Working with Little Budget, and the Power of Networking

By Natalie Beasley

Through out this course of Public Relations campaigns, we have constantly been working towards goals, to succeed for our clients, and to successfully pull off an event with little or no money. I began thinking about this more today when my group hosted a silent auction in the Oklahoma Memorial Union Molly Shi Ballroom benefiting Big Brothers Big Sisters of Cleveland county. A couple weeks ago, there was frustration and confusion, and at times just pure chaos. However, today when the event went flawless, and was a complete success, it all started making sense.
Every day agencies are faced with the challenge to put on events with little or no money. Before we were faced with this challenge I just believed that there was always money for the events to happen. Who would have guessed that a great event could be put on with such a low budget? As a group we were forced to work with the community, and work with local businesses in order to have items to auction off, as well as working with all local media to get publicity.
I feel like more than ever in this day and age, public relations and the success of a campaign can deal a great deal on who you know and who is willing to help out. Networking is the basis of success. Gaylord College has prepared all the students in the college to be successful through networking. I have been very impressed with all the people I have met through the University of Oklahoma’s journalism school.
Through the process of networking with the Norman community, and working with our client, as well as the Campus Activities Council, we were able to have great success, and have so many great things and entertainment that we got all for little or no cost. Public relations is not all about the money and events really can be successful without all the cash flow.

Twitter and ESPN

By Dara Hollingsworth

We can all agree that Twitter now plays a role in public relations as is evident from the recent guest speaker in our class, Barbara Gibson, a Twitter expert. I guess I have been slightly slow to accept the whole Twitter thing, I have an account but it was updated once, nine months ago when I created an account for Public Relations Writing. But I became convinced Twitter was here to stay while watching the OU Women’s Basketball team’s recent run to the Final Four on ESPN. The commentators and analysts mentioned Twitter numerous times because ESPN has a Twitter account. The account is used primarily for feeding followers story headlines from ESPN. Additionally, Rebecca Lobo, a women’s basketball commentator, urged viewers to follow her on Twitter to get an insider’s look into the tournament.

As of now ESPN has over 63,000 followers while it is following over 69,000. So what is ESPN’s purpose of all that twittering? Maybe it has something to do with an attempt to humanize the brand. It can allow ESPN to make a personal connection with its many admirers. It can be used to measure the perception of the network. The list of the positives goes on and on.

So will other networks follow ESPN? It appears they already have. All the major networks have some sort of Twitter account and CNN Breaking News has over 792,000 followers. Which just further proves that, like it or not, Twitter is here to stay.

PR Everywhere

by Simone Fraid

PR is all around us. The efforts of people and organizations to get there messages across permeate our lives. This was especially evident at the free premiere of Observe and Report in Meacham on Friday night co-sponsored by CAC and UPB. There were free movie posters and mini giveaways everywhere, and surveys aplenty for those who were willing to participate.

The best part of the waiting game (it took an hour to get into the theater) was getting to see some of our peers in action. One of the Big Brothers Big Sisters groups was on hand to pass out fliers and then to speak to the audience briefly about the volunteer drive.

This group did a great job- their efforts were strategic, and will probably pay off for them. Their target is male volunteers, and they certainly had that audience at this premiere, where the audience was likely 80% male. Not only were they able to provide everyone with fliers, they also were able to make an announcement before the movie and speak directly to a theater full of people.

I just wanted to commend them on a great job, and it was nice to see a campaign in action. Best of luck to them, and all of the other groups as we go out into the "real world" and pitch our messages to the public.

On a side note, I don't recommend Observe and Report unless you can see it for free. That's my own little world-of-mouth PR.

Graduating Student Seeking Employment in Public Relations

By: Jayse Nelson

With the end of the semester coming to a close my thoughts of life after college have begun to consume my daily life. I have visited The University of Oklahoma’s career service Web site and their office. I have searched Craigslist.com and different hospitality and non-profit career search engines. However, my efforts are not yielding satisfactory results.

