ADV 460: Innovations in Advertising

Rachel Ruan

As an advertising major, one of the core classes that you are required to take is ADV 460 - Innovations in Advertising. This class provides a detailed overview of how the digital advertising industry works and its strategic planning to reach consumers. Not only do you learn about the basics of how digital platforms work to generate advertising to your daily online browser, but you can also learn to critically analyze how to better approach consumer engagement. This course is enlightening to explore how advertising works with technology.

In the first weeks of the class, you read a few readings assigned by Professor Chang-Dae Ham, and in class, you discuss the readings with other students to fill out a worksheet about the importance of them. Every week, there is at least one quiz and one worksheet that you must complete, which reflects the content of the class for that week. One aspect of the class that I find interesting is how the worksheets for the lecture-discussion challenge your critical thinking using the topics you learned in the lecture and readings. You are given a case or scenario where you must analyze a brand and pinpoint at which stage it is, lacking anything from brand awareness or consumers’ evaluation of the brand. You use data gathered online and survey results as evidence for the critical stage evaluation as well as data from competitors to compare. Professor Ham goes over and thoroughly explains the worksheet for the lecture beforehand for a clear understanding of what you need to do and is lenient on the due date for the worksheet depending on how long everyone takes time in class to do it. From my evaluation, I think this class is very clear about objectives and a worthwhile experience for all advertising majors.