Examines the undergraduate advertising curriculum structure both in public and private Thai universities, identifies required qualifications of advertising graduates in the workforce, explores the consistency between the required qualification of advertising graduates for universities and those in the workforce and, explores the consistency between the undergraduate advertising curriculum and the workforce demand. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used. First, 20 faculty members fully responsible for advertising curriculum both in public and private universities, and 25 executives and supervisors in full service advertising agencies were in-depth interviewed. Then, a survey was conducted with 59 advertising faculty members, 52 advertising executives and supervisors, and 216 senior advertising students. The result showed that there were 2 types of curriculum structures existed : consolidated and specialist. The consolicated one focused on producing graduates who are fully-loaded with general advertising knowledge and, therefore, are able to efficiently work or further their studies. The specialist one aimed at training graduates who are skillful on particular jobs in advertising (e,g, creative, account executive) the academics and the practitioners agreed that advertising graduates should have advertising and marketing knowledge, and proficiency in English communication, as well as possess the following qualifications : eager to learn, outspoken, enthusiastic, and patient. In addition, the quantitative findings indicated that the three parties agreed on details relating to advertising curricula and professional skill required for advertising graduate while the qualitative results showed both agreement and disagreement of advertising faculty and practitioners on various topics discussed.