I feel like every position I look into is seeking someone with experience of more than 1 or 2 years. I have had experience in Public Relations, but nowhere near 1 or 2 years worth of experience. During my first PRSSA meeting my freshman year of college, I was instructed to get at least one internship before I graduated. I did get an internship. In fact, I had two very good internships. However, both of my internships were only for the duration of the summer and one of them was shortened due to my prolonged semester abroad.

Adding to the stress of finding a job is the recession our country is currently facing. According to information I’ve recently discovered, PR professionals need not to worry about employment possibilities. This is true, if the individual has sufficient experience and skills that can set them apart from the pack. Last year, Time magazines ranked PR jobs 19th on their list of recession proof jobs. In 2006, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there is still hope for us graduates seeking employment in the PR industry. Of the 243,000 PR jobs in 2006 the majority were in service providing industries mostly in major cities. Although there is a high rate of job competition in this industry, the BLS states that college students with a degree in PR and work related experience should exceed the competition. Maybe there is still hope for me to find a job after May.

Producing Successful Presentations

By Stacey Haire

Presentations are a major part of a PR practitioners job. As students of this profession, we too get to experience presenting in front of the class. I thought it would be beneficial to everyone to research what makes an excellent presentation and provide a few tips from the experts who have been in the industry for many years.

An article published on About.com by Wendy Russell gives nine presentation tips for students. Her top nine tips are: know your topic, use key phrases about your topic, avoid using too much text on the slide, limit the number of slides, layout of slides is important, avoid fancy fonts, use contrasting colors for text and background, try a design template to keep the look constant and use animations and transitions sparingly. The tips underlined here are for those using programs like Microsoft PowerPoint. These tips are helpful because they create a simple presentation for everyone to understand clearly. When the presentation is easy to understand then it will give you more confidence during presentation time.

With the progress of technology there is also a progression in the world of presentations. PR Fuel, a news release forum for public relations, recently published an article about how to conduct online presentations. The most important techniques necessary to conduct a successful online presentation are to be more vocal and have more animation in your voice because often times they will not be able to see you. Another tip for this type of presentation is to think smaller is better. Create slides containing one idea per slide this makes it easier to present and makes it easier for the audience to follow.

Presentations can create many opportunities for you and the clients you work for, but if they have mistakes then you and your client can miss out on big business prospects. Like every thing else in life the more practice you have the easier it will get.

Come Fly With Me

By Rachel Forsyth

Whenever I think of industries that must always have savvy public relations departments, I always think of the airline and tourism industries. Throughout the years, these industries have faced many challenges including 9/11 fears of flying, new necessary paperwork and paying for baggage. In all of these areas, there is a continuously evolving need for public relations to keep their customers and employees aware, safe and happy.

The fear of flying after September 11th, 2001 was a major test on the airline industries and tourism public relations departments. With American’s given images and a million reasons not to fly, how do they instill faith back into their patrons? According to PRWeek, the answer is Patriotism. Patriotism became and still is a major tactic for public relations departments when instilling faith to fly and travel.

The United States Department of Homeland Security’s custom and border protection launched a public relations campaign last fall surrounding new required travel documents. According to Travel Pulse, this Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative goes into effect June 1, 2009. This initiative provides the Custom and Border Protection the opportunity to put their best public relations foot forward in the launch of a new website, media advertisements, public service announcements and many other tactics in their outreach campaign.

Public relations departments have also faced new challenges as the airlines have increased ticket prices and checked baggage fees. According to the Providence Journal, Southwest Airlines provides the best rates by only charging for the third checked bag. American Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways charge for the first bag. There is definitely a double edge sword in the airline industry: increasing profit or make the customer happy?

I personally find these industries to be extremely fascinating. Airline travel and tourism is an imporant part of our economy, which is definitely a contemporary public relations issue.

Print is dying. Dry your tears.

By: Matthew Burris

With the shut down of both the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Rocky Mountain News over the past couple of months, there has been an outpouring of lament for the death of print news in this country. I have yet to figure out why.

