advertising class assignment

• Skip to primary navigation
• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar

Teaching Expertise

• Classroom Ideas
• Teacher’s Life
• Deals & Shopping
• Privacy Policy

20 Creative Classroom Marketing Activities 

April 21, 2023 //  by  Seda Unlucay

These 20 engaging marketing activities offer more than just a fun learning experience for kids. By providing interactive tasks that focus on marketing concepts and techniques, they can help students develop important critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills. Students can also express their creativity, work together to create marketing campaigns and analyze the effectiveness of different strategies. Not only will they gain a better understanding of the world of business and marketing, but they’ll also develop an appreciation for how these concepts are applied in everyday life. 

1. PowerPoint Activity for Students

This comprehensive presentation covers various aspects of advertising, such as its purpose, impact, motivation, techniques, hidden ads, product placement, celebrity endorsements, guidelines, and ‘fake news’. Engaging visuals and clear information encourage discussions among students about the media that influences them.

Learn More: Twinkl

2. Debate About the Elements of Marketing

Students are provided with background information on product placement, its history, and examples of its use in various contexts, such as movies and sports events. They are then encouraged to discuss and argue for or against the practice of product placement in popular culture.

3. Evaluating the Influence of Ads on Target Markets

In this experiment-based activity, students will select 10 different types of food and create a survey asking participants to rate their desire to eat each item on a scale of 1 to 10. This makes for a fantastic opportunity to learn about different types of advertising and how they can influence people’s preferences. 

Learn More: Edu c ation

4. Make a Marketing Plan 

In this activity, children are asked to create an advertisement that would persuade people to come to the United States; showcasing the country’s positive aspects. This exercise helps students develop their creativity, persuasive writing, and drawing skills while gaining a deeper understanding of the historical context of immigration in the U.S. 

Learn More: Education

5. Media Literacy Activity

In this media literacy activity, children learn to be more discerning consumers of various media forms, such as television, print media, and the internet. Tim and Moby from BrainPOP guide kids through a process of understanding advertising, recognizing persuasive techniques, and separating facts from opinions. By learning these strategies, children can better decode and analyze content from TV shows, newspapers, and websites. 

Learn More: Brain Pop

6. Product Development Marketing Project

In this cross-curricular activity, students work together to research sneaker design, create their own sneakers, and develop a marketing and economic plan for their product. This unit helps students apply knowledge from various subjects, such as science (running principles), math (marketing and finances), and language arts (presentations and research).

Learn More: Teachers Pay Teachers

7. Marketing Case Study

This activity helps students explore the history of the Shamrock Shake and analyze the marketing lessons learned from this popular seasonal product. Students use critical thinking skills to complete a media analysis, assess other seasonal food items, and explore the marketing strategies behind those products. 

8. Read A Book To Learn About Marketing Skills

This digital picture book introduces children to the art of crafting convincing advertisements, which can be an engaging and useful skill for their future. It not only enhances their language and writing skills but also encourages creativity and critical thinking. 

Learn More: Epic

9. Hold a Market Day

Hosting a market day can provide a fun and engaging way for students to learn about marketing concepts and business skills, including budgeting, advertising, and customer service. It can also foster creativity and innovation, as kids brainstorm and create their own unique products to sell.

Learn More: Money Prodigy

10. Study Marketing Concepts

This quick and engaging exercise is designed to help kids build their vocabulary in the context of advertising and marketing. It helps students reinforce their understanding of advertising and marketing concepts, while also improving their reading comprehension and identification skills. 

Learn More: ISL Collective

11. Create a Monster Advertisement

This fun and imaginative activity involves creating an advertisement for a fictional monstrous product that could appear in a monster newspaper or magazine. Kids are encouraged to be inventive with their ideas; designing products and services tailored to monsters and coming up with catchy slogans and pitches.

Learn More: Kendra Kandle Star

12. Create a TV Commercial 

In this activity, students work in groups to create a unique TV commercial. After determining their product or service, they develop an outline, incorporating slogans or jingles. Finally, groups present their work to the class, either by describing, singing, or acting out their commercials.

Learn More: Art Class Curator

13. Advertising Techniques Project

This engaging project aims to teach students about various advertising techniques, such as bandwagon, testimonial, name-calling, and repetition, by having them create their own sample advertisements. Creating their own ads can help students become more aware of the persuasive strategies used in real-life advertisements, helping them become more informed consumers.

