The NYU/ARF Certificate in Marketing Optimization and Insights

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Foundations of Advertising Insights and Marketing Analysis

This foundational course introduces students to the use of research and insights in developing the marketing and advertising journey. Students will understand the steps in developing an advertising campaign, establish campaign objectives and strategy, and discuss media planning and campaign evaluation. Students will examine why quantitative and qualitative research is important, and its role in the marketing and advertising journey. Because data is a basic foundation in marketing and advertising, students will learn how First-, Second-, and Third-Party data are used. This course will cover analyzing behavioral data to offer deep understanding about the customer, how it can be useful to set campaign goals, and to measure impact. Students will learn why and when experimentation is used in advertising research, how to develop a Design of Experiment, and to create and test hypotheses. Finally, students will learn to evaluate the impact of different media and the media-mix on achieving specific organizational and communications goals. Students will gain the ability to:

  • Evaluate the range of research methodologies for the advertising and marketing purpose
  • Develop an understanding of qualitative and quantitative research methods
  • Analyze various types of behavioral data for measuring campaign impact
  • Design appropriate success metrics and measurement plan
  • Develop a high-level research plan to address a marketing need

Professor: Debbie Brandwene — Principal Consultant, JFL Marketing, LLC (1st Half Term)

Professor: Court Stroud — Founder, Managing Director, The Cledor Group (2nd Half Term)

Professor: Joseph Panzarella — Assistant Adjunct Professor, NYU School of Professional Studies

Achieving Consumer Centricity

Some marketers still take an inside-out approach to their marketing, that starts with what their products are all about and what they can offer. This course will focus on the critical importance of placing the consumer at the center of all aspects of the market research and data analysis process, and thus driving marketing decisions that focus on the consumer and increase the likelihood of positive business outcomes. Students will develop an understanding of how the brand fits within the competitive landscape, who the core consumers are, and the value a brand brings to its consumers.  This course also covers how to identify current cultural and environmental trends impacting how customers operate and how a brand should be positioned relative to consumer needs.  Students will also understand how to adjust the marketing/ advertising as needs of the customers change, and learn how to create and cultivate an organization culture of consumer centricity. Students will gain the ability to:

  • Analyze the business value of consumer-centricity for organizations and quantify the impact that different internal and external forces can have on consumer-centricity
  • Demonstrate how modern consumer-centric strategies and tactics impact a brand across the three dimensions of brand value, consumer promise and category competitors
  • Identify, collect and analyze multiple sources of consumer-centric data to highlight relevant consumer trends, including when and how a company should pursue the most profitable territories
  • Synthesize multiple sources of consumer-centric data into an easy-to-understand and implementable picture of a brand’s consumer targets
  • Document a plan for what is needed to extend consumer-centricity into a shared operating principle across an organization

Professor: Abigail Hollister — Partner, The Rational Heart

Professor: Stephen DiMarco — Co-Founder and President,  Navigating Growth Partners

Campaign Objectives & Strategy

Every effective advertising campaign begins with understanding the objectives and developing a strategy for the campaign.  This course will prepare students to build an integrated campaign plan, which includes identifying the objectives that a particular marketing campaign is meant to achieve, understanding the audience for the campaign and their specific needs and wants, and developing the right messages that speak to the target audience’s needs.  Students will assess the competitive landscape and develop a campaign which addresses the gaps in the market that have been identified.  This course also examines the success metrics that will be used to evaluate the campaign’s effectiveness and the associated measurement tools that will be needed. Students will gain the ability to:

  • Establish campaign objectives and map these campaign objectives to the business problem
  • Align the research plan with the campaign objectives
  • Critique a campaign strategy
  • Create a high-level marketing campaign strategy

Professor: David Shiffman — EVP, National Research & Analytics, iHeartMedia

Discovering and Testing the Key Consumer Insight

Nowadays, marketers have a lot of data, information, findings and observations about their customers and target audience. Synthesizing all that information into insights, and then deciding on the single most powerful and motivating insight is critical to marketing success. This course will cover the process and tools used to determine deep consumer insights and how marketers decide on the most appropriate insights for a marketing campaign. Students will examine case studies of how consumer insight is leveraged in organizations for strategic decision making for ad campaigns. They will determine the target audience for the purpose of brand and portfolio positioning, segmentation and business strategy for competitive context. This course will examine ways to approach research to generate the foundational insight about the target consumer, and the psychological/motivational construct that will be the foundation of a campaign and how it will connect with consumer desires/needs and feelings. Students will gain the ability to:

  • Highlight the key consumer and cultural trends for a target audience
  • Identify the foundational insights about the target audience
  • Evaluate and assess a segmentation scheme to determine the primary target audience(s)
  • Develop and bring to life an audience profile
  • Create a robust consumer journey for a target audience