The Luddite "save print" movement misses the point. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) proposed to allow newspapers to become non-profit organizations. The senator even cited the shut down of the P-I in his bill. At least it isn't just an excuse to shovel money to an industry who will just squander it and then coming asking for more (GM, I'm looking squarely at YOU).

That being said, the problem isn't the intention. News is a nice thing to have. The issue really starts when we realize that we are attempting to rescue something that doesn't work anymore. The age has passed the newspaper business behind. Movable type is a 15th century technology.

Jeff Jarvis, creator of Entertainment Weekly, said,

We are bailing out the past, not the future. We are forestalling the need to change. Change isn’t easy. It’s hard on people. It’s destructive. It will leave voids and vacuums. But it is inevitable. The smart thing to do today is to run to the change, seek it out, find the opportunities in it, deal with the hard problems it brings instead of avoiding them.

When people decry the rise of the internet (which is what all the tears are really about), they seem like the kind of people that are too scared to make their way into the future safely, and successful PR practitioners can't be sympathetic to their ilk.

Michael Arrington, creator of the technology blog, TechCrunch, called print media "absurd,"



Link to full program: "New Media Models."

He has a point. The business model is failing. Media is screaming headlong into the 21st century, and public relations HAS to change with it.

We can not wait around and weep for the death of a failing medium. We, as professionals, will be passed by just as the Post-Intelligencer was, and just as all those who refuse to trudge ahead will be.

As the media moves online, ads will change, outreach will change, and how people get their news will change. Gone are the days of placing stories in daily newspapers. Calling up professional journalists will have a place, but the yield will be smaller and the audience limited.

People aren't going to media brands for information. They are going to each other. E-mailing bloggers and getting your story on digg.com, reddit, facebook, twitter, and their brethren will become the way to get hits.

Time's they are a-changin' indeed. Time to stay ahead of the curve or see your effectiveness as a professional falter.

PR in the Healthcare Field

by: Kristin Bussell

Since my first introduction to Public Relations, I have always held an interest in the field of Health Communications.

Many hospitals and healthcare related offices, in fact, include a department of communications, marketing or public relations. For example, St. Peter’s Hospital of Helena, Montana has an office specifically for marketing and public relations. As described on the website, this office is responsible for the hospital’s external and internal communication, patient satisfaction monitoring, advertising, graphics, volunteer services, community education and wellness.

As I continued to research the field of healthcare public relations, I found a Public Relations Firm, known as Allhealth Public Relations, which specializes in health communications. This PR firm is located in Kensington, Maryland so unfortunately I won’t be able to pursue a career with this firm simply because of it’s location. I am certain, however, that there are other PR firms out there that are also focused in on the field of healthcare.

What I saw online about Allhealth that most intrigued me was an insight into some of their campaigns.

Clients include the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Red Cross, American Public Health Association and Random House Books.

In conjunction with their extensive campaigns, Allhealth recruits celebrities such as David Hasselhoff and Paul Shaffer, band leader of "Late Night with David Letterman”, for various, health related campaigns.

Finally, one last element of Allhealth’s Web site that sparked my interest was the list of services they offer. This list includes everything from press kits to TV talk shows, Special Events and Website Design.

Due to the curriculum of the public relations courses I have taken here at OU, I feel that I could contribute in a great way to a PR firm similar to Allhealth, that specializes in health communications. Not only would my educational background afford me success as a PR professional, but my passion for the field of healthcare would allow me a rewarding career in health communications.

