. Explain the history of your brand relationship, including in the “love letter” some insight into why your loyalty endures even as other brands compete for your attention and investment. Conversely, the “breakup letter” should address why your loyalty dissolved and/or you abandoned the brand for its competitor — and what the new product/service has that the rejected one does not. Each letter must be safe-for-work and between 200-300 words in length.

Step 2: Each letter must be illustrated with visuals (a collage, decorative background, or at minimum a single photo taken by you or discovered via Google, Flickr, Instagram or the like). Photo attribution is not required for this assignment. Note: This is a text-heavy assignment — be absolutely sure your text treatments, layout, and canvas size enable a composition that is easy for reviewers to read.

Step 3: Complete and submit the Brand Letters Questionnaire, and publish your illustrated brand letters to the Brand Letters Forum, both before 29 January @ 17:00ET. Note: JPG/PNG files only — no DOC/PDF/embeds/external weblinks accepted. The 48-hour grace period for this assignment ends 31 January at 17:00ET. Use the grace period at your own risk: there is no prof/ITS support to troubleshoot Moodle uploads after hours or on weekends.

Assessment

This assignment is worth 10 points toward your final grade. Grade for this assignment is based on 3 elements: (i) substance of letter composition (completeness, depth of insight, interestingness, originality, coherence, relevance, writing mechanics); (ii) composition of the illustration (quality of images, color scheme, clarity of design and layout, readability, creativity, originality, relevance); (iii) quality of questionnaire responses (completeness, depth of insight, writing mechanics, incorporation of course materials, formal citations). Details on what constitutes successful submission of your assignments in FILM 340 are in the course outline. Students who fail to submit all elements of the assignment before the grace period ends, or otherwise fail to meet assignment requirements will receive a grade of F on this assignment.

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Buyer Personas

Description

A buyer persona is a research-based yet fictional, generalized representation of an ideal customer. Personas are used in customer targeting and segmentation, to create leads and convert them to clients. When there is a clear understanding of the ideal customer's specific needs, behaviors, concerns, motivations, values, attitudes, lifestyle and purchase history, it is far easier for brands to align and tailor communications content with appropriate and resonant messaging, and create relevant and successful promotions. The more precise detail and real-life references integrated in a buyer persona (insights and tidbits gleaned from research, anonymized), the more useful it will be when a brand team designs strategy to connect with consumers and create personalized experiences across lifecycle stages.

A negative or exclusionary persona is a representation of who a brand does not want to target as a customer. This may include for example, buyers who are too advanced for the product, are unlikely to buy the product, who are not affluent enough to afford it, are too expensive to acquire (because of churn, lack of loyalty, or because they require a disproportionate amount of attention/service), or are outside the ideal demographics (age, gender, education, location, etc). By identifying the so-called “bad apples" (those consumers a brand wants to avoid targeting) the company saves resources (time, money, and staff effort), and may (re)allocate marketing and communication budgets accordingly.

Instructions

Step 1. You are required to create 1 buyer persona and 1 exclusionary persona for a brand of your choice. Conduct online research to inform your personas, and include several data points in your personas such as for example (but not limited to):

• demographic information (e.g. age, salary/household income, gender, marital status, education level, urban/suburban/rural lifestyle)

• psychographic information (e.g. values, motivations, family structure, life goals and challenges/frustrations; hobbies outside work, talents, favorite music/movies/brands)

• professional information (e.g. job title(s), nature of company or industry they work for, details about their job responsibilities, pain points of the job; professional goals related to your product or service)

• buying information (e.g. where do they get information from, what elevator pitch might resonate for them, what is their ideal buying experience, what problems does your brand solve for them, how can your brand help them meet their goals or add value to their lives, what might keep them from choosing your brand, common objections during sales process)

(assignment description continues on next page)

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Personas (continued)

Step 2. Using Keynote/Powerpoint, design each persona as a single slide (landscape orientation, 1024 x 768). Give each persona a fictional name and profile photo. Add real or fictional quotes to each buyer persona—find inspiration on social properties or product review sites (e.g. Amazon, eBay). Note: This is a text-heavy assignment—be absolutely sure your text treatments, layout, and canvas size enable a composition that is easy for reviewers to read. Export each slide as a JPG.