Learn More: Upper Elementary Snapshots

14. Analyze Marketing Techniques in an Ad

This teacher-created worksheet provides a brief text about advertising, explaining what it is and its purpose. Students are then required to read the passage and answer a series of comprehension questions. By working through this worksheet, children not only learn about advertising but also practice and develop essential literacy skills, such as reading fluency, comprehension, and critical thinking. 

Learn More: Primary Leap

15. Social Media Marketing Analysis

This lesson introduces students to easily confused words and the use of prepositions while also exploring the concept of micro-influencers and their impact on the marketing world. Learning about this real-world example of social media marketing can help students who are interested in pursuing a career in these fields.

Learn More: ESL Brain

16. Analyze the Effectiveness of an Ad

For this activity, children will employ critical thinking to examine a media advertisement before determining the message of the ad and identifying the intended audience. Students will learn to critically analyze media content and enhance their understanding of advertising techniques.

Learn More: Worksheet Place

17. Focus on the Power of Slogans

This activity prompts children to come up with a catchy slogan for a product or service before encouraging them to consider famous slogans they already know. Apart from learning about the importance of strong marketing messages, this exercise also enhances their language abilities.

18. Marketing Crossword 

This fun and engaging marketing crossword puzzle can help kids develop their critical thinking and problem-solving skills. It’s perfect for a low-prep brain break activity or formative assessment task. 

Learn More: Word Mint

19. Marketing Escape Room Challenge

This marketing-themed escape room challenge encourages problem-solving and critical thinking, allowing students to apply their knowledge of the four Ps of marketing (product, price, place, and promotion) in a real-life business scenario. The lesson is easy to prepare, with the task cards just needing to be printed in advance. 

Learn More: TES

20. Create a Super Bowl Commercial

The objective of the lesson is for students to discuss the persuasive strategies employed in various Super Bowl ads. Students are given a note-taking sheet to record their ideas while watching the ads before sharing them with their peers in structured presentations. 

Learn More: Sadler School

Persuasive Techniques in Advertising

• Resources & Preparation
• Instructional Plan
• Related Resources

Students will learn persuasive techniques used in advertising, specifically, pathos or emotion, logos or logic, and ethos or credibility/character. They will use this knowledge to analyze advertising in a variety of sources: print, television, and Web-based advertising. Students will also explore the concepts of demographics and marketing for a specific audience. The lesson will culminate in the production of an advertisement in one of several various forms of media, intended for a specific demographic.

Featured Resources

The Art of Rhetoric: Persuasive Techniques in Advertising : This online video describes how advertisers use pathos or emotion, logos or logic, and ethos or credibility/character in order to persuade consumers.

Persuasive Techniques in Advertising Video Transcription : A transcript of the video provided by Chelsea Majors

From Theory to Practice

Students encounter advertising at every turn of their lives: on public billboards, during nearly every television show, on the Internet, on their cell phones, and even in schools.  They are undoubtedly aware that these ads have a specific purpose: to sell something to them.  Rarely, however, do teenagers think precisely about how the text, sounds, and images in these advertisements have been carefully crafted to persuade them to purchase a product or service-and that these techniques are not far from those they have already used in their own persuasive writing. We emphasize the need to make our students more literate, and this lesson aims to improve their critical media literacy.  By reducing advertising to its basic rhetorical components, students "can begin to understand how to construct their own messages to convey the meanings they intend and to evoke the responses they desire" (173).  Becoming more media literate allows our youth to "create messages of their own so that they can communicate clearly, effectively, and purposefully" (176). Further Reading

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

• 1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
• 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
• 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
• 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
• 8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
• 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Materials and Technology

• Video of television program, including commercials  
• TV with VCR/DVD player  
• Advertisements from magazines  
• Persuasive Techniques in Advertising online video
• Persuasive Techniques in Advertising Video Transcription  
• Internet-connected computer with speakers and projector  
• Web Resources for Finding Example Advertisements
• Demographics: Who Are You?
• Advertising Advantages: Television vs. Print vs. Online  
• Targeted Commercials  
• Commercial Dig  
• Commercial Dig Reflection Questions  
• Analyzing Ads  
• Planning Your Advertisement  
• Commercial Assessment  
• Persuasive Techniques in Advertising Reflection Questions

