FLAME University

UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM

Turning Passion to Purpose

The Digital Marketing and Communication (DMaC) specialization aims to provide knowledge, skills and perspective about the general field of marketing and marketing communication with specific inputs on Digital marketing and digital communication. In today’s world digital platforms for communication, search, interaction and purchase are gaining importance because of the increase in the penetration and a large number of activities getting transferred from the brick and mortar to the digital medium. This emerging trend has led to the launch of this specialization on digital marketing and communication.

The specialization aims to provide learning in the related fields of marketing and communication with specific inputs on Digital Marketing and Communication. The programme will provide knowledge in the three domains namely the domain of general management, the domain of communication and the domain of marketing with inputs on the different aspects of digital marketing and communication. The specific inputs on digital marketing and communication will include courses like Search Marketing, Social Local and Mobile Marketing and Digital Marketing Metrics. The specialization includes writing a research based Grad Project to provide depth to the learning.

SPECIALIZATION AIMS

  • To inculcate in the students the art and science of management.
  • To explain the theories of communication and process of communication so that they become adept at managing the process of communication.
  • To teach students different concepts, theories and models in the domain of marketing and communication.
  • To teach students how these concepts apply to digital medium and the way it can be used for effective decision making.
  • To teach concepts, theories and models which apply exclusively to domain of digital marketing and communication so that the students are able to understand similarity and differences between marketing and communicating in the brick and mortar world and in the digital worlds.
  • To teach specific methods and tools of marketing and communication applicable only to digital platforms like search marketing and social, local and mobile marketing
  • To teach managerial problems found specifically in digital domain and how the concepts learned can be applied to solve the problems
  • To help students learn the new paradigms and metrics of doing research that has emerged due to emergence of digital

COURSES (CORE AND ELECTIVE) **

24 MAJOR COURSES

1. Quantitative Methods

9. People Management

17. Digital Analytics and Campaign Planning

2. Communication Theory

10. Marketing & Advertising

18. Media Planning and Management

3. Managerial Economics

11. Digital Marketing

19. Digital Businesses

4. Advertising Strategy

12. Digital Visualization and Expression

20. Advanced Content Creation - Tools, Design and Application*

5. Business Research Methods

13. Digital Futures

21. Emerging Digital Technologies*

6. Consumer & Audience Behaviour

14. Social Media & Content Marketing

22. Digital Public Relations and Online Reputation Management*

7. Graduation Project

15. Operations Management

23. Direct marketing and CRM tools*
8. Financial Management for Communication

16. Search Marketing

24. Student Live Agency Project*

 * 4th year undergraduate courses

1. Quantitative Methods

Modern management is increasingly adopting quantitative methods in making strategic decisions. Though the uncertainty in business environment is increasing, the available data for making decision is also increasing at an extremely high rate. Managers are required to collect, analyze and interpret mathematical output for making decisions. The course has been designed to develop familiarity with application of statistical methods in managerial problem solving and decision-making.

2. Communication Theory

The 20th century has been the century of massive communication systems. Cinema, radio, television and now the internet have fundamentally transformed the way in which human societies communicate. However, media is routinely treated as something non-serious or simply ‘entertainment’ or at worst, devious. These positions need to be examined more critically. To understand the way the world works today, it is very crucial to undertake a deeper study of the structures, paradigms and institutions of communication.
The course aims to explain the development of media theories and how they link with historically important social and political events/issues. It seeks to acquaint students with the nature of communication processes; to develop a critical understanding of the strengths and limitations of basic theories of mass communication and the ability to apply those theories in research and everyday lives.

3. Managerial Economics

This course provides a solid foundation of economic understanding for use in managerial decision-making. The course provides students with a broad overview of both micro and macroeconomics and thus equips them with the knowledge, tools and techniques to make effective economic decisions under different business environments.

4. Advertising Strategy

The course aims to teach students identification of the role of advertising in marketing, enumerating the perils of not involving consumers in advertising planning, introducing students to concept of Account Planning, taking students through a planning model used in Advertising agencies, teaching students how to make an advertising campaign, training students to obtain consumer input for the purposes of brand planning, teaching students how to write creative briefs, practicing the skills needed by an account planner.