Step 3. Complete and submit your Buyer Personas Questionnaire, and publish your compositions to the Buyer Personas Forum, both by 12 February 17:00ET. Note: JPG/PNG files only — no Keynote/Powerpoint/DOC/PDF/files or embeds/external weblinks accepted. You’re encouraged (not required) to publish excerpts of your questionnaire responses alongside your composition in the forum, to add context to your work and increase its accessibility for peers. The 48-hour grace period for this assignment ends 14 February at 17:00ET. Use the grace period at your own risk: there is no prof/ITS support to troubleshoot Moodle uploads after hours or on weekends.

Assessment

This assignment is worth 20 points toward your final grade. Grade for this assignment based on 3 elements: (i) personas composition style (clarity of design and layout, readability, comprehensiveness—see rubric on course outline); (II) personas substance (conceptual depth, insight, accuracy, relevance, believability); (iii) quality of questionnaire responses (completeness, depth of insight, accuracy, writing mechanics, incorporation of course materials, formal citations). Note: This is a text-heavy assignment -- be absolutely sure your text treatments, layout, and canvas size enable a composition that is easy for reviewers to read.

Details on what constitutes successful submission of your assignment in FILM340 are on the course outline. Students who fail to submit all elements of the assignment before the grace period ends, or otherwise fail to meet assignment requirements will receive a grade of F on this assignment.

You are not strictly required to respond to peer comments received about your work. However if you are a self-directed student who enjoys and benefits from receiving feedback about your work, be proactive in the forum. Engage with all comments posted—doing so will bump your submission to the top of the forum, making it easier for others to discover. If you appear present and active in responding to feedback you’ll attract more of it. If you feel you’re not receiving enough feedback on your work, take the initiative to find student submissions on similar brands, add comments and ask the authors for reciprocal feedback—facilitated by a link back to your work. Feedback is also available to you during office hours, by appointment.

A Note on Believability

Be sure to avoid creating an overly unbelievable “straw man” as your anti/exclusionary persona. For example, using Grandmother Ginny as the negative/exclusionary persona for Guess Jeans would not add valuable insight because the senior segment is not a plausible target for this brand. Design a negative persona that might reasonably be targeted by the brand—albeit ultimately unsuccessfully, according to your research and estimation.

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Content Analysis

Description

Luxury brands seek to attract, engage, and retain affluent consumers online through promotional messaging designed to communicate quality, exclusivity, tradition, high quality service and innovation. Delivering a VIP experience online often involves e-commerce concierge services, celebrity ambassadors, art-brand sponsorships, social good initiatives, and rich multimedia storytelling with evocative photography and high quality video. Luxury brand promotion is often about visual communication, but when words are used, they are important. Selecting two competing or complementary true luxury/prestige/masstige brands, you’ll do a preliminary comparative content analysis of their websites and/or social media platforms using word clouds, to visualize and identify themes, discursive patterns, brand values and IMC/IBP strategies encoded in the textual content therein.

Instructions

Step 1. Select 2 competing or complementary true luxury/prestige/masstige brands, visit their websites and social media properties. Selectively “scrape” (select/copy) text content samples from these sources and enter this data into Wordle (or equivalent app). This is not a scientific study, don’t worry about different data sample sizes.

Step 2. For each brand, experiment with visualizing the data sample in different ways using Wordle. Save each word cloud as a JPG or PNG file.

Step 3. Analyze each world cloud to come to greater insights about the brand represented. Highlight a minimum of 4 observations about each brand cloud. Incorporate your observations into the graphic design. Note: This is a text-heavy assignment — be absolutely sure your text treatments, layout, and canvas size enable a composition that is easy for reviewers to read.