Preparation

• Make copies of the necessary handouts.  
• Gather advertisements from magazines-ideally, two per student. Look for ads that lend themselves well to the assignment, with a balance of text and images and with fairly discernable examples of pathos, logos, and ethos. Consider asking your school library media specialist for issues of magazines he or she plans to discard.  
• Record at least part of a television program, including the entirety of one commercial break, for showing in class.  
• If students will be using the Venn Diagram , Comic Creator , or Printing Press , arrange for them to have access during the appropriate sessions.  
• Preview the Persuasive Techniques in Advertising online video and obtain proper technology for projecting it in the classroom or computer lab. Also check out the  Persuasive Techniques in Advertising Video Transcription .  
• Arrange for students to have access to computers for Sessions Three and Four.  
• Bookmark the Web Resources for Finding Example Advertisements and preview the sites before recommending which ones students visit for example advertisements.  
• Familiarize yourself with the technologies discussed in the final session, deciding which you are prepared to ask or require students to use in the production of their own ads. Contact your school library media specialist or technology specialist for assistance.

Student Objectives

Students will

• demonstrate an understanding of three persuasive techniques (pathos, logos, and ethos) and other advertising strategies.  
• analyze advertisements according to their employment of these techniques.  
• demonstrate an understanding of the concept of demographics and specific audience.  
• synthesize this knowledge into advertisements of their own creation.

Session One

• Where do you encounter advertising?  (They will likely mention television, billboards, radio, Websites, school hallways, and so on.)  
• Which specific advertisements "stick in your head?"  
• What makes these advertisements memorable?  (They might mention music, catchy slogans, celebrity appearance, the appeal of the product itself, and so forth.)  
• Do you think advertisements have an effect on your personal interests?  
• Explain to students that advertisers very carefully construct their ads to make them memorable and appealing to consumers, and that the ways in which they try to convince them to buy products are similar to the ways they have been taught to write persuasively, using certain techniques and aiming toward a particular audience.  
• Distribute the Persuasive Techniques in Advertising handout and introduce the concepts of pathos, logos, and ethos, defined at the top of the handout.  Students should understand that these rhetorical strategies are similar to those used in a persuasive writing assignment, and that they will use these strategies when creating their own commercial by the end of this unit.  Encourage students to make connections to examples of each of the terms they have used in persuasive writing of their own. Note: This is an appropriate time to clarify that the word logos in this context should not be confused with a brand-specific image or insignia referred to as a logo.  
• After explaining the concepts of pathos, logos, and ethos, have students practice identifying the three techniques by placing a P , L , or E in the blank next to the examples at the bottom of this handout.  Have students share their responses with a partner and check for understanding by conducting a brief discussion of the examples.  
• Although most of these examples were designed to have one clear answer, be sure to emphasize to the students that pathos, logos, and ethos are not always separate entities and may often overlap with one another. For example, "Nine out of ten dentists choose Crest," suggests that the dentists are credible experts (ethos), and also includes a statistic (logos).   
• Deepen students' understanding of the concepts of pathos, logos, and ethos with visual examples by sharing with them the Persuasive Techniques in Advertising online video . You may want to pause and have students explain how the television, print, and online advertisements utilize the three rhetorical strategies.  The narration in the commercial further explains their use in each advertisement. There is also the  Persuasive Techniques in Advertising Video Transcription .  
• Briefly discuss the "Other Advertising Strategies" section of Persuasive Techniques in Advertising handout.  Explain that these are more specific types of strategies that advertisers use and that many overlap with pathos, logos, and ethos.   For example, you may mention that patriotism is a strategy meant to evoke certain emotions, and would therefore constitute a use of pathos.  
• Close the session by explaining to students that in future sessions, they will be examining existing advertisements with their new analytical skill and applying it to creating ads of their own.  
• Encourage students to begin looking at advertisements they encounter in terms of these three techniques.

