Abstract

As the advertising industry continues to expand, new graduates must navigate the profession in the face of increasing challenges. With competition in the job market growing and Generation Z valuing work-life balance, the advantage of quality advertising education becomes paramount. Current advertising education does not address the challenge of emotional labor that professionals will face in the field. With limited scholarship that explores emotional regulation, communication dynamics, and client relations in an academic advertising setting, emotional labor in advertising education is explored through a thoroughly documented experiential learning study. This study employs Participatory Action Research (PAR) to investigate, develop, and test advertising curriculum for emotional labor in collaboration with undergraduate students currently enrolled in strategic communication programs. Using an experiential learning scenario, students completed two Request for Proposals (RFP) over 9 weeks. A group of 7 students created advertising campaign materials, completed weekly qualitative surveys, and participated in focus groups. The data collected revealed themes such as students' lack of knowledge regarding display rules during client interactions, difficulties regulating emotions when receiving professional feedback, and the exploration of different emotional regulation strategies in response to the time to complete campaign tasks. The study further explores each theme, providing educators with insights about teaching emotions in the context of advertising academia. Recommendations are provided to help instructors begin to incorporate emotional labor education into their classrooms.

Degree

MA

College and Department

Fine Arts and Communications; Communications

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2025-07-29

Document Type

Thesis

Keywords

action research, advertising, emotional labor, experiential learning

Language

english

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