45 hours of online learning split across five modules, taking place over seven months.
Authored by Dom Charles, Head of Audience Intelligence & Marketing Science, Wavemaker UK
Module 1 will help you understand the importance of measurement - not just for good governance, but as a driver of better work and as a career accelerant. The module is designed to give you some core principles that will help you to scope the needs for evaluation when engaging clients and specialists and will also enable you to be a good critical judge as to whether there’s effective measurement in place or not. Finally, the module helps you understand how measurement needs to impinge on every stakeholder – clients and agency side – and not just the obvious people.
Authored by Jon Kershaw, Managing Director, PHD Manchester
Module 2 will enable you to constructively challenge a client brief and establish the ‘real’ problem to be solved. You will be able to make the financial case for marketing investment and set an appropriate budget level to achieve a defined level of success. And you will have a clear understanding of the fundamental communication principles that apply across all categories and channels. You’ll then be ready to put these principles into practice and start developing your own communication strategy.
Authored by Tony Mattson, Head of Strategy, Havas Media UK
Module 3 will enable you to take receipt of a client brief and translate it into a communication strategy. It covers areas such as:
Authored by Simon Harwood, Head of Strategy, Billion Dollar Boy
In module 4 we will examine why creativity drives effectiveness, looking at the evidence from IPA analysis and elsewhere for the business effects of creativity. We will look at: some of the theories that explain why creativity – in all its forms – is so important in communications; the history of creative thinking in advertising; and finally, we will look at creativity in media, citing some of the different ways that creativity can be applied to the discipline with some examples of creative media thinking in action. By the end of this module, you’ll be able to use different jumping off points for thinking creatively about media based on the specific challenge you are tackling. You will also understand what makes a great media idea and how to assess if you’ve landed on one.
Authored by Jackie Lyons, Head of Planning (Media Experience) Havas Media Group and John Paul Cadman, Chief Planning Officer, Havas Group Media
Module 5 covers the key steps to developing a communications plan – the role for media and channel choices. It focuses on the traits every good comms plan should have and outlines the details behind three common deliverables: (1) Schematic, (2) The Presentation, (3) The ‘Ecosystem’. The module also joins the dots on measurement from the comms architecture/ strategy to in-channel metrics. The module also includes checklists for innovation, workshops and briefs, learning agendas, and optimisation.
The module shows how you can maximise the effectiveness of your communications plan through best practice principles for budget allocation and channel planning, and, once a plan goes live, through ongoing analysis and optimisation.
We have also provided a list of recommended resources for each module, ranging from blogs to books, that we encourage students to explore as wider reading on the subject matter.
Students must pass five assessments to achieve the Certificate; three 1,000 word essays and two 30-minute multiple choice quizzes.