My First Client…Independent Living Services for Youth

When my PR Campaigns class began the semester, I had no idea what I was about to get into. Was the class going to be hard? Or fun? Was it going to be rewarding? Will I gain the knowledge I need to work in the real world?
When ILSY (Independent Living Services for Youth) confronted our class about implementing a name change, PR Perceptions jumped right into the campaign with the most important step, research. We began our research with some secondary research and ultimately, found other organizations similar to ILSY. We also researched how implementing a name change can be a positive step in an organization and can create positive publicity and increase awareness.

My group also conducted primary research such as interviews, surveys, and focus groups. We began our primary research by interviewing Debra Krittenbrink, executive director of ILSY. This helped us gain more knowledge about what our client wanted in the new name. She told us she wanted the name to be short, about 1 to 3 words, and also said she did not want an acronym. We also interviewed ILSY board members and got their input about the name change.

Our next step was to create a survey to send to our publics, which were churches, donors and teachers/counselors. We created a survey with 14 questions and sent it out to about 40 people. Overall, we found that most of the participants agreed that the name ILSY was hard to remember. All agreed that a name change was needed.

From there, we came up with three different names: 1.) Bridge to Beyond 2.) Step to Tomorrow 3.) Uniting Futures for Youth. These name were well researched by our group to insure we were not violating copyright laws. We then conducted the last phase of our research, a focus group. We held the focus group on a Saturday morning and 4 people attended, including people from Norman Public School and churches. We asked them a wide range of open-ended questions to gain feedback. We found that they all agreed ILSY needed a name change, as some could barely remember what the acronym stood for after we told them for the first time. We found that they liked the names Bridge to Beyond and Step to Tomorrow.

Ultimately, our client chose the name “Bridges- Empowering Students Who Live Alone to Succeed”. Our group was thrilled that we helped chose the name, as it came from our name “Bridge to Beyond”. Overall, the campaign was a complete success and our research was a big reason why.