Come On Down!

Come On Down!

By Christie Gunn

Those who know me the best can say without a doubt what my dream job is; I often talk about how great it would be. Of course, the job I am referring to is being a game show host. I can think of nothing more fun than giving away money to my fellow trivia-fanatics.

Whether it is Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Cash Cab or Double Dare, I will watch it. I am non-discriminating game show fan. I think game shows have it all: competition, suspense, victory. And I would love to be part of it.

Not to mention, the job itself would be pretty nice. The host’s only true responsibility, other than reading off the teleprompter, is to chat with the contestants throughout the show. I think I could handle that. Plus, the game show host always seems like the smartest person in the room, because he or she as all the answers while contestants have to guess.

Though it may not be the most obvious application for a PR degree, I feel that what I have learned at OU has prepared me for the intricacies of the game-show-host profession. I can put my public relations skills to use when dealing with the media, speaking in front of groups or even writing copy for the broadcast.

While I realize not everyone is on the edge of his or her seat as the music plays in Final Jeopardy, I would love to be the person with all the answers telling people to "help control the pet population; have your pet spayed or neutered."

Many Yearbooks Incorporate Technology

Many Yearbooks Incorporate Technology

By Christie Gunn

Upon conducting research into college yearbook market trends for their client Sooner yearbook, Innovative PR, a public relations capstone group, found that many yearbooks are incorporating DVDs and CD-ROMs to combat poor sales.

College yearbook sales are dwindling across the country leaving many yearbooks to fight to stay in production. Yearbooks’ biggest competitors are social-networking Web sites such as Facebook and MySpace. These social networks can offer personalized, interactive content and provide instant gratification whereas printed yearbooks are static and generalized to the entire student body. In addition, students must pay for yearbooks in advance and wait months to receive them, unlike social networking sites that update instantly.

In order to keep up with growth in technological competition, several yearbooks have adopted supplemental pieces such as DVDs and CD-ROMs. The University of Texas’s Cactus yearbook comes with a DVD that includes content from the student newspaper and television station. In 1997, Marquette University canceled production of its yearbook entirely in favor of a CD-ROM version. The new format will include audio recordings from each senior to accompany their picture, video slide shows of campus events, footage of commencement and even music from local bands. “The editors say the digital publication will do things that yearbooks have never been able to do before.”

Other yearbook advisers like Ms. Widmer at Northwest Missouri State see the risks of solely using electronic formats for yearbooks. She said, “In 30 years you're not going to be able to do anything with [a DVD or CD-ROM yearbook] except use it as a coaster.” Librarians at Marquette echoed the sentiment, pointing out that electronic yearbooks may fail to accomplish a yearbook’s basic mission of preserving memories and records for the future.

Innovative PR will distribute surveys to continue researching if students at the University of Oklahoma would like to see their yearbook incorporate more technology, such as a supplemental DVD or CD-ROM.

Communicating with a College Audience

Communicating with a College Audience

By Christie Gunn

With each generation, young people are becoming increasingly media savvy. As the amount of messages they receive on a given day increase and the methods used to deliver these messages become more varied, college students better their ability to filter, and often ignore, these messages. So what are the best ways to reach this audience?

Some suggest what is called a “360 degree” approach. As the name suggests, it involves send the same message as many times in as many different channels as possible. These methods include print media, online advertising, social media, blogs, vlogs (video blogs such as youtube.com), and text messages to their cell phones.

Others highlight social-media communication, in particular, as the best way to influence the college audiences. This was the case when Hewlett-Packard tapped Edleman PR to handle the promotion of its personal systems group.

It is also interesting to note, using text messages to communicate with students in the event of an emergency is becoming more common on college campuses, particularly after the tragedies at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University. OU instituted this system last year, and many students received alerts on their phones last semester when the campus was briefly locked down. Though this method may not be widely used for non-emergency communication, past president indicates it is only a matter of time until it is.

Perhaps the worst method to contact a younger demographic is the landline telephone. Most students do not have landline numbers, and they are no longer readily available in dorms, apartments, and greek residences on the OU campus.

Though this research I learned just how difficult it can be to get a message to the college audience and make them remember it. Before researching this post, I also did not know how many universities are using text messages to warn students in case of emergency. The public relations value of the articles and blogs I referenced in this post is strongly related to my client, the Sooner yearbook, who is trying to reach OU students and increase the sales of the yearbook.