Session Two

• Begin with a brief review of the concepts of pathos, logos, and ethos from the previous session.  Ask students to demonstrate their growing understanding by providing examples of each of the techniques from advertisements they have recently seen.  
• Now introduce the term demographics to students: the characteristics that make up a human population such as gender, age, and race.  Have students discover which demographic group(s) they fit into by completing the Demographics: Who are you? handout.  When creating their group commercials in a later session, students will need to consider the demographics for their product. Explain to students that this is how advertisers think of consumers: not as individuals, but as members of groups that tend to believe, behave, or purchase in certain patterns. Even when an advertisement is appealing to the idea of individuality (such as Burger King's "Have It Your Way" promotion), advertisers are appealing to the demographic group of "people who like to be thought of as individuals," not to any single consumer.  
• Continue the discussion of demographics by distributing the Targeted Commercials handout, which will further explore the concept of demographics. Ask students to begin applying their understanding of demographics and targeted advertising by showing the first part of a television program of your choice.  Since the purpose of this activity is to show how advertisers cater to a show's intended audience, you may want to make sure you are presenting a show with commercials that very obviously target a specific demographic.   
• Before watching, share with students a brief description of the show they are about to see, including race/gender/class of the main characters, genre of the program, and the time/date/channel on which the program aired.  Have students use these factors (and any other prior knowledge they may have of the show) to determine the probable demographics.  Students should indicate their choices on the handout .  
• While students watch the commercial break(s), have them take brief notes to remind them of the products being advertised.  
• Have students complete the "After the program" response question at the bottom of the Targeted Commercials handout.  Then discuss the degrees to which the advertisements match the demographics of the likely intended audience of the television program.   
• This would be an appropriate time to talk about clear evidence that programming and advertising are marketed to specific groups.  Lifetime: Television for Women, Spike! TV, Logo, and Black Entertainment Television all exist not only to give viewers programming they might like, but also to allow advertisers to target their audiences more specifically.  
• Distribute the Commercial Dig activity, explaining to students that this is a long-term assignment that requires them to keep track of eight commercials viewed during one television program and to explain briefly the purpose of each advertised product. Remind students that the commercials they record on this chart should all come from the same show, as the completed chart will be used to re-emphasize the concepts of demographics and targeted advertising. Inform them that this assignment should be completed by Session Four and ask if there are questions before closing the session.

Session Three

• Remind students what they have learned so far in this lesson: techniques advertisers use to persuade consumers to buy their products and the concept of "targeting" certain audience demographics to make the process of persuasion more efficient and focused.  
• Explain to students that they will have the opportunity to apply this knowledge by looking at some real ads for real products.  Share that the goal of this activity will be to examine how advertisers skillfully use multiple strategies to persuade their audiences.  
• Distribute the Analyzing Ads handout and discuss the expectations and format for response.  Students will analyze six advertisements: two print ads, two television commercials, and two Internet advertisements.  The Internet advertisements should take the form of marketing Websites featuring a particular product, or pop-ups/embedded ads in Websites unrelated to the product.  
• This activity will allow students to practice their recognition of pathos, logos, and ethos in three different modes of advertising, preparing them for the creation of their own commercials.  Students should also record any of the "other strategies" explained on Persuasive Techniques in Advertising handout, also required as part of the final project.  
• Share with students the print ads you already collected as well as the Web Resources for Finding Example Advertisements and have them look for ads. Point out to students that they may wish to access television ads on their own time, including during their work on the Commercial Dig activity. Depending on how efficiently students work through this activity, this part of the lesson will likely extend into the next session.

Session Four

• At an appropriate time in student engagement in the continuation of the analysis activity from the previous session, distribute the Commercial Assessment rubric and explain that you will use it to evaluate the commercials they will produce in an upcoming session. Ask students, in small groups, to review one of the teacher- or student-selected commercials and apply the rubric to the commercial.  Students should determine whether the commercial effectively utilizes pathos, logos, and/or ethos, and note their score on the rubric . Students should also indicate the effectiveness of any of the "other strategies" on the second page of the rubric .  
• When students are ready, check for understanding by several volunteers present one of the advertisements they analyzed, briefly discussing the effective use of persuasive techniques.  
• Wrap up this section of the lesson by using the Advertising Advantages: Television vs. Print vs. Online to engage students in a discussion of the advantages of each mode of advertising, using the examples on the handout as a guide.  This discussion will help students decide which modes of advertising they might use when creating their commercials in the next session.  You may wish to use the Venn Diagram to facilitate this discussion.  
• Remind students that they will need to have their completed Commercial Dig activity ready for discussion in the next session.

