Student-Oriented Features for the Twenty-First Century

Our mission in Contemporary Advertising continues to be presenting advertising as it is actually practiced. Now, as we introduce the thirteenth edition of Contemporary Advertising, our purpose remains the same. We also believe advertising should be taught in an intelligible manner and lively style relevant to college and university students of the twenty-first century. This edition of Contemporary Advertising provides a number of exclusive student-oriented features.

Award-Winning Graphic Design

For over 25 years Contemporary Advertising has been distinguished by its elegant, coffee-table-book feel and award-winning graphic design—an important feature for a book that professes to educate students about the aesthetics of advertising design and production. The open, airy look—reinforced by the book’s high-quality, clay-coated paper stock—contributes to learning by making the text material colorful, inviting, and accessible to students. In the thirteenth edition, the elegance of the design is enhanced with a striking new interior color palette, beautiful new chapter openers, and a redesign of all the technical illustrations for greater clarity and simplicity. Throughout the book, chapter overviews, chapter learning objectives, and key terms printed in boldface type all work together to make the text material as reader-friendly as possible.

Chapter-Opening Vignettes

To capture and hold student interest, each chapter begins not with a case but with a story. Written in a warm, narrative style, each vignette depicts an actual situation that illustrates a basic concept in the study of advertising. Wherever possible, the opening story is then woven in throughout the chapter to demonstrate how textbook concepts actually come to life in real-world situations. For example, throughout Chapter 1, we examine how the campaign of President Barack Obama portends enormous changes for the way advertising is practiced. In Chapter 4, the story of McDonald’s advertising is complemented with numerous examples that range from global to local. In Chapter 8, we use the incredible success story of Mountain Dew to illustrate the importance of creativity and strategic thinking in marketing and advertising planning. And in Chapter 10, we’ve wrapped the whole subject of creativity and the creative process around the way Target uses creative, quirky, unexpected advertising to add value to its retail locations and offerings.

Extensive Illustration Program

The best way to teach is to set a good example. So each of the 18 chapters features beautiful full-color illustrations of recent award-winning ads, commercials, and campaigns that demonstrate the best in the business. In fact, Contemporary Advertising is one of the most heavily illustrated textbooks on the market, with all the major media represented—print, electronic, digital, and outdoor—in a balanced manner. We carefully selected the examples and illustrations for both their quality and their relevance to students. Nearly half of the ads are new to this edition.

Furthermore, we feature a mix of local, national, and international ads from both business-to-business and consumer campaigns. In-depth captions tell the stories behind many of the ads and explain how the ads demonstrate the concepts discussed in the text.

The book is liberally illustrated with models, charts, graphs, and tables. Some of these encapsulate useful information on advertising concepts or the advertising industry. Others depict the processes employed in account management, research, account planning, media planning, and production.

Full-Color Portfolios

In addition to the individual print ads and actual frames from TV commercials, the book contains several multipage portfolios of outstanding creative work. These include “Strategic Use of the Creative Mix,” “Outstanding Magazine Ads,” “Advertising on the Internet,” “Corporate Advertising,” and others. Accompanying captions and questions tie the ads to topics germane to the chapter in which they appear.

The Creative Department

The Creative Department is a special section in Chapter 12 that describes how an interesting print ad and TV commercial were produced from beginning to end. In this edition, we show a full-color print ad for the ecologically friendly Toyota Prius Hybrid Synergy Drive vehicle that features an actual acetate color key (called a transvision)—a first in advertising texts. And the TV commercial for the Prius created by Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles illustrates an extraordinary combination of artistry, cultural sensitivity, and ingenious special effects.

Ad Lab

Active participation enhances learning, so Ad Labs play a significant role in virtually every chapter. These unique sidebars to the world of advertising introduce students to topics of current interest or controversy and then involve them in the subject by posing questions that stimulate critical thinking. Some of the many topics presented in Ad Labs include government regulation, bottom-up marketing, creativity, the psychological impact of color, advertising on the Internet, “green” marketing, sales promotion, and direct-response advertising.

Ethical Issues in Advertising

Today’s students will face new and challenging ethical issues, and they will need to exercise even greater sensitivity than their twentieth-century counterparts. Therefore, in every chapter of the book, we introduce a current Ethical Issue in advertising—to focus attention on the most critical social questions facing advertisers today. These include the debate over puffery, advertising to children, comparative advertising, the targeting of ethnic minorities, consumer profiling, privacy, negative political advertising, visual and statistical manipulation, and others.

My Ad Campaign

For instructors who offer students semester-long projects as a way of getting their hands dirty by actually practicing advertising, we’ve included this valuable resource. In each chapter students receive practical advice on developing a real campaign, culminating with tips on developing a plans book and a client presentation.

Online Reference Library

In keeping with our desire to build long-term value into the book (without adding text length), we have a Reference Library as a supplemental feature. We continue to offer this valuable reference source on the Contemporary Advertising Web site. The Reference Library contains a wealth of supplementary exhibits, checklists, tables, and models for students or professors who seek additional information or greater detail on a subject of interest. The exhibits in the Reference Library are numbered to correspond to relevant chapters. Professors can choose whether or not to assign this material, depending on their course objectives.

But students will find the Reference Library a valuable, long-term handbook for their future careers and lives. Some exhibits in the Reference Library include Advertising Regulations in Western Europe, Using Marketing Research for New Product Development, Checklist of Product Marketing Facts for Creatives, Detailed Explanation of Duncan’s IMC Model, Trade Show Budgeting Checklist, and many, many others.

People behind the Ads

Behind the thousands of ads we see and hear are real human beings—the writers, designers, programmers, executives, and media specialists. In the final analysis, the ad industry is more than a collection of concepts, processes, and activities. It is an industry of people, some the smartest, most creative, and most interesting people in the world.

Additional Learning Aids

Each chapter concludes with a summary followed by questions for review and discussion. These pedagogical aids are designed to help students review chapter contents and assimilate what they have learned. Throughout the text, key ideas and terms are highlighted with boldface type and defined when introduced. The definitions of all these terms are collected at the end of the book in a thorough and extensive glossary.

The Advertising Experience Exercises

True to the text’s agency approach, the thirteenth edition of Contemporary Advertising continues hands-on application exercises that place students in the advertisers’ shoes to help them see how advertising is done in the real world. Effective as outside assignments or in-class discussion starters, the Advertising Experience allows students to effectively apply their knowledge of each chapter.

Many exercises also require students to access the World Wide Web and perform research on questions relevant to the chapter topic.