Assignments

Assignment overview

All assignments are submitted through Canvas. Due dates are Thursdays at 11:59 PM unless otherwise noted.

Assignment descriptions

Read the Cluetrain Manifesto (25 pts)

Due: Thursday, January 29

Read the “95 Theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto” and come prepared to discuss its relevance to modern media and strategic communications.

Cluetrain Manifesto media analysis (35 pts)

Due: Tuesday, February 3 at 10:00 AM (before class)

Find a piece of media that is relevant to the Cluetrain Manifesto and analyze how it connects to the document’s core ideas.

Instructions:

1. Find a piece of media — This could be an article, advertisement, social media post, video, podcast episode, company announcement, or any other piece of content that relates to the themes in the Cluetrain Manifesto.

2. Identify the relevant thesis/theses — Reference the specific item(s) from the 95 theses that your media example connects to. You can cite by number (e.g., “Thesis #7” or “Theses #12-14”).

3. Analyze the connection — In 1-2 paragraphs, explain:

   • How does this media example relate to the thesis/theses you identified?
   • Does this example illustrate that the principle still holds true 27 years after the manifesto was published (1999), or does it suggest the claim no longer resonates?
   • Why do you think this is the case?

Submission:

• Submit via Canvas text entry (not a file upload)
• Include a link to your media example
• 1-2 paragraphs (approximately 150-300 words)

Grading criteria:

• Clear connection to specific thesis/theses (10 pts)
• Thoughtful analysis of relevance in 2026 (10 pts)
• Writing clarity and mechanics (5 pts)

Tips:

• The manifesto was written in 1999, at the dawn of the commercial internet
• Consider how markets, companies, and conversations have changed (or haven’t)
• Strong submissions will go beyond surface-level observations to analyze why the principle does or doesn’t hold up

Design a slide deck that doesn’t suck (50 pts)

Due: Thursday, February 12

Create a 5-7 slide presentation on a topic of your choice that demonstrates strong design principles: visual hierarchy, contrast, alignment, and restraint.

Requirements:

• 5-7 slides maximum
• Minimal text (no paragraphs)
• Consistent visual style
• High-quality images or graphics
• Present to class during Week 4

Alien propaganda poster (50 pts)

Due: Tuesday, February 10 at 10:00 AM (before class)

Design an 8.5” x 11” vertical propaganda poster for a fictional alien society. You are the chief propagandist for an alien government — your job is to persuade the residents of your planet using the design principles we covered in class.

The scenario:

Invent an alien planet with its own name, government, and social structure. Then create a poster that communicates a specific persuasive message to the planet’s residents. This could be a recruitment ad, a public safety announcement, a loyalty campaign, a call to action — anything that a government might use to influence its citizens.

Requirements:

1. World-building — Give your alien planet a name, a type of government, and a reason for the propaganda. What are you trying to convince residents to do, believe, or feel?

2. Content — Your poster must include:
   • A catchy slogan or headline
   • At least one original symbol or logo for your alien society
   • Supporting text (a sentence or two that reinforces the message)
3. Design principles — Demonstrate what we covered in class:
   • Hierarchy — Guide the viewer’s eye to the most important information first
   • Contrast — Use color, size, or weight to create visual interest and emphasis
   • Recurring motif — Include at least one repeating visual element that ties the design together

4. Format — 8.5” x 11” vertical orientation. Submit as a PNG or PDF.

5. Tools — Use whatever you want: Canva, Photoshop, Figma, Illustrator, hand-drawn and scanned, AI image generators — your call. If you use AI tools, you still need to make intentional design decisions about layout, hierarchy, and composition.

Grading criteria:

• Clear persuasive message and world-building (10 pts)
• Effective use of hierarchy and contrast (15 pts)
• Original symbol/logo and recurring motif (10 pts)
• Overall visual quality and cohesion (10 pts)
• Correct format and on-time submission (5 pts)

Extra credit (5 pts):

You can earn up to 5 extra credit points by doing one or both of the following:

• Present your poster in class for a live critique
• Submit a written breakdown of your design decisions — explain what principles you used, what choices you made, and why

Submission:

Submit via Canvas before 10:00 AM on Tuesday, February 10. Upload your poster as a PNG or PDF file.

