Elementary Students Make "News" Friends

OU Nightly, the student-produced news broadcast based in the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, is hoping to reach out not only to its campus community but to the Norman community, as well. Research conducted by Connextions, our public relations campaigns team, concluded that parents, who make up a large portion of the Norman community, would be a valuable public. Norman is strongly rooted in family values and the community of parents offers OU Nightly an easily reached audience that can easily multiply itself. By this, I mean that when one set of parents is reached, through parent-teacher associations or PTA, play groups and other parent organizations they will undoubtedly spread their enthusiasm for any given topic, cause or even the local news broadcast.
It is because of these research findings that we decided to host our event at Kennedy Elementary School. I am friends with a second grade teacher at the school, and when I approached her with our idea to have the anchors come speak to the children, she couldn't have been more open to the idea. This was not only an opportunity for OU Nightly to reach a potential audience (parents, grandparents, extended family and the students), but the students would be exposed to news and news consumption.
The event was a success in the eyes of all involved. The anchors enjoyed themselves, the teachers were intrigued, the students made new "college friends" and our post-event surveys showed that the majority of the students parents had watched OU Nightly and/or planned to watch in the future.

The Loudest Voice

The Loudest Voice
by Linden Chalfant

My team’s client is “OU Nightly.” We have had a really positive experience thus far researching background information about the client, developing a campaign to raise awareness and increase viewership and shaping goals and objectives to implement our detailed plan.

We have learned that “OU Nightly” is a wonderful and credible source for news that is applicable to both OU students as well as members of the Norman community. We decided on a large scope of publics to reach all ends of the spectrum.

I think that one of our most interesting publics is elementary school parents. In doing our benchmark survey, we found that no matter what some motivating factors are for people to watch the news (weather, politics, entertainment, etc.), seeing their child featured on the news would be reason enough to watch…and hopefully continue watching. Our research supported this and has provided solid reasons for targeting this certain public.

Many parents are very involved in their children’s lives, especially at the elementary age. Because of this, we decided to make an impact on 80 second-graders’ lives in order to reach their parents. “What did you do at school today?” is one of the most common questions that a parent asks a child after school. Our goal is to make initiate a child’s interest in “OU Nightly” through a short presentation and activity by some of the prominent anchors from “OU Nightly.” In doing this, we hope that the child goes home and tells their parents about their exciting day, and as a family, they sit down and all watch “OU Nightly” that day and for many more days beyond.