Professor: Andy Smith — 

Informing Creative Development

This course will give students hands-on experience in acquiring and using tools to deliver effective business-building creative assets. Students will learn the research approaches to inform the balance between rational vs. emotional messaging and learn the research tools required to develop the messaging language to ensure clarity and brand consistency across audiences and segments. Students will gain the ability to:

  • Integrate existing and new data sources to develop a strategy to address a key insight
  • Recommend research approaches to inform the balance between rational and emotional messaging
  • Design appropriate messaging research to support a campaign platform
  • Integrate insight inputs into an impactful creative brief to assist in generating a campaign platform
  • Recommend a testing plan for a creative campaign
    Recommend research tools and optimizations for creative assets cross channels

Professor: Ann Green – Greenlight Consulting LLC

Media Assessment & Tactical Planning

This course will cover how media are evaluated, planned and bought for marketing campaigns. It will introduce the methodologies and approaches used in media planning (e.g. panel vs. census, syndicated media planning, programmatic buying, etc.). Students will learn to define media objectives vs. goals vs. strategies, and to connect media objectives to marketing and advertising objectives. This course will examine planning and measurement for television, including national (broadcast/cable), local, and syndication; satellite/cable; video on demand; streaming TV, and Digital Media.. Planning for radio, print, and out of home will also be covered in this course. Students will examine the types of owned media (e.g., sponsorship, content integration) vs. earned media (e.g., word of mouth, influencers), trends in media consumption and how each type are planned, utilized, and measured. Students will gain the ability to:

  • Develop media objectives for a plan including reach, frequency, click through rates, time on site, conversion, view through, and other KPIs
  • Evaluate the impact of paid, owned, and earned media, individually and collectively
  • Develop the elements of a media plan for an assigned brand
  • Evaluate the success of a media plan

Professor: Helen Katz — EVP, Research, Publicis Media

Campaign Effectiveness Measurement

This course examines the value of campaign effectiveness measurement and how it has evolved with the advertising ecosystem, and the role of campaign measurement for companies and the marketing industry. Students will measure the difference between key performance indicators, engagement metrics, and outcome metrics and get a detailed overview of the main measurement tools used in marketing today. Each professor is an experienced practitioner with extensive knowledge and experience in the marketing research field. Their real-world perspective, coupled with a competitive curriculum, will provide students with the ability to deliver state-of-the-art professional research support to drive marketing impact in the modern world. Students will gain the ability to:

  • Communicate the strategic importance of campaign measurement for senior management
  • Develop a measurement plan that aligns metrics with campaign goals and business objectives
  • Compare and contrast different measurement tools and modeling approaches to support decision making
  • Assess current and future external factors that can impact campaign measurement
  • Recommend reallocation of media spend across channels, tactics, creative assets based on in-market performance

Professor: Sean Merriweather — VP, Product Marketing & Strategy, Publicis Media

NEW: TOOLS FOR APPLICATION OF LLMS TO MARKETING & ADVERTISING RESEARCH

This course provides hands-on experience with large language models (LLMs) and their practical uses in marketing and advertising. It focuses on implementing LLMs for tasks such as sentiment analysis, persona development, content generation, and market trend analysis, equipping students with the skills needed to apply AI-driven insights strategically in real-world marketing and advertising research. Students will gain the ability to:

    • Understand the key functions and applications of LLMs in marketing and advertising research.
    • Conduct sentiment analysis and market research using LLMs, enhancing qualitative and quantitative insights.
    • Develop AI-driven content and personas, integrating LLMs into creative processes.
    • Utilize LLMs for competitive intelligence and trend analysis in marketing campaigns.
    • Evaluate and mitigate the ethical and legal considerations of using AI in marketing and advertising research.

Professor: Paul Donato, Chief Research Officer, Advertising Research Foundation

NEW: Strategic and Managerial Considerations in Use of LLMs in Marketing & Advertising Research

This course focuses on the integration of large language models (LLMs) from both a strategic and operational perspective. Students will explore how LLMs can drive innovation in marketing research, develop data-driven personas, and influence decision-making processes. Additionally, the course will emphasize how businesses can use LLMs for competitive advantage, optimize team management in AI-driven environments, and address key ethical challenges, ensuring that strategic deployments of AI align with organizational goals and market realities. Students will gain the ability to:

  • Understand the foundational role of LLMs in marketing and advertising research.
  • Apply game theory and scenario planning techniques using LLMs to assess campaign outcomes.
  • Develop and validate marketing personas enriched by LLM-driven insights.
  • Integrate LLMs into team workflows, focusing on documentation, code review, and process improvement.
  • Analyze ethical concerns related to LLM use, including bias, privacy, and transparency issues.


Professor: Steven Millman, Global Head of Research & Data Science, Dynata

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