Research dossier (35 pts)

Due: Tuesday, February 24

The Research Dossier (or Landscape Scan) is your project’s living research document — a structured scratchpad where you map everything about your organization: competitors, audience, trends, gaps, and inspiration. This first submission is a low-stakes directional check, not a final draft. You’ll keep building it throughout the semester and submit the full version as part of the final project.

Choose your organization first. If you haven’t picked one yet, here’s what works well:

• A small-to-medium business (local coffee shop, bakery, gym) that’s good at what it does but has clear marketing gaps
• A local or community organization (a theater, a non-profit, a community group)
• A fictional brand you create from scratch
• A hyper-specific campaign for a larger brand (one product launch, one regional initiative)

Avoid large dominant brands (Disney, Apple, the Knicks) — their existing professional work is overwhelming and limits your creative freedom. If you’re unsure whether your choice works, come to office hours or reply to this assignment.

What to include:

• Competitor analysis — 3–5 competitors or comparable organizations, covering social media presence, pricing, and key messaging
• Audience analysis — current vs. potential audience; who they are and what they need
• SWOT analysis — Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
• Inspiration — content or campaigns that could inform your approach
• Customer persona(s) — at least one draft persona: a short bio, typical daily schedule, goals, and pain points

Submission:

Set up one Google Drive folder for your entire final project. Set sharing permissions to “Anyone at Montclair State University can edit.” Submit that folder’s URL in Canvas — this one-time setup covers all future assignment submissions and gives me editor access to leave inline comments.

Grading:

This submission is graded on completion and general direction (35 points), not on the quality or depth of the content. Show me you’ve picked an organization and started gathering real information.

More details about this deliverable.

User/customer persona (75 pts)

Due: Thursday, February 26

Create 2–3 detailed customer/user personas for your final project organization. A persona is a fictional-but-research-grounded profile of one specific type of customer — specific enough that you can design and write content for that person directly.

As we discussed in class: personas lead directly to campaign ideas. A persona who commutes to work every morning and stops for coffee on the way becomes the premise for a morning-rush loyalty campaign. Build the person first, and the ideas follow.

Each persona should include:

• Bio — 1–2 sentences to give the person a face. Name, age, occupation, and a detail that makes them real.
• Material conditions — the external structures shaping their life: income range, transportation (car, bus, on foot), childcare responsibilities, work schedule flexibility. These constrain what’s possible for this person.
• Typical day — walk through their daily schedule at the level of detail that’s relevant to your organization. Where are they? What devices are they on? When do they have time to engage?
• Digital habits — not just “uses Instagram” but how they use it. What accounts do they follow? Do they scroll comments? Do they click links in bio? Where do they discover new things?
• Goals — what are they trying to accomplish, both generally and in moments relevant to your organization?
• Pain points — what frustrates them? What problems are they actively trying to solve?
• How they interact with your organization — what brings them in, what keeps them coming back, and what could drive them away?

The personas should be distinct from each other. Don’t create three versions of the same 22-year-old. Push yourself to understand at least two meaningfully different customer types.

Submission:

Add your persona document to your project Google Drive folder. Submit the folder URL in Canvas.

More details about this deliverable.

Campaign strategy (75 pts)

Due: Thursday, March 5

Write a 1–2 page strategic document that bridges your research dossier and your creative production. This is the plan before you make anything — what you’re doing, why, where, and how you’ll know if it worked.

Your personas are the foundation. Before you write a single word of this document, look at the people you built. Your strategy should flow directly from what those personas want, where they spend time, and what problems they’re trying to solve.

Structure your strategy using this framework:

1. Goal — one specific, measurable statement of what the campaign accomplishes. Name the audience, the outcome, and a timeframe. Start with a high-level aim (“increase foot traffic”), then drill down to the core business objective (“increase weekday lunch sales by 20% among remote workers by June 1”). One campaign, one primary goal.

2. Strategies — 2–4 broad directional approaches to reaching that goal. Strategies explain why you’re doing something and where you’re showing up — not what specifically you’ll do.