Session Five

• Ask students to get out their completed Commercial Dig activity sheets.  Give students the opportunity to solidify their understanding of the concept of demographics by working through the analysis tasks in the Commercial Dig Reflection Questions .  Have students use their completed charts to answer the reflection questions . Students should talk through their responses with a partner before producing a written response.  
• Which advertisements could be viewed as harmful or unfair to a group of people?  
• Can targeting a specific demographic sometimes encourage stereotyping?  
• When do you see stereotyping used in advertisements?
• You may wish to give students access to the online articles Target me with your ads, please and Mixed Messages , which discuss how Websites use technology to target consumers and the use of billboards in impoverished and minority neighborhoods, respectively, as part of this discussion.

Session Six

• Students will use this session to begin to synthesize all they have learned about advertising and begin creating a commercial for a fictional product.  First ask students to form small groups and decide on a product to advertise.  
• Next, students should determine the target audience for their product, remembering previous lessons on demographics.  
• Depending on available time and resources, ask students to create a print, filmed, live, and/or Internet advertisement for their product.  They should take into account their observations from the Advertising Advantages: Television vs. Print vs. Online .  
• Have students use the Planning Your Advertisement sheet to plan for an advertisement that will target the previously determined demographic, and demonstrate pathos, logos, ethos, and three of the "other strategies." This may also be an appropriate time to review the expectations set forth in the Commercial Assessment rubric.  
• Give students access to the Comic Creator and/or the Printing Press to create the print advertisement.  Free software such as iMovie and Windows Movie Maker may be used to edit any filmed commercials.  Web creation sites such as PBWorks and Google Sites may be used to create Internet-based advertisements.

Session Seven (after students have had time to prepare their advertisements)

• Give students time to meet in their groups and plan the presentation of their ads.  
• Have each group present, allowing time for discussion with the class about the effective use of persuasive techniques in each advertisement.  
• After the presentations and discussion are complete, distribute the  Persuasive Techniques in Advertising Reflection Questions and give students time to solidify their learning by responding to the four questions.

Student Assessment / Reflections

• Use the lesson reflection questions to allow students to think about what they have learned about advertising and persuasion.  
• Use the Commercial Assessment rubric to assess student work on their advertisements.
• Professional Library
• Student Interactives
• Lesson Plans
• Strategy Guides
• Calendar Activities

The Comic Creator invites students to compose their own comic strips for a variety of contexts (prewriting, pre- and postreading activities, response to literature, and so on).

The interactive Printing Press is designed to assist students in creating newspapers, brochures, and flyers.

This interactive tool allows students to create Venn diagrams that contain two or three overlapping circles, enabling them to organize their information logically.

Students analyze rhetorical strategies in online editorials, building knowledge of strategies and awareness of local and national issues. This lesson teaches students connections between subject, writer, and audience and how rhetorical strategies are used in everyday writing.

Add new comment

• Print this resource

Explore Resources by Grade

• Kindergarten K

Fun Marketing Activities for Students

Looking for fun marketing activities for students? Well, you have come to the right place!

Teaching marketing should be fun and engaging for students and, as instructors, we should strive to “bring marketing alive” for students through the use of various activities, games, tools, and exercises.

On this website, you will find 100s of fun activities and games for teaching marketing.

Free Teaching Games

Pizza Store Design Game

• This is a free marketing game that requires students working in teams to design their own pizza store and compete with other student groups. Available in an interactive and non-interactive version. Ideal for teaching the full marketing mix.

Interactive Marketing (Trading) Game

• This is a great learning game to play with your marketing and business students. It is provided free and is highly engaging. It gets student teams moving around and trading and negotiating with others. And while teams are encourage to make good deals, winning teams usually have a long-term win-win outlook.

Price-Place Marketing Sim Game

• This Sim Game is a variation of the interactive (trading) marketing game also available on this website for free download. The game runs on Excel as well, but without the component of physical interaction.

Restaurant Pricing Game

• This is a very simple and fun (and free) marketing game that can be understood quickly and played within 30 to 45 minutes – ideal for all student cohorts. It illustrates the concepts of pricing, competition, and even game theory.

New Product Evaluation Game

• This activity is a ‘game’ played in groups. Although it is a fun game, it is designed to illustrate the challenges that a firm faces when it evaluates and researches a new product.

Average Cost Curves Game

• This activity is a fun activity (a team-based game) that is designed to show how the short-run average cost curve is produced.

Return on Marketing Investment Game

• As we know, return on marketing investment (ROMI) is a commonly used marketing metric in the business world. But addressing this metric from a straight formula/calculation approach can be a little dull, and even intimidating for some students. So this fun activity can be a great way of introducing the concept of ROMI.