5. Business Research Methods

The objective of the course is to enable students to understand the role and importance of research in improving managerial decisions when faced with uncertainty. Statistical methods are applied in all functional areas of business: accounting, finance, management, and marketing. The issue facing managers is not a shortage of information but how to use the available information to make better decisions. Statistical thinking includes the recognition that data are inherently variable and that the identification measurement, control, and reduction of variation provide opportunities for quality improvement.

6. Consumer & Audience Behaviour

This course aims to help students understand the socio-cultural factors which shapes consumption decision making process, the psychological factors which shapes consumption decision making process and utilize this understanding to develop consumer insight and make marketing related decisions on its basis. Apply knowledge of consumer behaviour to understand a variety of marketing and branding situations.

7. Financial Management for Communication

The main goal of this course is to develop a foundation of financial management concepts. It helps the student in understanding the framework of accounting and the process of preparation of financial statements. It helps the participants to analyse the company's financial statements and make relevant decisions. The course will enable to understand how corporations make important investment and financing decisions, and how they establish working capital policies. This course is aimed at providing a brief history of Finance, a framework of understanding financial markets, architecture and systems. The course lays a foundation for more complex financial topics that will come up in elective courses. It seeks to provide students approaches in Financial Analysis, the Finance function and its interrelatedness with other areas of Business.

8. People Management

This course is an introduction to organizational behaviour and human resource management for undergraduates. It discusses behaviour in organizations at individual, group and organizational levels and the practices and tools for managing human resources effectively. It enables students to understand the underlying aspects that drive behaviour in organizations and what tools and practices can be employed to direct individual actions towards organizational objectives.

9. Marketing & Advertising

This course aims to explain the various factors influencing marketing decisions; to explain the concepts, tools and techniques of marketing; to teach the basic marketing mix; to showcase application of marketing concepts; to explain the importance and use of timely, accurate and actionable information on consumers and competitors; to develop basic skills in marketing analysis, decision and strategy formulation; to develop a managerial perspective and decision making ability for effective and efficient tackling of promotional situations; to provide an appreciation of the range of tools available for marketing communications; to provide an understanding of the basic principles of planning and execution in Marketing Communications; to appreciate different tools of communications and understand their integration and to discuss the effect of contemporary communication tools on target audience.

10. Digital Marketing

This course aims to outline the characteristics of the digital media and its utility in marketing; to develop an awareness of the various digital media options and outline approaches to using them in marketing brands; to take students through Google’s AdWords dashboard and guide them to make a basic search campaign using the AdWords Dashboard; to identify social media elements & show to use them in digital advertising; to explain commercial potential of social web & its integration into digital marketing strategy and to showcase advertising and marketing opportunities in social media and train to use them.

11. Digital Visualization and Expression

Human beings have an innate capacity for imagination, and its expression through writing, sketching, drawing, constructing, and acting-out and so on. The way visualizers form images in their mind's eye, constitutes a cognitive processes comparable with but different from, the verbal thinking.
This course introduces students with traditional and contemporary techniques of creative visualization for translating complex, abstract, unorganized, or unstructured ideas/ thoughts into valuable, meaningful visual language taking into account emerging digital vocabulary.
Introduction to these techniques and related theories of semiotics and its applications, will help student in conversion of thoughts/ concepts into visual language and vice-versa including their semantic analysis, exploration of the verbal concepts and the parallels available in other disciplines such as poetry, music, dance, theatre, film, literature etc. help develop new insights into the visualization strategies.

12. Digital Futures

The course will introduce the students on the multidimensional impact of digital technology and how it is changing the human experience. The course will also explore the different theoretical frameworks which can be utilized to examine the impact of digital and the multiple possible pathways of socio-cultural change.

13. Social Media & Content Marketing

This course aims to explain the concept of brand and related concepts like theories, concepts, strategies and practices of brand and product creation, maintenance and evolution; to explain different aspects of a brand; to inculcate the practice of effective brand management and to explain the intricate relationship between branding and advertising which is the key to developing product and communication strategies which lead to marketing success.

14. Operations Management

The aim of this course is to inculcate key concepts, basic issues, capabilities, limitations, and tools/technologies related to the operations function. This course also helps students understand and appreciate the role of operations in the firm’s overall strategy and its interdependence with the other firm functions, learn the key concepts, basic issues, capabilities, limitations, and tools/technologies related to the operations function in manufacturing and services firms and develop analytical and problem solving skills specific to operations area.