3. Tactics — the specific, actionable things you’ll do to execute each strategy. Each tactic should map to a strategy. “Post on Instagram three times a week” is a tactic, not a strategy.

4. KPIs — 3–5 metrics you’ll track to measure success. Check your analytics before you write these — you need a baseline to measure progress. Pick numbers tied to real business outcomes, not vanity metrics like follower counts.

5. CTAs — the specific actions you want your audience to take. Define these upfront so they’re consistent across all content.

Also include:

A two-week sample content calendar showing what you’d post, where, and when — enough to show you’ve thought about posting frequency and platform mix.

Submission:

Add the campaign strategy to your project Google Drive folder. Submit the folder URL in Canvas (same link as the research dossier — no new folder needed).

More details about this deliverable.

Critical copywriting (100 pts)

Due: Tuesday, March 17 at 10:00 AM

For this assignment, you will consider and implement the principles of copywriting from the reading by William Zinsser to write a blog post for the company or organization you’ve chosen for your final project, plus a few social media posts to accompany the blog post once it’s published. Your blog post and social media posts should be tailored to your customer/audience persona(s).

The “calling bullshit” piece

Purpose: One of your blog posts/newsletters/essays must critically examine a problematic practice, misleading claim, industry myth, or bullshit convention in your organization’s field or industry.

Why this matters: Strategic communicators need to understand not just how to promote organizations, but how to think critically about industry practices. The best communicators can identify when their field is full of it—and either push for change or communicate more honestly.

What this looks like:

• Challenge a common marketing tactic that misleads consumers
• Expose an industry practice that serves companies but harms users
• Debunk a widespread myth or assumption in your field
• Question a trend that everyone’s following without thinking critically
• Call out performative practices (greenwashing, rainbow capitalism, etc.)
• Highlight organizations or creators doing it right as counterexamples—don’t just tear down, show what the alternative looks like
• Subtly position your chosen organization as one that takes a different approach (without making it feel like a sales pitch)

Remember the principles of good copywriting

As you write, consciously apply principles from the reading, such as:

• Eliminating clutter and striving for simplicity
• Choosing words carefully for their meaning and sound/rhythm
• Writing in an engaging first-person voice
• Varying sentence structure and length for cadence
• Considering context and audience needs
• Breaking any “rules” deliberately when it strengthens your writing

Your goal is to take complex information and express it precisely and persuasively through strategic use of language.

Examples

For corporate/brand projects:

• Fashion brand: “Why ‘sustainable fashion’ from fast fashion brands is mostly bullshit” (spotlight actual sustainable brands, note how your chosen brand approaches transparency differently)
• Tech startup: “The ‘we’re a family’ culture myth and why it’s toxic” (highlight companies with honest workplace cultures, mention how your organization structures team dynamics)
• Fitness brand: “How wellness influencers sell pseudoscience with pretty graphics” (showcase evidence-based creators, position your brand’s science-backed approach)
• Food company: “‘Farm to table’ doesn’t mean what you think it means” (feature restaurants doing real local sourcing, acknowledge your company’s actual sourcing practices)

For local business projects:

• Local coffee shop: “Why third-wave coffee shops are pricing out the communities they claim to serve” (highlight accessible cafes building actual community, show how your shop balances quality with accessibility)
• Local bookstore: “Independent bookstores aren’t automatically better—here’s what actually makes them valuable” (call out performative localism, spotlight stores doing real community programming, position your bookstore’s approach)
• Local restaurant: “The ‘authentic ethnic cuisine’ marketing problem and who it actually serves” (examine exploitation of cultural capital, highlight restaurants owned by people from those cultures, discuss your restaurant’s honest positioning)
• Local gym/studio: “Boutique fitness’s Instagram aesthetic problem” (critique exclusionary wellness culture, showcase inclusive fitness spaces, explain your gym’s accessibility commitments)

For student organization projects:

• Campus activism group: “Why awareness campaigns without action plans are performative bullshit” (critique slacktivism, highlight orgs doing concrete work, explain your group’s theory of change)
• Student media organization: “How campus media just reprints administration PR without questioning it” (call out institutional capture, spotlight student outlets doing actual journalism, describe your editorial standards)
• Cultural student group: “Heritage month programming that treats culture like a museum exhibit” (critique tokenization, show orgs centering community voices year-round, explain your organization’s approach)
• Academic/professional club: “Why your resume-building club isn’t actually building anything” (question transactional networking culture, highlight orgs creating real value, position your club’s mission)

