Postgraduate Course: Pitching Your Stories, Services and Products (EFIE11435)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh Futures Institute |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Convincing and enrolling others to give opportunities and/or resources is a key aspect of leading, whether as a creative, technical expert, executive or government employee. This course will examine how to make your ideas 'sticky', how to frame and pitch them effectively, and how to use storytelling as a method to get your message heard and remembered. We will examine the accountability of stories, and how they are evaluated and judged by audiences. You will gain practical experience of framing and pitching your ideas to others. |
| Course description |
This course aims to develop students' theoretical understanding of pitching, framing, and storytelling alongside their practical ability to apply these frameworks in professional and creative contexts. The students will critically evaluate how stories are constructed, evaluated, and received by different audiences; identify and deploy effective framing strategies; and design and deliver pitches that are both theoretically grounded and practically effective.
The course draws on organisation and management studies and marketing to explore what makes ideas 'sticky', and how to use stories and storytelling as a method to do this. It makes use of ideas within economic sociology and social movement theory to understand theoretical underpinnings of framing and overflowing which is essential for the enrolment and mobilization of support and resources for ideas. It also examines performativity of stories and their future making capacity to understand why some ideas stick and shape the worlds they purport to describe.
Weekly sessions integrate conceptual input with in-class activities and discussion, allowing students to engage with ideas both analytically and practically. Students will apply their learning through case discussions, exercises, and group work, including practice pitch presentations that receive formative feedback. This feeds into a final assessed pitch presentation delivered in the final week of the course, alongside an individual written component. Guest contributions from practitioners and/or academics may be incorporated to illustrate different pitching contexts and approaches.
Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) - Hybrid Course Delivery Information:
The Edinburgh Futures Institute delivers many of its courses in hybrid mode. This means that you may have some online students joining sessions for this course. To enable this, the course will use technologies to record and live-stream student and staff participation during their teaching and learning activities.
Students should be aware that:
- Classrooms used in this course will have additional technology in place: in some cases, students might not be able to sit in areas away from microphones or outside the field of view of all cameras.
- All presentations, and whole class discussions will be recorded (see the Lecture Recording and Virtual Classroom policies for more details).
- You will need access to a personal computing device for this course. Most activities will take place in a web browser, unless otherwise stated. We recommend using a device with a screen, physical keyboard, and internet access.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 30 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 12,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 4,
Summative Assessment Hours 4,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
The course will be assessed by means of the following components:
1) Group Pitch Presentation (30%)
In groups, the students develop and pitch an idea in response to an assignment brief. Their pitch presentation should introduce their proposed idea, making use of any appropriate artefacts (e.g. slides, visuals, video material) to make their idea sticky. The pitch presentations will be delivered in class on the last week of the course. The students will be provided a marking criteria to assist in the assignment.
2) Individual Essay to Accompany the Video Pitch Presentation (70%)
Students will prepare a 2,000 word essay to accompany their pitch presentation. It should analyse and reflect on its theoretical underpinnings making use of the course materials and independent readings. The students will be provided a marking criteria to assist in the assignment. |
| Feedback |
Feedback on any formative assessment may be provided in various formats, for example, to include written, oral, video, face-to-face, whole class, or individual. The Course Organiser will decide which format is most appropriate in relation to the nature of the assessment.
Feedback on both formative and summative in-course assessed work will be provided in time to be of use in subsequent assessments within the course.
Feedback on the summative assessment will be provided in written form via Learn, the University of Edinburgh's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).
Formative Feedback Opportunity:
Formative feedback is ongoing feedback which monitors learning and is intended to improve performance in the same course, in future courses, and also beyond study.
Students will receive formative feedback at various points during the course:
- Through digital learning platform on individual pre-task.
- Throughout the teaching sessions in group discussions and activities, and practice pitch presentations to support in their final assessed group pitch presentations.
- Though online discussion board/email and Q&A sessions with the lecturer to support students in their final individual assessment. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of what makes ideas sticky.
- Frame and pitch original ideas collectively and individually.
- Apply storytelling as a method to enrol support for ideas.
- Apply critical analysis and work with theory on framing ideas.
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Reading List
Essential:
Heath, C. and Heath, D., 2008. Made to stick: Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck. Random House.
Recommended:
Benford, R.D. and Snow, D.A., 2000. Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment. Annual review of sociology, 26(1), pp.611-639.
Callon, M., 1998. An essay on framing and overflowing: economic externalities revisited by sociology. The Sociological Review, 46(1_suppl), pp.244-269.
Geiger, S. and Finch, J., 2016. Promissories and pharmaceutical patents: agencing markets through public narratives. Consumption Markets & Culture, 19(1), pp.71-91.
Holt, D. and Cameron, D. 2010. Cultural strategy: Using innovative ideologies to build breakthrough brands. Oxford University Press.
Holt, D.B. 2004. How brands become icons: The principles of cultural branding. Harvard Business Press.
Palo, T., Mason, K. and Roscoe, P., 2020. Performing a myth to make a market: The construction of the 'magical world' of Santa. Organization Studies, 41(1), pp.53-75.
Further Reading:
Czarniawska, B., 2004. Narratives in social science research. Sage.
Giesler, M., 2012. How doppelgänger brand images influence the market creation process: Longitudinal insights from the rise of botox cosmetic. Journal of Marketing, 76(6), pp.55-68.
Snow, D.A. and Benford, R.D., 2005. Clarifying the relationship between framing and ideology. Frames of protest: Social movements and the framing perspective, 205, p.209. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | Pitching,Framing,Storytelling,Sticky Ideas |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Teea Palo
Tel: (0131 6)51 1070
Email: Teea.Palo@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mr David Murphy
Tel:
Email: dmurphy7@ed.ac.uk |
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