15. Search Marketing

This course will examine the 'search' as a media channel which consists of search engine marketing and search engine optimization. It will cover topics like search engine operation, ranking factors, key word analysis, search engine friendly design etc. In the domain of search engine marketing topics like search metrics, bidding, PPC strategies will be covered. The aim of the course is to make the students proficient in both paid and organic search marketing campaign. In addition it will also examine the creative, technical and managerial facets of digital display & video advertising.

16. Digital Analytics and Campaign Planning

This is an applied capstone course in which students learn digital analytics tools and apply this and all their learning from the digital marketing courses of earlier terms to effectively create and manage an integrated digital campaign for a real client. It will guide students to set digital campaign goals, chose apt digital media, choose target audiences, create campaigns, run it, monitor it, make changes and make post campaign reports. In this course students will participate in Google online marketing challenge (GOMC) and run a live digital campaign for a real client across search, display and social platforms

17. Media Planning and Management

This course helps students understand and be able to apply the concepts of supply and demand, equilibrium, and the factors that shift supply and demand to analyse the behaviour of real markets when conditions change, analyse the impacts of restricting markets from reaching the competitive equilibrium through price controls, taxes, and subsidies . It also helps them understand the difference between monopoly markets and competitive markets, the nature of production in the modern economy. Be able to identify the profit maximizing price and the relationship between different types of cost and apply the basic concepts of macroeconomics including the principles of banking, money-creation, income-determination, inflation and unemployment.

18. Digital Businesses

The course will Introduce students to various kinds of digital businesses, equip students with a framework to understand underlying Digital Business models and routes to market success, provide an understanding of different digital business strategies available and acquaint students with digital success and failure factors. It will also help them understand the gestalt of digital business.

19. Graduation Project

To be added soon

20. Advanced Content Creation - Tools, Design and Application

This course enables every student to develop a content brand- whether it’s a personal brand for themselves and their work, or for their clients/employers. They will learn how to create and curate content, especially across key digital and social media, for a given business and marketing strategy.

21. Emerging Digital Technologies

This course aims to allow students to familiarise themselves with the unfamiliar- the world of emergent digital technologies. In this course's journey, students will equip themselves with the "softer" side of technologies along with with hard facts and trends.

22. Digital Public Relations and Online Reputation Management

Digital PR and ORM are gaining ground as the world shifts to digital platforms for information, entertainment and purchase. This course will focus on how brands use digital platforms to monitor and ensure that people find the right materials when looking for them on the Internet.

23. Direct marketing and CRM tools

This course gives students an in-depth understanding of concepts strategies and applications involved in direct marketing and will give them an exposure to various CRM Tools and how they are used effectively by the organizations. As it is evident due to mass media clutter, it is becoming increasingly difficult for a marketer to command the attention of the target audience. Marketers are constantly seeking more effective methods to communicate with their customers and prospects. In ever-increasing numbers and a variety of ways, marketers are turning toward the use of direct marketing methods. This trend is expected to continue as relationship marketing has come into more widespread practice. Direct marketing techniques are evolving and marketers are finding new applications, to secure direct communications with customers/prospects, thereby improve the effectiveness of the marketing communication effort.

24. Student Live Agency Project

This is an applied capstone course in which students apply their learning from the courses of earlier terms to effectively create and manage an integrated marketing communications campaign for a real client.

17 MINOR COURSES

1. Quantitative Methods

8. Digital Businesses

15. Search Marketing

2. Communication Theory

9. Marketing & Advertising

16. Digital Analytics and Campaign Planning

3. Managerial Economics

10. Digital Marketing

17. Media Planning and Management

4. Advertising Strategy

11. Digital Visualization and Expression

18. Advanced Content Creation - Tools, Design and Application*

5. Business Research Methods

12. Digital Futures

19. Emerging Digital Technologies*

6. Consumer & Audience Behaviour

13. Social Media & Content Marketing

20. Digital Public Relations and Online Reputation Management*

7. Financial Management for Communication

14. Operations Management

21. Direct marketing and CRM tools*

* 4th year undergraduate courses

1. Quantitative Methods

Modern management is increasingly adopting quantitative methods in making strategic decisions. Though the uncertainty in business environment is increasing, the available data for making decision is also increasing at an extremely high rate. Managers are required to collect, analyze and interpret mathematical output for making decisions. The course has been designed to develop familiarity with application of statistical methods in managerial problem solving and decision-making.

