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Psychology of Advertising Communication. 

Code: 102561 ECTS Credits: 6
2025/2026
Degree Type Year
Psychology OT 4

Contact

Name:
Berta Conill Purgimon
Email:
berta.conill@uab.cat

Teachers

Nancy Lopez Lago

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

THERE ARE NO MANDATORY PREREQUISITES FOR THIS SUBJECT


Objectives and Contextualisation

  • Familiarize the student with the world of advertising communication.

  • Understand how advertising fits within the context of social sciences and psychology.

  • Develop critical thinking skills to assess which types of advertising contribute to a more conscious and sustainable social development.

  • Learn how an advertising campaign is planned and at which stage a psychologist can be involved.

  • Apply psychological knowledge to the creation of an advertisement or advertising campaign.


Competences

  • Apply knowledge, skills and acquired values critically, reflexively and creatively.
  • Communicate efficiently, using the appropriate media (oral, written or audio-visual) taking into account diversity and all elements that may ease communication or make it more difficult.
  • Criticise the effects of personal practice on people, taking into account the complexity of human diversity.
  • Distinguish and relate the different focuses and theoretical traditions that have contributed to the historical development of psychology as well as its influence on the production of knowledge and professional practice.
  • Identify, describe and relate the structures and processes involved in basic psychological functions.
  • Make changes to methods and processes in the area of knowledge in order to provide innovative responses to society's needs and demands.
  • Prepare and write technical reports on the results of the evaluation, research or services requested.
  • Recognise the diversity of human behaviour and the nature of differences in it in terms of normality abnormality and pathology.
  • Take account of social, economic and environmental impacts when operating within one's own area of knowledge.
  • Take decisions in a critical manner about the different research methods in psychology, their application and the interpretation of the results deriving from them.
  • Take sex- or gender-based inequalities into consideration when operating within one's own area of knowledge.
  • Use different ICTs for different purposes.
  • Work in a team.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Analyse a situation and identify its points for improvement.
  2. Analyse and interpret the results of experiments on communication.
  3. Analyse the sex- or gender-based inequalities and the gender biases present in one's own area of knowledge.
  4. Analyse the social effects of mass communication media.
  5. Analyse the sustainability indicators of the academic and professional activities in this field, integrating the social, economic and/or environmental dimensions.
  6. Apply knowledge, skills and acquired values critically, reflexively and creatively.
  7. Apply the corresponding explicative model of behaviour according to the situation or context.
  8. Assess how stereotypes and gender roles impact professional practice.
  9. Communicate in an inclusive manner avoiding the use of sexist or discriminatory language.
  10. Criticise the effects of personal practice on people, taking into account the complexity of human diversity.
  11. Demonstrate that social contexts different from contexts in which communication is addressed to adapt to them.
  12. Describe and relate the different phases of cognitive processing and the communicative expression of that processing.
  13. Design scientific studies on the characteristics of communication and its impact on the recipients.
  14. Discriminate and differentiate the different levels of communication (animal versus human) and factors involved.
  15. Identify situations in which a change or improvement is needed.
  16. Identify the principal forms of sex- or gender-based inequality and discrimination present in society.
  17. Identify the social, economic and/or environmental implications of academic and professional activities in the area of your knowledge.
  18. Propose new experience-based methods or alternative solutions.
  19. Propose new ways of measuring the viability, success or failure of the implementation of innovative proposals or ideas.
  20. Propose projects and actions that incorporate the gender perspective.
  21. Propose viable projects and actions to boost social, economic and/or environmental benefits.
  22. Recognise the emotional, linguistic and nonverbal factors that facilitate or impede communication.
  23. Use different ICTs for different purposes.
  24. Weigh up the risks and opportunities of both one's own and other people's proposals for improvement.
  25. Work in a team.
  26. Write reports from the results of studies on communication credibility and reliability.

Content

BLOCK A: Advertising
Advertising as mass communication
Definition and its aim of advertising

BLOCK B: The advertising agency
Agency Departments

The role of a psychologist in the advertising agency

BLOCK C: The advertising campaign
Campaign goals: commercial and / or informational
The briefing
The communication proposal
Advertising strategy planning

BLOCK D: The advertising language
Slogan, brand and brand image
The language of the senses in Advertising communication
Fragance marketing
Gender and advertising
Advertising music

BLOCK E: The media from the perspective of advertising
Characteristics of the mass media:
- New advertising form
- Posters, billboards, press, radio, cinema, television, internet...


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Master classes (theory) 24 0.96 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 13, 26, 22, 25
Practical lessons and Seminaries 12 0.48 6, 10, 13, 25, 23
Type: Supervised      
Oral presentations 4 0.16 25
Tutorials 5 0.2 23
Work developement 30 1.2 7, 26, 25
Type: Autonomous      
Teamwork 75 3 25

Master Classes: we are going to deal with theoretical contents to be able to make, in work groups, an advertising campaign that will be presented orally at the end of the semester and where a written work will be delivered.