Step 4. Conclude your assignment by highlighting a minimum of 4 takeaways. To fortify these concluding observations, you’re required to (i) cite a minimum of 4 concepts from the course materials (reading/lectures), and to (ii) conduct online research and provide supporting evidence for each takeaway (using formal academic citation style of your choice APA/MLA/Chicago etc. and in-text citations). Incorporate your takeaways into the graphic design. Ensure readers can connect the dots between your takeaways and the list of works cited. To arrive at these conclusions/takeaways you may want to reflect on the presence/absence of factors such as (but not limited to):

• brand history, traditions, heritage or mythologization • customer service • co-creating the brand with consumers • discourses of rarity, exclusivity, or limited distribution • celebrity endorsement • experiential marketing and special events at flagship or elsewhere

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Content Analysis (continued)

• brand journalism • customer relation management or loyalty programs • promotional or limited time offers • co-promotions with other brands • local references to culture and country of origin • artistic references, or homage to designer as artist and icon

Step 5. Complete and submit your Content Analysis Questionnaire, and publish your composition to the Content Analysis Forum, both by 4 March at 17:00ET. Note: JPG/PNG files only — no DOC/PDF/embeds/external weblinks accepted. The 48-hour grace period for this assignment ends 6 March at 17:00ET. Use the grace period at your own risk: there is no prof/ITS support to troubleshoot Moodle uploads after hours or on weekends.

Assessment

This assignment is worth 20 points toward your final grade. Grade for this assignment is based on 3 elements: (i) word cloud composition style (clarity of design and layout, readability, comprehensiveness—see rubric in course outline); (ii) substance of observations and takeaway insights (conceptual depth, interestingness, originality, accuracy, relevance, research quality, citation format); (iii) quality of questionnaire responses (completeness, depth of insight, accuracy, writing mechanics, incorporation of course materials, formal citations).

Note: This is a text-heavy assignment — be absolutely sure your text treatments, layout, and canvas size enable a composition that is easy for reviewers to read.

Details on what constitutes successful submission of your assignments in FILM 340 are on the course outline. Students who fail to submit all elements of the assignment before the grace period ends, or otherwise fail to meet assignment requirements will receive a grade of F on this assignment.

You are not strictly required to respond to peer comments received about your work. However if you are a self-directed student who enjoys and benefits from receiving feedback about your work, be proactive in the forum. Engage with all comments posted—doing so will bump your submission to the top of the forum, making it easier for others to discover. If you appear present and active in responding to feedback you’ll attract more of it. If you feel you’re not receiving enough feedback on your work, take the initiative to find student submissions on similar brands, add comments and ask the authors for reciprocal feedback—facilitated by a link back to your work. Feedback is also available to you during office hours, by appointment.

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Publicity Analysis Description

Publicity is the act of gaining media coverage for a brand, to increase public awareness, brand loyalty, revenue, and strengthen brand positioning. It can be accomplished via several strategies including celebrity endorsements and event sponsorships. Since celebrities and organizations are also brands, these events and endorsement marketing campaigns are best understood as co-branding initiatives.

Instructions

Step 1. For this research project, select an example of a celebrity endorsement or a sponsored event and analyze the strategy and the impact of the resulting publicity for both brands involved. Choose an example of a successful or failed partnership/sponsorship and do research to fully understand the campaign/relationship. Use visual brainstorming to create a concept map that describes the brand identities on both sides of the partnership: the celebrity/event on one side, the product/service that paid for publicity on the other. Export as a JPG. Ensure map legibility by using large canvas/font.

Step 2. Gather evidence of the selected promotional arrangement. Do online research to locate samples of the campaign/relationship, including (for instance) visual creative (web videos, photos, print adverts, screengrabs from online properties) and links (URLs) to news coverage and/or published interviews with campaign spokespersons/stakeholders. Select highlights of this research story and design a visual narrative to represent it, in infographic format.

Step 3. Conclude your publicity analysis by commenting on the success, failure, and significance of the campaign/relationship to all parties involved. Incorporate your conclusions in the graphic design. To fortify your concluding observations, you’re required to (i) cite a minimum of 5 concepts from the course materials (reading/lectures), and (ii) cite 5 external research sources. Use a formal academic citation style (APA/MLA/Chicago etc.) and in-text citations, ensuring readers can connect the dots between citations and the list of works cited.