2. Communication Theory

The 20th century has been the century of massive communication systems. Cinema, radio, television and now the internet have fundamentally transformed the way in which human societies communicate. However, media is routinely treated as something non-serious or simply ‘entertainment’ or at worst, devious. These positions need to be examined more critically. To understand the way the world works today, it is very crucial to undertake a deeper study of the structures, paradigms and institutions of communication.
The course aims to explain the development of media theories and how they link with historically important social and political events/issues. It seeks to acquaint students with the nature of communication processes; to develop a critical understanding of the strengths and limitations of basic theories of mass communication and the ability to apply those theories in research and everyday lives.

3. Managerial Economics

This course provides a solid foundation of economic understanding for use in managerial decision-making. The course provides students with a broad overview of both micro and macroeconomics and thus equips them with the knowledge, tools and techniques to make effective economic decisions under different business environments.

4. Advertising Strategy

The course aims to teach students identification of the role of advertising in marketing, enumerating the perils of not involving consumers in advertising planning, introducing students to concept of Account Planning, taking students through a planning model used in Advertising agencies, teaching students how to make an advertising campaign, training students to obtain consumer input for the purposes of brand planning, teaching students how to write creative briefs, practicing the skills needed by an account planner.

5. Business Research Methods

The objective of the course is to enable students to understand the role and importance of research in improving managerial decisions when faced with uncertainty. Statistical methods are applied in all functional areas of business: accounting, finance, management, and marketing. The issue facing managers is not a shortage of information but how to use the available information to make better decisions. Statistical thinking includes the recognition that data are inherently variable and that the identification measurement, control, and reduction of variation provide opportunities for quality improvement.

6. Consumer & Audience Behaviour

This course aims to help students understand the socio-cultural factors which shapes consumption decision making process, the psychological factors which shapes consumption decision making process and utilize this understanding to develop consumer insight and make marketing related decisions on its basis. Apply knowledge of consumer behaviour to understand a variety of marketing and branding situations.

7. Financial Management for Communication

The main goal of this course is to develop a foundation of financial management concepts. It helps the student in understanding the framework of accounting and the process of preparation of financial statements. It helps the participants to analyse the company's financial statements and make relevant decisions. The course will enable to understand how corporations make important investment and financing decisions, and how they establish working capital policies. This course is aimed at providing a brief history of Finance, a framework of understanding financial markets, architecture and systems. The course lays a foundation for more complex financial topics that will come up in elective courses. It seeks to provide students approaches in Financial Analysis, the Finance function and its interrelatedness with other areas of Business.

8. Digital Businesses

The course will Introduce students to various kinds of digital businesses, equip students with a framework to understand underlying Digital Business models and routes to market success, provide an understanding of different digital business strategies available and acquaint students with digital success and failure factors. It will also help them understand the gestalt of digital business.

9. Marketing & Advertising

This course aims to explain the various factors influencing marketing decisions; to explain the concepts, tools and techniques of marketing; to teach the basic marketing mix; to showcase application of marketing concepts; to explain the importance and use of timely, accurate and actionable information on consumers and competitors; to develop basic skills in marketing analysis, decision and strategy formulation; to develop a managerial perspective and decision making ability for effective and efficient tackling of promotional situations; to provide an appreciation of the range of tools available for marketing communications; to provide an understanding of the basic principles of planning and execution in Marketing Communications; to appreciate different tools of communications and understand their integration and to discuss the effect of contemporary communication tools on target audience.

10. Digital Marketing

This course aims to outline the characteristics of the digital media and its utility in marketing; to develop an awareness of the various digital media options and outline approaches to using them in marketing brands; to take students through Google’s AdWords dashboard and guide them to make a basic search campaign using the AdWords Dashboard; to identify social media elements & show to use them in digital advertising; to explain commercial potential of social web & its integration into digital marketing strategy and to showcase advertising and marketing opportunities in social media and train to use them.

