Marketing & Advertising

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Why it works

Marketing and advertising, how products and ideas are branded, positioned, messaged, and promoted across media to influence audiences, is a major career field and a pervasive force in students' lives. Teaching it develops business and career skills (market research, branding, the marketing mix, advertising, increasingly digital and social media marketing, analytics) and, importantly, critical media literacy, understanding the persuasion techniques, psychology, and messaging that marketing uses lets students see through the marketing aimed at them. Strong teaching combines the creative and strategic skill of creating effective marketing with a critical understanding of how it works and its ethical dimensions, serving both future marketers and all students as consumers.

The research: CTE and business education standards.

The run-of-show

Choose your slot. The agenda, timings, and length update to match.

The core activity: teach creating and seeing through marketing

Teachers leave teaching both marketing skill and critical literacy.

Pick a marketing or advertising topic or project.
Teach the skills of creating effective marketing (research, branding, messaging, media).
Teach critical understanding of persuasion techniques, psychology, and ethics.
Connect to careers and to students' own consumer lives.

Create it, and see through itMarketing is a career field and critical media literacy. Teach the skills of creating effective marketing alongside a critical understanding of how it persuades, serving marketers and consumers.

Facilitator notes

Teach marketing skills (research, branding, messaging, media).
Teach critical analysis of persuasion, and address ethics.
Connect to careers and consumer literacy.

Teaching only how to sell, without critical literacy, is incompleteMarketing education should build both the skill to create marketing and the literacy to see through it. Include critical analysis of persuasion and ethics.

Adapt it

Middle school: what marketing is, persuasion, critical literacy.
High school: research, branding, media, analytics, careers.
All settings: create and critically analyze marketing.

Participant handout

One page for every teacher. Print it, or save it as a PDF.

K12 Academics · Professional Learning

Marketing & Advertising: create it, see through it

Skill and literacy: the skills of creating marketing, plus critical understanding of how it persuades, with ethics.

The marketing or advertising topic or project:
The skills of creating effective marketing I teach (research, branding, messaging, media):
The critical understanding of persuasion and ethics I teach:
The careers I connect to:
A link to the marketing students encounter daily:

Make it stick

Create it, see through it:

Teach creating and seeing through marketing.
Include critical literacy.
Bring a marketing lesson to the next PLC.

Common questions

What does teaching marketing cover?

Market research, branding, the marketing mix, advertising, digital and social media marketing, and analytics, the skills of creating effective marketing, plus critical understanding of how marketing persuades.

Is marketing education just for future marketers?

No. It is a career field AND critical media literacy: understanding how marketing persuades helps every student see through the marketing aimed at them. It serves creators and consumers alike.

How do I keep it rigorous?

Combine the strategic and creative skill of creating effective marketing with critical analysis of persuasion techniques, psychology, data, and ethics. Create it and see through it.