Making Dreams Come True

By: Kylie Fisher
Coke has always been an American tradition, and along with this tradition, Coca-Cola has launched the “Open Happiness” campaign. Along with this campaign lead by Ogilvy & Mather, Coke is also targeting the Hispanic community with the “Destapa Tus Suenos" campaign which translates into "Unleash Your Dreams". The campaign aired nationwide on March 20, 2009, and includes TV, print, radio, mobile, digital, music components as well as new point-of-sale materials.
Reinaldo Padua, Assistant Vice President of Hispanic Marketing at Coca-Cola North America, believes that “Unleash Your Dreams” is a great campaign for targeting Hispanics. Since "for many, achieving their dreams means seeing their children graduate from college, owning their own business, learning to speak English or meeting their favorite celebrity or sports figure. This year, our message will inspire Hispanic consumers and our programs will help them achieve some of those dreams," said Padua.
To gain more participation in the Hispanic community, Coca-Cola teamed up with the Mexican telenovela "Al Diablo con los Guapos". This partnership gives fans the opportunity to win prizes and memorabilia from the show as well as have the chance to meet two of the show’s stars. In May, Coke will launch a soccer-related campaign that will feature the Mexican National Soccer Team. This campaign will work alongside the “Open Happiness” campaign and the telenovela promotion. This campaign will give soccer fans the opportunity to attend matches and a soccer clinic with Guillermo "Memo" Ochoa. These campaigns will hopefully unleash and achieve some Hispanic consumer’s dreams, whether its meeting one of their favorite celebrity or watching their child graduate, it is made possible because of Coke.

Group Dynamics

by Rashida Douglas

One important aspect of working in public relations is understanding group dynamics and how to resolve conflicts and tensions and garner the best performance out of all team members. In the beginning of the course we each took a personality profile assessment. The assessment was a fantastic tool for getting a better understanding of my personality and what my strengths and weaknesses are. However, the personality profiles are just as important for understanding my team members as well. It wasn’t until conflict arose in my group that I actually thought, in depth, about how having advance understandings of how personality affects the potential and outcomes for the group. Colorado State University has an excellent Web page that discusses the dynamics of student groups. The site addresses issues that arise when working in groups including conflict, socializing, decision-making and division of responsibility. I would suggest reading their site for a “mid-term refresher” hopefully prior to conflict in each respective group. Harvard University also hosts a Web site that discusses the elements involved in working in a group. Their site emphasizes the importance of democracy in groups. The Center for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE) points out the tremendous benefits of working in groups as students. According to CSHE, "Group work, under proper conditions, encourages peer learning and peer support and many studies validate the efficacy of peer learning. Under less than ideal conditions, group work can become the vehicle for acrimony, conflict and freeloading." The advice suggested on these sites can be advantageous for our current roles as students and future roles as professionals.

Get out from behind your computer screens!

By Kristin Biery

Today's lecture about Twittering really made me think about the transition the communication field is making. We are moving out of the boardrooms, off of conference calls and are instead sitting behind a computer screen. Although I am someone who loves text messaging and getting online—there is a time and a place for it. Websites like twitter, facebook, myspace, craigslist and other popular blog sites are becoming the norm for social networking and advancing careers.

Today in class we had a guest speaker who had over 15,000 followers on her twitter page. That’s ridiculous to me. I understand that by using the internet you can reach a broader group of individuals, but how genuine and sincere can the relationships be? There is only so much information I am willing to give out online and I am not very trusting to people who I meet on the internet.

We all watch the stories on Dateline and 20/20 about internet predators and unfortunately it has tainted my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I have a facebook and today in class I signed up for a twitter page, however I hope that that is not the life line of my social network.

Public Relations in a Struggling Economy

Public Relations in a Struggling Economy
By Ericka Burey

As a graduating senior, one of my many concerns upon the final ceremony of my college career at the University of Oklahoma is what am I going to do after graduation? The question is purged on me almost every day by friends, family, teachers, etc. and to be perfectly honest my answer as always “I don’t quite know yet”. And with the economy in shambles a job in my desired field seems somewhat unlikely. But if being a public relations major has taught me anything it is how to be creative. So I began to think creatively and I’ve decided that in a job market that isn’t so hot right now maybe it is a blessing in disguise that I am in a field that is so broad. What can sometimes be seen as a negative in the public relations field no can be turned into a positive? By this I mean that because our filed is so broad and because we learn about so many different aspects of business and communication techniques we can apply our skills to job fields that we would normally overlook. For example, becoming a middle school or high school teacher. We can apply our communication skills to deliver a message effectively to an active audience, we plan a strong education campaign and apply it throughout a long period of time, and we must convey an image of authority to the students, competence to parents and other teachers and certification to the state boards. So you see we are not really in a job drought we just have to reanalyze the situation effectively in order to gain the most success.


By reassessing the situation we can analyze other jobs such as: hotel management, store manager, Human resources, communications, etc. So when you really think about it... the job opportunites are endless for a public relations practioner!

A Swoosh with Many Colors

By: Tafara Cameron

Nike is more than just a brand and a business----it is the epitome of promoting and ensuring diversity. The Nike Corporation has worked very hard a diligently in making sure that diversity is a priority for this major corporation. According to Nike themselves, they have established a Leadership Team Diversity Steering Committee in the United States as well as 12- member Retail Diversity Council whose purpose is to measure and monitor diversity at all of the retail locations surrounding the United States. Just recently, Nike has been named one of the best American companies for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender workers, by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) for the seventh consecutive year.

With headquarters being located the entire world, employing over 70 unique nationalities Nike is on a roll. Nike values the idea of Diversity and Inclusion at Nike . From a public relations perspective and even further advertising/ marketing strategy it is very important to be aware of the efforts emphasizing diversity.
Nike’s current Vice President of Global Diversity and Inclusion, Gina Warren , has contributed to the efforts led by Nike and achieving its vision.

Diversity and Inclusion is fundamental to Nike’s performance. It’s what makes us better. It’s what makes us smarter. It helps our business grow and helps us connect with consumers.”

—Gina A. Warren, VP Global Diversity & Inclusion

Simply taking a scroll down the Nike official website, Nike is well represented across the map . One can establish their own sense of how well Nike is doing nationally, internationally and globally. The language options to choose from include English, Spanish, and French, Dutch, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Turkish and various Asian languages. It doesn’t end there either, if one were to select the English language you are then encountered with various countries to choose from where English is spoken for example: United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, Australia, Malaysia, India, Singapore, United Kingdom, and the Middle East.

As PR practitioners, diversity is a valuable tool for the success of the business.

Superman or SuperWOMAN in the PR Profession?

By: Tafara Cameron

Rex Harlow, public relations pioneer and founder of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) said it best when he defined the term public relations as such:
“Public relations is a distinctive management function which helps establish and maintain mutual lines of communication, understanding, acceptance, and cooperation between organization and its publics; involves the management of problems or issues; helps management keep informed on and responsive to public opinion; defines and emphasizes the responsibility of management to serve the public interest; helps management keep abreast of and effectively utilize change, serving as an early warning system to help anticipate trends; and uses research and sound ethical communication techniques as its principle tools.”

Now imagine this definition being placed next to the image of a woman. Gender dominancy in the PR profession is very much alive. It has been proven that more than 70 percent of public relations practitioners in the United States are indeed women. Feminization in PR has taken over the field of PR. About 65-75 percent of all majors in mass communication and journalism programs are now women. The lack of males in this profession is a reoccurring truth. One may be wondering Why women dominate PR profession? Some reasons behind this somewhat surprising phenomenon is the idea that 1) women are more content than men when it comes to exerting two-way communication; 2) women tend to understand the impact of listening rather than dominating a conversation than man; 3) women take more risks regarding entrepreneurship even if there is a lack in capital.

Indeed women are outnumbered in other more “difficult” fields such as engineering, however, think of it in the concept of supply and demand and ethics, like anything in the United States, Diversity in PR is no different. Some managers may take what may seem like a positive for women and turn it into something more; should managers take into account to offer a man more money to do the same job as a woman in PR for doing the same job simply because he is a man? Everyone should just acknowledge the fact that women are Taking care of business.

I personally believe that if person is qualified to perform well in the workplace, then by all means may the best “man” or in this case “woman” be hired.

SC Johnson Goes Green

By Callie Cady

One organization who seems to have a grasp on public concerns lately is SC Johnson.

SC Johnson is a family company that owns Pledge, Pliz and Pronto furniture cleaners, Mr. Muscle, Fantastik and Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaners, Glade, Gleid and Brise fragrances, Raid and OFF! insect repellants, Windex and Ziploc.

This company has created a “Greenlist” as an effort to promote sustainability and a going green initiative within the organization. The Greenlist is an excellent public relations campaign because it not only promotes internal success; it shows consumers how the company is trying to positively affect the environment. What better way to do this than to make ways to reduce a company’s carbon footprint?

SC Johnson’s overall goal with packaging their products is to increase the use of raw materials which are environmentally preferred.

Also, as a apart of this Greenlist, SC Johnson is using landfill sequestered methane to power its Windex factory in Michigan. Trash from the local dumps is used to decompose and turns into methane; which, in turn, is treated and sent to the factory to generate 50% of its power. This increases sustainability and is estimated to pay for itself in less than seven years. This initiative will also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 52,000 tons per year. That is the equivalent of taking 4,210 cars off of the road!

Obviously with a campaign like this, consumers will be more likely to support this organization if they know they are helping save the environment.

Automakers Use PR to Get America Behind Bailout

By Rebecca Chambers

Although the automaker bailout bill is still ongoing restructuring and negotiations, it might have been a different story if General Motors Corp., Chrysler LLC, and Ford Motor Co. hadn’t ran an excellent campaign in effort to save their companies.

The “Big Three” automakers of Detroit knew that if they didn’t get the bailout, there would be serious repercussions for more than just their companies: local plants would shut down, workers would be out of a job and be unable to pay local businesses, and those would eventually shut down too.

By November 2008, The Big Three were hard at work garnering support for the $25 billion dollar automaker bailout that was receiving luke-warm support – at best – in Washington, D.C.

Public relations was going to make or break the automakers’ chances of getting the aid they so desperately needed.

To campaign in favor of the bailout, the GM stated on their Web site “what happens in the industry matters on Main Street,” and made sure that it was clear that without government aid, much more than the company would be at stake.

The Big Three made sure that a solid grassroots campaign was launched, and soon there were full-page ads in publications like The Wall Street Journal and USA Today expounding the virtues of lending money to American automakers.

Alongside this effort, local dealers were putting their own ads in their local newspapers, trying to convince Americans that it was a good thing to lend these automakers billions of dollars.

"The grassroots effort was to correct falsities and misperceptions that are out there and help people get accurate information about the significant impact of the U.S. auto industry on America," said Kelly Cusinato, a spokeswoman for GM in Detroit.

While many still question the viability of a bailout, as well as if automakers deserve one, automakers are still pleading their case to Congress and to the people. For all intents and purposes, it seems that their campaign was having an effect – blue collar America got behind the bailout after these advertisements started to saturate the media. 

Politics and PR

Politics and PR

By Brittany Robinson

This past year has been a whirlwind for politics and the American People. From the election of the first African American president to the fall of our economy, public relations is as important now as it ever has been.

Throughout our public relations studies at Gaylord College, we have always been taught to respond in a timely manner. In the words of Mr. Mossman, OU's Media Relations Director,  "If you respond too quickly you might not have all the facts and say the wrong thing. If you wait too long, your going to look stupid and not prepared ." 

My example of how correct Mr. Mossman is in this statement goes hand in hand in crisis management and how public figures need to address issues quickly.

On March 24th, President Obama held a press conference addressing the war, his current budget proposal and other pressing issues such as the current economic situation. After giving his speech, President Obama opened the floor for reporters to ask questions. CNN Reporter Ed Henry asked the President why he waited several days to go public with his outrage over the AIG scandal. President Obama's response was, "I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak." Also, many found that there was a look or glare given to Mr. Henry after that statement. 

This particular example shows that the media will keep any person or company in check on the timeliness of their responses and actions. When I heard this my immediate thought was that this was exactly the type of thing we learn in public relations. This just happens to be a concrete example with a high power individual that demonstrates the importance of planning for a crisis or responding to an issue in a timely fashion.