Challenges in contemporary advertising: sustainability, global-local relations and platformization

The course introduces the recent debates on the challenges of contemporary advertising. 

*First, the environmental impact of different advertising models is covered in terms of the carbon footprint of digital advertising (automated auction, centralized real-time bidding, decentralized header bidding). It also presents the business and academic debates on the carbon footprint of data centers (data storage) as the backbone of a data-driven marketplace, along with possible solutions.

*Second, the course introduces students to the impact of the platformization on advertising, focusing on the aspects of the centralization of online advertising services and its challenges to the cultural intermediary role of advertising agencies. This part of the course also addresses current challenges to a sustainable workforce in the advertising sector, such as the impact of creative optimization tools, the need for upskilling, reskilling, and the current problems of "quiet quitting" and "great resignation”.

*Third, the practical results and theoretical implications of these challenges in the global-local context are presented. The course will cover the tension between digital technology and human knowledge in local contexts (e.g., the marketing tools of platforms such as Google and Facebook make it easier to localize a campaign, re-configuring the role of advertisers who authentically know the culture) and the extent to which local digital infrastructures enable/constrain digital campaigns.