Advertising Design (BA)

The aim of this programme is to provide students with the creative skills and knowledge that are necessary for a successful career in advertising. The objective is to enable students to create and produce effective advertising based on marketing research, consumer behaviour study, strategic planning, creative concepts, art direction, copywriting, design techniques, communication skills and social responsibility. An understanding of the Hong Kong and Chinese mainland markets in the context of economic, cultural, social and technological development will underpin the curriculum. Our all-round approach to develop students’ professional and generic competence sets it apart from other universities or colleges.

Is Advertising Design for you?

• You possess a passion for persuasion centred on the relationship between image and word in advertising.
• You have the desire to succeed in a highly competitive industry and the ability to work under pressure.
• Your personality is flexible and sociable with a strategic and enquiring mind, because agency life is all about getting on with people, being able to work in a team and being able to convince clients of the merit of advertising proposals.
• You have a good command of English and Chinese languages.

Get to know more about this discipline from the faculty:

[Video] 廣告人誌：KC專訪 (by 廣告狂人 Madman Monologue | 12 Jan 2018 | Cantonese)

Students of the 4-years programme are required to complete a total of 124 credits in order to graduate; including 30 credits earned from General University Requirements subjects, 20 from Common Compulsory Subjects, and 74 from Discipline-Specific and Elective Subjects.

Senior year students are required to complete a total of 62–63 credits in order to graduate; including 9 credits earned from General University Requirements subjects, 12 from Common Compulsory Subjects, and 41 from Discipline-Specific and Elective Subjects.

✓  Compulsory Subjects

*Senior Year Students who fail to meet the equivalent standard of the Undergraduate Degree LCR will be required to take up to 9 credits of degree LCR subjects.

The Advertising Design programme will prepare students for careers in the advertising industry as art directors, copywriters, interactive designers, account executives, and marketing executives.

KC Tsang — Senior Teaching Fellow, BSc, MBA

Before starting his academic career in September 2009, KC has been a veteran advertising creative in the advertising industry for 22 years.

He joined Ogilvy and Mather HK in 1987 as a Junior Copywriter and got promoted to be a Creative Director in 1994 when his work won for Hong Kong the first regional best-of-the-best creative award in Asian Advertising Award.

Three years later, he spent the whole 1997 with Bozell Worldwide as a Creative Director, responsible for promoting the agency’s creative standard. In 1998, he joined BBDO HK as an Executive Creative Director. During a period of four years, he contributed significantly to making BBDO HK the most awarded and a highly profitable agency.

Before Christmas of 2001, KC and his partners started up his own company Chan Tsang Wong Chu & Mee Advertising Firm, which became the first 100% creative run advertising agency in HK, contributing significantly to the bloom of independent agencies in Hong Kong.

In the copycat world of advertising, KC and his long-term partners are in a minority. Defining themselves as "cultural symbolists", they create ads like no one else, including KCRC, Optical 88, SUNDAY mobile network, ING, KMB and E*Trade etc., praised and damned in equal measure, impossible to ignore, and garnering hundreds of international and local awards for creativity and effectiveness.

Besides winning creative awards, KC was often invited to sit on juries at respected award shows around the world, including Clio Awards, New York Festival, London Int'l Ad Awards, Asian Ad Awards, Ad Fest, Long Xi Creative Awards, the Times Asia-Pacific Advertising Awards, Taiwan 4A's and Hong Kong 4A's Creative Awards etc.

During his advertising career, KC continuously lectured part-time at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Hong Kong City University and the Hong Kong Baptist University, where he found that teaching is meaningful alternative way to contribute to the advertising industry.

KC was a graduate of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1986, with a major in Journalism and Communication around by a minor in Marketing. He also got a MBA degree in Hong Kong Baptist University in June 1997. Besides sharing his views on advertising and creativity in the interviews covered by newspapers, magazines and television channels, KC also wrote a book called "Nine out of ten ads are ugly".

• Francis Hung
• Alan Kan
• Pui Yuen Lee (Vincie)
• Stefan Rudolf Sonntag
• KC Tsang
• Man To Yiu

See also: Meet our staff