As part of the formal assessment for the HND programme you are required to submit an assignment for each module. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full details of the programme assessment...

As part of the formal assessment for the HND programme you are required to submit an assignment for each module. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments.


Format your assignment by answering each task in turn, labelling each task, and subtask, with the appropriate number and letter. Please remember to put your name and student number on the assignment.


After completing the module you should be able to:


1 Understand the scope of marketing communications
2 Understand the role and importance of advertising
3 Understand below-the-line techniques and how they are used
4 Be able to plan integrated promotional strategies.

Assignment Tasks
You must use real-life promotional/advertising examples in your work here.


Assignment Task
Base your work on an existing brand that you have some familiarity with. This maybe the organisation for which you work or a brand that you think could use a new campaign/new approach.


You are to take the role of an advertising agency account manager arranging a pitch for a new campaign for the brand in question & prepare a briefing paper ahead of the pitch covering the following points:


Task One

a. Outline & explain the various types of advertising agencies & their role in a campaign, examining along with this some of the criteria a client might use in deciding the best agency to work with. (Assessment Criteria 1.2, 2.4)



b. Explain the role of advertising in the promotional mix and assess the regulation of advertising, outlining the role of the Advertising Standards Authority (www.asa.org.uk) providing appropriate examples of judgements. (Assessment Criteria 1.3, 2.1)




Task Two

or any other promotional example, review and explain the creative work in the campaign in terms of how the advertiser uses the communication process as regards encoding/decoding a message and adopts the 'DRIP' mnemonic in doing so. (Assessment Criteria 1.1, 2.3)

Task Three

Developing & Presenting a Pitch
Referring to a product or service that could succeed with a brand extension (this may be the one discussed previously or a different one if you so choose), conduct some research into the market for the chosen brand, decide on a suitable extension & develop a presentation pitch on how you promote the extension product with your campaign theme. Your presentation should consist of 8-12 slides with a full explanation of each slide accompanying the presentation. You should cover the following:


•    A background to the product/market/existing brand position/intended target audience
•    The creation of a promotional plan explaining the use of advertising and creative ideas to be used in order to reach the target audience as part of a wider integrated promotional mix. (Assessment Criteria 2.1, 4.2, 4.3)

•    Explain how the current brand image and how your campaign helps strengthen the product and brand image including a summary of the single most important message you would want to get across (single minded proposition) in order to achieve this brand reinforcement.  (Assessment Criteria 2.2)

•    An examination of the role that  ICT/social media could play in your campaign such as reference to the 6C's of social media or a look at 'content matrix' as detailed on the Group Learning Space. (Assessment Criteria 1.4)

•    An explanation & evaluation of all below the line techniques (including primary as well as others) that you would use to ensure a fully integrated campaign with a full and critical evaluation of these tools.  (Assessment Criteria 3.1, 3.2)

•    An explanation of how you would set the budget for the campaign following an appropriate process. (Assessment Criteria 4.1)

•    Proposals  as to the use of appropriate techniques for measuring the success of the campaign (Assessment Criteria 4.4)