11. Digital Visualization and Expression

Human beings have an innate capacity for imagination, and its expression through writing, sketching, drawing, constructing, and acting-out and so on. The way visualizers form images in their mind's eye, constitutes a cognitive processes comparable with but different from, the verbal thinking.
This course introduces students with traditional and contemporary techniques of creative visualization for translating complex, abstract, unorganized, or unstructured ideas/ thoughts into valuable, meaningful visual language taking into account emerging digital vocabulary.
Introduction to these techniques and related theories of semiotics and its applications, will help student in conversion of thoughts/ concepts into visual language and vice-versa including their semantic analysis, exploration of the verbal concepts and the parallels available in other disciplines such as poetry, music, dance, theatre, film, literature etc. help develop new insights into the visualization strategies.

 

12. Digital Futures

The course will introduce the students on the multidimensional impact of digital technology and how it is changing the human experience. The course will also explore the different theoretical frameworks which can be utilized to examine the impact of digital and the multiple possible pathways of socio-cultural change.

13. Social Media & Content Marketing

This course aims to explain the concept of brand and related concepts like theories, concepts, strategies and practices of brand and product creation, maintenance and evolution; to explain different aspects of a brand; to inculcate the practice of effective brand management and to explain the intricate relationship between branding and advertising which is the key to developing product and communication strategies which lead to marketing success.

14. Operations Management

The aim of this course is to inculcate key concepts, basic issues, capabilities, limitations, and tools/technologies related to the operations function. This course also helps students understand and appreciate the role of operations in the firm’s overall strategy and its interdependence with the other firm functions, learn the key concepts, basic issues, capabilities, limitations, and tools/technologies related to the operations function in manufacturing and services firms and develop analytical and problem solving skills specific to operations area.

15. Search Marketing

This course will examine the 'search' as a media channel which consists of search engine marketing and search engine optimization. It will cover topics like search engine operation, ranking factors, key word analysis, search engine friendly design etc. In the domain of search engine marketing topics like search metrics, bidding, PPC strategies will be covered. The aim of the course is to make the students proficient in both paid and organic search marketing campaign. In addition it will also examine the creative, technical and managerial facets of digital display & video advertising.

16. Digital Analytics and Campaign Planning

This is an applied capstone course in which students learn digital analytics tools and apply this and all their learning from the digital marketing courses of earlier terms to effectively create and manage an integrated digital campaign for a real client. It will guide students to set digital campaign goals, chose apt digital media, choose target audiences, create campaigns, run it, monitor it, make changes and make post campaign reports. In this course students will participate in Google online marketing challenge (GOMC) and run a live digital campaign for a real client across search, display and social platforms

17. Media Planning and Management

This course helps students understand and be able to apply the concepts of supply and demand, equilibrium, and the factors that shift supply and demand to analyse the behaviour of real markets when conditions change, analyse the impacts of restricting markets from reaching the competitive equilibrium through price controls, taxes, and subsidies . It also helps them understand the difference between monopoly markets and competitive markets, the nature of production in the modern economy. Be able to identify the profit maximizing price and the relationship between different types of cost and apply the basic concepts of macroeconomics including the principles of banking, money-creation, income-determination, inflation and unemployment.

18. Advanced Content Creation - Tools, Design and Application

This course enables every student to develop a content brand- whether it’s a personal brand for themselves and their work, or for their clients/employers. They will learn how to create and curate content, especially across key digital and social media, for a given business and marketing strategy.

19. Emerging Digital Technologies

This course aims to allow students to familiarise themselves with the unfamiliar- the world of emergent digital technologies. In this course's journey, students will equip themselves with the "softer" side of technologies along with with hard facts and trends.

20. Digital Public Relations and Online Reputation Management

Digital PR and ORM are gaining ground as the world shifts to digital platforms for information, entertainment and purchase. This course will focus on how brands use digital platforms to monitor and ensure that people find the right materials when looking for them on the Internet.

21. Direct marketing and CRM tools

This course gives students an in-depth understanding of concepts strategies and applications involved in direct marketing and will give them an exposure to various CRM Tools and how they are used effectively by the organizations. As it is evident due to mass media clutter, it is becoming increasingly difficult for a marketer to command the attention of the target audience. Marketers are constantly seeking more effective methods to communicate with their customers and prospects. In ever-increasing numbers and a variety of ways, marketers are turning toward the use of direct marketing methods. This trend is expected to continue as relationship marketing has come into more widespread practice. Direct marketing techniques are evolving and marketers are finding new applications, to secure direct communications with customers/prospects, thereby improve the effectiveness of the marketing communication effort.