Step 4. Complete and submit the Publicity Questionnaire and post your concept map and infographic to the Publicity Analysis Forum, all by 18 March at 17:00ET. The 48-hour grace period for this assignment ends 20 March at 17:00ET. Use the grace period at your own risk: there is no prof/ITS support to troubleshoot Moodle uploads after hours or on weekends. You’re encouraged (not required) to publish excerpts of your questionnaire responses alongside your composition in the forum, to add context to your work and increase its accessibility for peers.

(assignment description continues on next page)

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Publicity Analysis

Assessment

This assignment is worth 20 points toward your final grade. Grade for this assignment is based on 3 elements: (i) concept map and infographic composition style (clarity and cohesiveness of design and layout, readability, comprehensiveness—see rubric in course outline for more details on design matters); (ii) concept map and infographic substance (conceptual depth, insight, accuracy, research quantity/quality, relevance); (iii) quality of questionnaire responses (completeness, depth of insight, writing mechanics, incorporation of course materials, use of formal citations).

Details on what constitutes successful submission of your assignments in FILM 340 are on the course outline. Students who fail to submit all elements of the assignment by end of grace period, or otherwise fail to meet assignment requirements will receive a grade of F on this assignment.

A Note on Videos and Embedding Infographics on Moodle

Note: if you embedded videos within your infographic, then you cannot post a static image (JPG) to Moodle, or else they will not play. Instead you will need to embed the composition on the forum using <iframe> code. Don’t know how to do that? A walk-thru/how-to video will appear on Moodle to help you. It is risky to leave it until the grace period to attempt this for the first time, because if something goes wrong, the prof is not available to help with tech support on weekends. If your video-rich infographic is not properly embedded on Moodle by the deadline/grace period cutoff, you will receive a grade of F on this assignment — which is worth 20% of your final grade.

If you anticipate needing to use the grace period for this assignment and are concerned about the embedding process, consider booking an office hour consultation with the prof prior to 18 March, for some one-on-one help with using <iframe> code on Moodle.

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Successfully Submitting Your Work for Assessment

Times/deadlines in this outline are Kingston local time on a 24 hour clock. Many (but not all) assignments have grace periods, in case you need a bit of extra time to complete them over the weekend. A “grace period” is an amount of extra time beyond a due date during which you may submit your assignment without penalty. Use grace periods at your own risk, considering there are no after hours prof/ITS tech support for the Moodle platform.

After the deadline (or end of the grace period) late assignments are not accepted for course credit (they receive an F/0.0). Incomplete assignments (e.g. missing the required questionnaire) also receive an F/0.0. No assignment extensions are available except in the case of documented medical emergency or disability accommodations.

Successful submission of the creative assignments means your uploaded composition is visible and fully functional on Moodle, and your questionnaire is completed and properly submitted and received via Moodle prior to deadline. Graders will not to leave Moodle to access your work on an outside site, nor will they download a file in order to view your submission.

The technical skills required for successful online submission of these assignments are part of the learning objectives for each assignment and the course overall. You must demonstrate your technical proficiencies as part of completing each assignment. Assignments improperly submitted to Moodle (such as a blank screen, a blank form, stretched or compressed images, broken code, external links, or images too small to decipher) are considered incomplete and assigned a final grade of F/0.0.

There are no exceptions/allowances/extensions available for technical/connectivity difficulties, so it is risky to wait until the proverbial 11th hour to submit your assignments. Plan to submit your work via Moodle on or before deadline day. There are no revise/resubmit/reweighting/extra credit assignment opportunities in FILM 340. Assignments are not accepted via email.

Unofficial grades are posted to Moodle, target is a 10-business-day turnaround, post-deadline. Assignments submitted during the grace period may take slightly longer to grade. Individual assignments will receive letter grades corresponding to the detailed rubric on the Department of Film and Media website and Queen’s Official Grade Conversion Scale:

Grading

Grade & Numerical Course Average (Range)A+ 90-100 C+ 67-69A 85-89 C 63-66

A- 80-84 C- 60-62B+ 77-79 D+ 57-59B 73-76 D 53-56B- 70-72 D- 50-52

F 49 and below

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All times and deadlines in this course outline are Kingston local time and presented on a 24 hour clock.