Instructor’s Guide to Running the Base Positioning Sim Game

• This is a free marketing Sim Game game (Excel-based), which is both simple and easy to understand, yet complex enough to enable discussion of numerous marketing concepts.
• Also see…  Our Choice of Sim Games
• And…  Advantages of Our Sim Games

Developing a Marketing Mix

• In this exercise, students select the most appropriate marketing strategy and then develop a suitable marketing mix, based upon a proposed new chain of Italian and pizza restaurants.

How Important is Price?

• In this exercise, students are presented with eight product alternatives, as they would find in a supermarket environment. As they will see, price is simply one aspect of the consumer’s perception of value.

Marketing Career Quiz

• In the marketing career quiz there are 20 questions about work preferences, thinking style and interests. There are three options for each question, students pick the one that best describes them.

Marketing Terms Crossword

• A revision crossword for an array of marketing terms and definitions – ideal for reinforcing terms at the end of term, and a great team-based activity.

Product Mix MCQ Revision VIDEO

• This is a 20 multiple-choice question video quiz on the PRODUCT MIX. It is a fun and interactive approach to revision for students, and a helpful insight for instructors on which new product topics need further explanation and discussion.
• New Products Process MCQ Revision VIDEO
• Promotional Mix MCQ Revision VIDEO
• Price Mix MCQ Revision VIDEO
• Place Mix MCQ Revision VIDEO

Marketing Trivia Two Video Quizzes

• Here are two multiple-choice question video quizzes. One on general marketing trivia, and one called ‘guess the entrepreneur’. These video quizzes are designed as icebreakers and team-building exercises.

Marketing Trivia Quiz (Kahoot version)

• This is a marketing trivia quiz for students to complete, primarily as an icebreaker or introduction to marketing in the early week/s of classes.

Marketing Mix Digital Escape Room

• This business is in a terrible mess and they need your students’ marketing expertise to help turnaround our business and start making more money. Your students have come highly recommended because they know so much about marketing. Can they escape?
• Also see…  Digital Escape Rooms: Getting Started

CB Digital Escape Room

• A large multinational company is looking for a consumer behavior expert to join their consumer insights team. Your students’ task – to win this job – is to answer questions about consumer behavior and to demonstrate their problem solving skills by also solving puzzles along the way. Can they escape?
• Also see…  Digital Escape Rooms for Teaching Marketing

The Marketing Plan Escape Room

• Last week we only made $1,000 in sales, but we need to get sales of $10,000 a week to cover costs and make enough profit for us to live on and pay the bank each month. Are you a super marketer who can help save our business?

Even More Fun Marketing Activities for GITM Members

Digital Marketing Success (Case Study)

• This video case study is based upon an innovative approach to search engine advertising that cleverly combines data, market insights, and a unique media schedule.

Marketing Mix of the Dollar Shave Club

• Students review the viral video launch of the highly successful Dollar Shave Club and then identify their 7P’s offering and the mindset of their target market. Great activity for breaking down the full 7P’s marketing mix.

KFC’s App Gamifies Snack time

• This is a great example of using a market insight to change consumer behavior. In this activity, KFC created a smart phone game to deliver sales promotion incentives and drive sales.

Generating Earned Media (Video Case)

• In this video case study, students review an airline loyalty points campaign that is heavily reliant upon generating earned media.

Snicker’s Innovative SEM Campaign

• This video-based activity highlights Snickers Misspelled Words campaign that they executed through Google search ads to successfully reinforce their brand positioning.

Related Articles

• Games and Gamification in Teaching Marketing
• Top 10 Tips for Teaching Marketing
• Flipped Classrooms for Teaching Marketing
• Marketing Simulation Games
• Benefits of a GITM Membership

• Join the AMA
• Find learning by topic
• Free learning resources for members
• Credentialed Learning
• Training for teams
• Why learn with the AMA?
• Marketing News
• Academic Journals
• Guides & eBooks
• Marketing Job Board
• Academic Job Board
• AMA Foundation
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
• Collegiate Resources
• Awards and Scholarships
• Sponsorship Opportunities
• Strategic Partnerships

We noticed that you are using Internet Explorer 11 or older that is not support any longer. Please consider using an alternative such as Microsoft Edge, Chrome, or Firefox.