For issue/advocacy campaign projects:

• Environmental campaign: “Why corporate ‘carbon neutral’ pledges are mathematical fiction” (expose offset schemes, highlight actual emission reduction efforts, frame your campaign’s concrete demands)
• Mental health advocacy: “The ‘mental health awareness’ industrial complex isn’t making anyone healthier” (critique awareness-washing, spotlight orgs providing actual resources/support, explain your campaign’s tangible goals)
• Housing justice campaign: “Luxury ‘affordable housing’ and other developers’ lies” (expose misleading affordable housing claims, highlight actual affordable housing models, connect to your campaign’s policy demands)
• Education equity initiative: “Why ‘school choice’ rhetoric ignores who actually gets to choose” (examine whose interests choice policies serve, spotlight genuine equity efforts, frame your campaign’s alternative vision)

For startup/emerging company projects:

• EdTech startup: “Why most educational technology just digitizes bad teaching” (critique tech solutionism in education, highlight tools built with actual pedagogical research, explain your product’s learning theory)
• Social app/platform: “How ‘community-building’ platforms extract value from communities without giving back” (examine platform capitalism, spotlight co-op or user-owned alternatives, describe your platform’s different model)
• Sustainability product startup: “The reusable product industry’s single-use plastic problem” (call out sustainable products with unsustainable supply chains, highlight truly circular businesses, explain your product’s lifecycle)
• Healthcare/wellness startup: “‘Disruption’ in healthcare usually means disrupting access” (critique VC-backed health tech ignoring uninsured populations, showcase actual community health innovations, position your startup’s approach to accessibility)

The strategic thread

This piece should function as thought leadership for your organization. By calling out industry bullshit and highlighting better alternatives, you’re implicitly (or explicitly, but tastefully) positioning your chosen organization as part of the solution. Think of this as:

1. Establish the problem (here’s the bullshit)
2. Show it can be done better (here are organizations doing it right)
3. Connect to your organization (and here’s how we/they approach it differently)

The key is making that third part feel earned, not forced. It should read like journalism with a point of view, not a disguised advertisement.

Tone guidance:

• Be critical but not cynical
• Use evidence, not just opinion
• You can be pointed without being mean
• Channel your inner Mencken (see the readings) but stay professional
• This should feel like good investigative journalism, not a rant
• Show the path forward—criticism is more effective when you demonstrate viable alternatives
• When you mention your organization, do it naturally—as one example among others, or as context for why you’re writing about this topic

Strategic angle

Think about how understanding these problems makes you a better communicator for organizations. If you can identify bullshit in your industry, you can help your future employers avoid it—or communicate more authentically when everyone else is being fake. And by highlighting the organizations doing it right (including your own), you’re showing that better practices aren’t just theoretical—they’re actually working for real companies.

This is the kind of content that actually builds brand authority and trust—not by bragging about your organization, but by demonstrating you understand the industry’s problems and know how to spot the difference between performance and substance.

Submission:

Add your blog post and social media posts to your project Google Drive folder. Submit the folder URL in Canvas.

More details about this deliverable.

Social media promotion (75 pts)

Due: Tuesday, March 24

Create a social media promotion package for your blog post: featured images, social graphics, and platform-specific social copy. This is where your writing meets its audience — everything needed to make people click, read, and share.

You already wrote social posts alongside your blog post for the critical copywriting assignment. This time, refine that work with the platform-specific guidance from class and pair it with visuals that earn the click.

Deliverables:

• 2 featured images — graphics for blog post social previews (1200×630 pixels). These appear when your content is shared as a link on social media and determine whether someone clicks through.
• 4 social media graphics — standalone images for direct posting (1080×1080 pixels). These need to work on their own, without the context of an article.
• Social copy for at least 3 platforms — one must be Twitter/X (280 chars max). Choose two more from Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook. Platform-specific — not the same text on every platform.