January 6 Module 01 Lecture 01 Chernoff 117 @ 18:30ET recording posted to Moodle 8 January @ 18:30ET

13 Module 01 Lecture 02 via iTunesU @ 18:30ET

15 Assignment: Ad Deconstruction due by 17:00 ET (grace period ends 17 January @ 17:00ET)

15 Last day to add Winter term classes or to drop Winter term classes without financial penalty

20 Module 02 Lecture 01 Chernoff 117 @ 18:30ET recording posted to Moodle 22 January @ 18:30ET

27 Module 02 Lecture 02 via iTunesU @ 18:30ET

29 Assignment: Brand Letters due by 17:00 ET (grace period ends 31 January @ 17:00ET)

February 3 Module 03 Lecture 01 Chernoff 117 @ 18:30ET recording posted to Moodle 5 February @ 18:30ET

10 Module 03 Lecture 02 via iTunesU @ 18:30ET

12 Assignment: Buyer Personas due by 17:00 ET (grace period ends 14 February @ 17:00ET)

15 -19 Reading Week

24 Module 04 Lecture 01 Chernoff 117 @ 18:30ET recording posted to Moodle 26 February @ 18:30ET

26 Last day to drop Winter term classes

March 2 Module 04 Lecture 02 via iTunesU @ 18:30ET

4 Assignment: Content Analysis due by 17:00 ET (grace period ends 6 March @ 17:00ET)

9 Module 05 Lecture 01 Chernoff 117 @ 18:30ET recording posted to Moodle 11 March @ 18:30ET

16 Module 05 Lecture 02 via iTunesU @ 18:30ET

18 Assignment: Publicity Analysis due by 17:00 ET (grace period ends 20 March @ 17:00ET)

23 Module 06 Lecture 01 Chernoff 117 @ 18:30ET recording posted to Moodle 25 March @ 18:30ET

30 Assignment: Online Participation: forum posts due before 17:00 ET (no grace period)

Dates

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Academic integrity is constituted by the five core fundamental values of honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility (see www.academicintegrity.org). These values are central to the building, nurturing and sustaining of an academic community in which all members of the community will thrive. Adherence to the values expressed through academic integrity forms a foundation for the "freedom of inquiry and exchange of ideas" essential to the intellectual life of the University (see the Senate Report on Principles and Priorities http://www.queensu.ca/secretariat/policies/senateandtrustees/principlespriorities.html). Students are responsible for familiarizing themselves with the regulations concerning academic integrity and for ensuring that their assignments conform to the principles of academic integrity. Information on academic integrity is available in the Arts and Science Calendar and on the Arts and Science website (see Academic Regulation 1 http://www.queensu.ca/artsci/programs-and-degrees/academic-calendar).

Departures from academic integrity include plagiarism, use of unauthorized materials, facilitation, forgery and falsification, unauthorized collaboration on tests and assignments, and are antithetical to the development of an academic community at Queen's. Given the seriousness of these matters, actions which contravene the regulation on academic integrity carry sanctions that can range from a warning or the loss of grades on an assignment, to course failure, to a requirement to withdraw from the university.

Academic Integrity

Copyright of Course Materials All course materials (slides, logos, webinar recordings, images, outlines, exam questions, podcasts) are copyrighted and are for the sole use of students registered in FILM 340. This material shall not be distributed or disseminated to anyone other than students registered in FILM 340. Do not copy to sell, share, or republish course material from FILM 340 online or off. These materials are the intellectual property of the professor, all rights reserved. Failure to abide by these conditions is a breach of copyright, and may also constitute a breach of academic integrity under the University Senate’s Academic Integrity Policy Statement.

Sidneyeve Matrix Film and Media Department Isabel Bader Centre 390 King StreetEmail: matrixs@queensu.ca Contact me via email not voicemail

Especially for those taking the course online: Queen’s University, Arts and Science Online Main Floor Dunning Hall, 94 University Ave Email: cds@queensu.ca Phone: 613.533.2233

Questions? Get in touch: