For instance, you may find marketing communications being used to promote various brands, increase charitable donations, persuade toddlers to eat their vegetables, or encourage teenagers to behave responsibly around alcohol. In this digital era, if you use social media to portray a particular image to others, you are engaging in a form of marketing communications, with you as the brand.

This course uses theories and models to explain marketing communications and provides examples of how to effectively manage the marketing communications process.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course B328 Marketing in action.

Course learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• recognise various models of marketing communication
• identify different digital marketing communication tools and understand media selection
• explain different types and characteristics of message sources and appeals
• evaluate how message appeal can be employed in different contexts
• critically reflect on ethical issues in online marketing communication.