Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Fading Traditions


Fading Tradition


How do you want to remember college or your classmates? Do you want be able to pick up your yearbook of the shelf at anytime? Or click online to communicate with old friends? Traditionally, one might have said through the yearbook. Today, you might find many students wanting instant gratification to connect with their classmates by using sites, such as Facebook and Myspace. These sites give students immediate interaction unlike a yearbook. A student has to wait a whole year to receive their yearbook. When they purchase the book they have no idea what is going to be the outcome of their purchase or if they are going to be featured in the book.

In my PR Campaigns group, Innovative PR, was assigned Sooner yearbook as our client. Lori Brook, Sooner yearbook advisor, and her staff are having trouble reaching out to students. Another problem they are dealing with is lack of sales, which is due to the first problem. Our group is in the process of promoting nostalgia and increasing awareness of the yearbook.

In an article from The New York Times, “A spokesman for Jostens Inc., the nation’s biggest yearbook publisher, said at some large campuses where students had less of a sense of belonging, yearbooks suffered declines but sales remained strong at many smaller ones.”

Through our research for the yearbook we discovered that many students are not aware that OU has a yearbook. The students that we have found that are aware simply do not care to purchase a yearbook. Their reasoning for not purchasing one is that they are afraid of not being in there and it is too expensive.

Innovative PR has designed a campaign from the outcome of both our primary and secondary research that we think will help increase awareness and promote nostalgia. We will be passing out stickers at Big Event this Saturday and we are screening a movie that is about remembering college life.

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