| Criterion | Check |
|---|---|
| Evidence capture | Screenshots and notes include query strings, date ranges, platform names, and collection dates |
| Trend and market insight evidence | The submission includes Trends evidence, market insight evidence (DataReportal, Market Finder, or equivalent), and a clear statement of the limits of each source |
| AI prompt log | Prompts, AI outputs used, evidence links, and student decisions are documented |
| Persona quality | The persona follows from evidence and avoids stereotypes |
| Theory link | The submission states whether uses and gratifications or social contagion guided a specific channel or message choice |
| Media plan consistency | Goal, channel, message, format, resource constraint, and metric align |
| Ethical reflection | The reflection states the limits of public signals |
| Presentation | The PDF is readable, cited, and ready for feedback |
Week 1 Independent Study and Submission
Self-learning Persona & Plan
Investigation
1 Plan, Sources & Setup
⏱ 45 min
Define campaign scope, gather 3–5 credible references, and set up the evidence worksheet and prompt-log template.
Investigation
2 Research & Capture
⏱ 75 min
Deepen reading; extract key signals and figures; annotate evidence items with source details and AI-assisted interpretation notes.
Production
3 Draft Package
⏱ 120 min
Write or refine the persona and one-week media plan with goals-to-channel-to-metric mapping. Remove or mark any unsupported AI claims.
Production
4 Edit & References
⏱ 60 min
Integrate citations, check coherence and filename consistency, and ready the PDF for export.
Assessment
5 Quiz & Submit
⏱ 60 min
Complete the short Moodle quiz; final PDF submission to Moodle by 23:59 MVT.
Your six hours of self-directed study happen outside class across the week. Use the time to deepen your evidence, refine your persona and media plan, complete the formative checklist, and submit your final PDF. The sections below give you the submission requirements, the checklist, and review questions to consolidate your learning.
Independent Study
Your six hours of independent study should turn your tutorial notes into a submission that another reader can verify. Use the time deliberately: 45 minutes to define scope, gather three to five credible references, and set up templates; 75 minutes to deepen your reading and capture further signals; 120 minutes to draft the persona and media plan; 60 minutes to edit, cite, and prepare the export; and 60 minutes to complete the quiz and submit your final PDF.
Your Week 1 submission should include:
- Campaign topic and scope.
- Three to five credible references.
- Search or trend evidence with query strings, date ranges, platform names, and data collection date.
- Market insight evidence (DataReportal, Market Finder, or equivalent) with input details, priority-market notes, screenshot, and collection date.
- Related query, public question, review, or conversation evidence.
- Completed evidence worksheet with at least four evidence items.
- AI prompt log with at least three prompts and student decisions.
- One-paragraph persona of three to four descriptive sentences.
- One-week media plan with channel, message, format, resource constraint, and metric.
- A 300-word reflection covering: (a) what the evidence supports, (b) one assumption that needs primary research to confirm, and (c) one ethical limit of using public traces for marketing decisions.
- One assumption that would require primary research, such as an interview, survey, usability test, or campaign experiment.
- A reference list in a consistent style.
The submission should read as a short argument. It should show what you investigated, what you found, how AI was used, what persona is justified, what plan follows, and where uncertainty remains. A strong submission makes a clear, evidence-informed decision while showing exactly where further testing is needed.
Formative Checklist
Use Table 1 before submission. The checklist is designed to catch unsupported AI wording, vague personas, and metrics that do not match the planned behaviour.
Review Questions
- What is the difference between a digital footprint and an audience signal?
- Why should public digital signals be interpreted cautiously?
- How does uses and gratifications theory improve channel selection?
- What makes a persona evidence-informed?
- A hotel notices that guests frequently search for “things to do near [hotel name]” after booking. Is this evidence, inference, assumption, or recommendation? Explain your classification.
- Why should each media activity have its own metric and resource constraint?
- How can AI support evidence interpretation while keeping student judgement at the centre of every claim?
- What information must be recorded when using Trends or a market insight source such as DataReportal?
TipWeek 1 at a glance
The central theoretical contribution of this week is the distinction between evidence, inference, assumption, and recommendation: the discipline that separates evidence-informed marketing from opinion-driven guesswork. Every campaign decision made across the next fourteen weeks traces back to this week’s framework. In Week 2 you will take the persona and channel thinking from this week and build them into a full planning canvas with positioning, communication models, and KPIs.
Key Takeaways
Digital marketing starts with digital life: the routines, questions, comparisons, communities, and traces that shape how people decide. The marketing environment now includes platforms, algorithms, communities, reviews, search systems, and data rules as well as traditional market forces. Public traces can help marketers understand an audience, but those traces become useful only when they are interpreted carefully and classified honestly as evidence, inference, assumption, or recommendation. AI can support this work when it helps students question, organise, and audit evidence rather than replace it. The Week 1 persona and one-week media plan give you a first method for turning digital evidence into a campaign decision that can be defended, tested, and revised.
In Week 2, you will develop this early audience understanding into a planning canvas with positioning, marketing mix decisions, communication models, decision rules, and KPIs. The persona you build this week is the starting point for that canvas.