Teach Marketing Creatively: 7 Classroom Projects [Easy & Effective]

Matt Weingarden

Advertising is evolving rapidly in the new digital frontier. The AMA’s regular coverage of major events, like the NFL’s Super Bowl, offer some fun and timely way to incorporate advertising projects in the classroom. Here is a quick list of seven standby assignments and projects that many instructors have successfully executed.

1. Super Bowl or Large Television Event Assignment

Have students analyze the advertising shown on the Superbowl or something equivalent like the World Cup or the final episode of a popular TV program.  You can add analysis of historical trends.

2. Develop a Communications or Advertising Plan 

An Advertising Plan assignment can be done as an individual or a group assignment.   Students can choose the “client” or you can.  You can restrict it by the size of the firm, or otherwise specify the nature of the plan.

Typical parts of the plan would be (but customize it according to your textbook) :

• Executive summary
• Analysis of competition and previous advertising by this client
• Description of the target audience
• Concise statement of the objectives
• Description of the advertisement creative strategy and execution
• Complete description of the media plan
• Estimated advertising budget
• Description of research methods which can be used to assess the campaign’s effectiveness.
• Listing of the external sources used to learn about the client, its industry, and its advertising

Some variations :

• Assume an organization seeks to build a relationship with a particular group or subculture market. The assignment would begin with a market profile including preferences, habits, and responses of the subculture markets. The assignment can also include a requirement for demographic and geographic information on the subculture, group identity factors such as beliefs, habits, attitudes, values, behaviors; as well as media habits.
• Develop a program for a target market of children or the elderly. 
• Redesign a pre-existing advertisement.  Change the copy, change the layout or format.  Can the student improve it?

3. Analyze an Advertisement or Communications Approach

Students look at a pre-existing campaign or ad. Students could write about any or all of the following:

• The objectives
• The audience
• Effectiveness
• Role in marketing mix
• Image, product differentiation and branding
• Other promotion mix factors
• The unique selling proposition.
• The basis for the appeal. 
• How would you make the improvements?
• The creative philosophy
• Secondary or supporting copy points or claims
• The tone or mood and manner
• Type of presenter
• The motivational appeal
• Executional style

Variation : You pick or the students pick.  Require various media or specify in other ways the ad to be chosen.

Variation : Pick a successful/unsuccessful recent campaign. What went right/wrong? Have others done better/worse?

Variation : Focus on social or ethical aspects. What role does the ad play in the economy?  Does it promote something that is socially desirable?  Is the ad misleading?  Is it targeted to a group that could be considered vulnerable?

4. Compare and Contrast Advertising Approaches

Pick two competitors or two firms in the same category with different target segments and have students compare communications approaches. 

Some possibilities:

• Pick a online versus brick & mortar retailer.
• Pick a small company versus a large company.
• Pick the same firm and compare its communications approaches in the local and a foreign version of the same magazine. Cosmetics and Cosmopolitan magazine would be one example. 
• Compare ads or commercials for some of the following types: manufacturer and retailer; goods firm and services firm; b2c and b2b; organizational ad, not-for-profit ad, commercial ad. 
• Compare ads for products at different stages of the product life cycle.  Discussion questions could concern objectives, expenditures, target audiences, and effectivness.
• Compare magazine ads from different decades.  Discussion could center on gender roles, themes, creative execution, and language. Some magazines you might wish to use include:
• News publications
• General Interest publications
• Female-focused publications
• Male-focused publications

5. Analyze an Ad Agency

Analyze the output or style of a particular ad agency. Describe the agency and their portfolio and discuss commonalities.

6. Leverage Local Resources

If there is a nearby convention or trade show have students go and compare strategies for a set of exhibitors.

Interview a marketing communications professional (ad agency worker or person at a company responsible for advertising strategy, creatives, media planners, etc.)

7. Leverage the Internet

Visit research services websites (Example: Simmons-Scarborough Research Services)

• Describe the type of research services each provides, with a focus on advertising research.  How might an advertiser or ad agency use these sites?  What useful information for an advertiser or agency did you find on these sites?
• Regarding an ad campaign for a specific product or organization, describe which of these services you would use and how, and describe other primary and secondary sources of information you would also use and the type of information they could yield for you.​

Matt Weingarden, Vice President, Communities & Journals , leads the diverse team that supports the AMA’s network of community leaders from its three broad communities and four scholarly journals.

By continuing to use this site, you accept the use of cookies, pixels and other technology that allows us to understand our users better and offer you tailored content. You can learn more about our privacy policy here