Requirements:

• Consistent with your style guide (colors, fonts, visual language)
• Alt text for every image
• Exported as PNG or JPEG, optimized for web

Submission:

Add all image files and your social copy document to your project Google Drive folder — do not embed images in a Google Doc. Submit the folder URL in Canvas.

Full assignment details.

Brand kit and style guide

Due: Tuesday, April 7

Draft review: Thursday, April 2 (in-class)

Create a style guide that codifies every visual and verbal decision for your brand. The goal: anyone following the guide could produce content for your organization — a social media post, a flyer, an email — and the audience wouldn’t notice the difference.

What to include:

1. Logo and mark rules — Approved logo versions (full color, white-on-dark, black-on-light, icon-only), minimum sizes, clear space requirements, and a “don’t do this” section showing misuse.

2. Color palette — Exact hex codes for primary colors (2–3), secondary/accent colors (1–2), and neutrals for backgrounds and text. Include usage notes for each color.

3. Typography — Exact font names, weights, and size ranges for headlines, body copy, subheadings, and captions. Specify what’s forbidden (e.g., “never use more than two typefaces in a single design”).

4. Voice and tone — Voice is consistent (who the brand is, always). Tone shifts by context — define it for at least three situations (e.g., social media, apology, product description).

5. Grammar and mechanics — The small decisions that matter for consistency: capitalization, Oxford comma, number formatting, punctuation rules.

6. Image and photography style — Describe the visual aesthetic: lighting, color temperature, subject matter, what to avoid. If using illustrations, define the style.

Bring a draft to class on Thursday, April 2 for in-class peer review.

Submission:

Add your style guide to your project Google Drive folder.

More details about this deliverable.

Final project: Multimedia campaign (500 pts)

Due: Tuesday, May 5

Create a multimedia campaign for a real or fictional organization. All assignments from here on are deliverables for this project — you’re building it piece by piece throughout the semester.

Choose your organization wisely. Avoid large, dominant brands (Disney, Apple, the Knicks) — their existing professional work is too high a bar to compete with and limits your creative freedom. Strong options:

• A small-to-medium business (local coffee shop, bakery, gym) that’s good at what it does but weak on marketing
• A local or niche organization (a theater, a community group, a non-profit)
• A fictional brand you invent from scratch
• A hyper-specific campaign for a large brand (e.g., one product launch or one regional initiative)

Required deliverables:

1. Style guide and branding kit — A detailed manual with specific rules for fonts, colors (primary and secondary palettes), tone, grammar, and design elements. Goal: anyone following the guide could post for the company without the audience noticing a difference. More details about this deliverable.

2. Research dossier — Your living internal document: competitor analysis, audience analysis, SWOT, and inspiration. (Built throughout the semester.) More details about this deliverable.

3. Customer/user personas — 2–3 fictional profiles of ideal customers, each with a bio, typical day, goals, and pain points. These lead directly to campaign ideas. More details about this deliverable.

4. Campaign strategy document — A 1–2 page plan structured as: Goal → Strategies → Tactics → KPIs (success metrics) → CTAs (calls to action). More details about this deliverable.

5. Two written pieces — One must be a “call-out” piece: identify an industry problem, explain its impact, and highlight brands doing it right. More details about this deliverable.

6. Two featured images — Graphics for blog post social previews (1200×630 pixels). These boost click-through rates when your posts appear in social feeds. More details about this deliverable.

7. Four social media graphics — Standalone images for direct posting (1080×1080 pixels). Must be visually compelling on their own. More details about this deliverable.

8. Nine social media captions — Three must be for Twitter/X to practice writing within the character limit and force conciseness. More details about this deliverable.

Submission note: For any graphics embedded in Google Docs, you must also include the raw image files (PNG or JPEG) in your shared project folder.

Presentation: You will present your campaign during finals week. Be prepared to walk through your strategic decisions and explain each deliverable.

Submission guidelines

• All assignments submitted through Canvas
• Use Google Docs for written work — share with “Anyone with the link can edit” and uncheck “Notify me”
• Images should be high-resolution exports (PNG preferred)
• Include alt text for all images
• Late work loses 10% per day