Seminars: the practical application of these theoretical contents and scientific articles will be worked on. The student will work in a group.

Supervised Practical Classes: a specific topic will be proposed, where some aspect of psychology has a fundamental role in advertising communication.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Ev1 Realization of the advertising campaign (based on the master classes) 45 0 0 4, 5, 2, 3, 1, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14, 13, 26, 17, 16, 15, 24, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 23, 8
Ev2 Campaign exhibition (oral presentation) 15 0 0 9, 10, 20, 25, 23
Ev3 Packaging Design (practical classes) 20 0 0 6, 10, 13, 25, 23
Ev4 Written report (seminars) 10 0 0 6, 9, 10, 21, 25
Ev5 Tutoring and participation 10 0 0 4

 

 

Feedback Type

EV i TIPO

WEEK

Written

 EV1 + EV4

 20

Digital Tool

 EV 1

 20

In the Classroom

 EV2 + EV3

 20

Tutoring

 EV 5

 20

 

Feedback on results for students is provided at the end of presentations and during class follow-ups; final grades will be published after the course lectures are over.

The evaluation, which is continuous, will be carried out by performing:

1.- Delivery of the group work of the advertising campaign aimed at highlighting the knowledge acquired from the master classes. The grade will be 45% of the overall grade. (Approximate delivery of the work in the month of May. It will be monitored how it is built during the tutoring hours).

2.- Oral presentation. Each working group must make an oral presentation and deliver the presentation in PowerPoint. The grade will represent 15% of the overall rating. (The presentations will be made at the end of May).

3.- Practices. Each group must make, on the one hand, a design of a wrapper for a product, idea or service, will work it and expose it in class. The grade will be 20% of the overall grade. (The presentations will be made at the end of May).

4.- Seminars. A specific topic will be proposed and each student will work on the development of the topic. A written report will be submitted. The grade will represent 10% of the overall grade. (It will be done in person in the classroom).

5.- Tutoring and participation. Follow-up tutorials of the advertising campaign will be carried out in work groups; the grade assigned to these tutoring sessions will be the same for all members of the work team. In parallel, debates will be generated and all contributions made by the student to the subject will be valued. All this will mean 10% of the overall rating.

The final grade of the continuous evaluation will be obtained from the weighted average of the evaluation activities carried out. Students who obtain a grade equal to or greater than 5 points will be considered to pass the subject.

In case of suspension, a resit test may be made. Students who are suspended with a grade equal to or greater than 3 and who have completed assessment activities whose weight equals to a minimum of 2/3 of the total grade of the subject may take this test. This test will consist of five semi-open questions of the contents given in the master classes. The mark of this recovery test will average the 50% with the activities presented and will form the final grade for the subject.

A student who has provided evidence of learning with a weight equal to or greater than 40% may not be listed as 'Not evaluable'.

No unique final synthesis test for students who enrole for the second time or more is anticipated.

This subject does not consider single assessment.

https://www.uab.cat/web/estudiar/graus/graus/avaluacions-1345722525858.html


Bibliography

Essential:

Añaños, Elena; Estaún, Santiago; Tena, Daniel; Mas, Maria Teresa i Valli, Anna (2009) Psicología y Comunicación Publicitaria. Bellaterra: Servei de publicacions de la UAB.

Castelló-Martínez, A. y Pino-Romero, C. (2019). De la publicidad a la comunicación persuasiva integrada: estrategia y empatía. Madrid:  Esic Editorial

García Uceda, Mariola (2001) Las claves de la publicidad. Madrid:ESIC Editorial

 

Complementary:

Cerezo, Manuel (2006). Taller de publicidad. Barcelona: Octaedro

Goldstein, E. Bruce (2011). Sensación y percepción. Traducción: Antonio Núñez Ramos, Lorena Peralta Rosales; revisión técnica: Magali López Lecona. México: Cengage Learning.

 

Alguns exemples: https://youtube.com/@publitves?si=CdJ5HJTlm9GzCi5P 

 


Software

It will be necessary to know how to use PowerPoint (or similar) for presentations and a word processor for the written work.
Basic knowledge is required for editing an advertising campaign (Canva, video editing software, etc.).

 

Because part of the assessment is the students' creative ability, the use of artificial intelligence is not contemplated in more than:

Type of delivery

USE OF AI ALLOWED

Advertising campaign

25%

Campaign presentation

0%

Packaging

50%

Written report (seminars)

25%

Tutoring

0%

Groups and Languages

Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2025. You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject.

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(PAUL) Classroom practices 11 Catalan second semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 1 Catalan second semester morning-mixed