The rest of my spring break was nice and now I am back on the island. I finished my Tools and Tactics and got it back. A++ but she did not say which of the tools in particular I should develop. So I just kind of went ahead and did what I thought I should do. I made a cover sheet for my media kits which came out really nice. I made a save the date postcard for my Video Message to Troops event. I finished the brochure and letter to the school. So all of that is ready to print. Now I am working on my Buona Sera invitation, my Diabetes Walk invitation, a fact sheet about Advantage Video Productions, and a tip sheet for one of my wedding events. I also started to label and put together my wedding survival kits one for the bride and a different one for the groom. The rest of the class we will be hearing guest speakers and watching presentations. I have a lot left to do, and some of it is just fine tuning. The worst is going to be actually preparing to present it. It is going to be hard to condense everything I've done and want to talk about into 15 minutes. The demo I made with my Dad is 5 minutes alone. I will probably have to talk over it or not show the whole thing in order to make time. Really, whatever is done by that time I will try to fit. I won't know for sure till then. But I love the creative aspect of making all of these things and presenting them to my peers. More about my final campaign later.
Public Relations, Public Relations Campaign, Presentations

So I am currently on SPRING BREAK!! I did fine on my Audience and Messages. I have so much work to do over break. Professor Frisina didn't assign any work, but it is really the only time I have a car to drive around to get all of the stuff for my projects and the time to see what my Dad thinks. So I am still in the brainstorming process, but I did buy some things after looking around at a few stores. I got silver and gold patterned Chinese containers with a clear strap for a handle. They are my Bride/Groom Survival Kits. I am looking for things to put in them still but right now for the Bride I have: a princess pen, champagne bubbles, Chap Stick, a mirror, and a sewing kit. I plan on getting a little tin of mints, a notepad, shout wipes, and still working on a few other things. For the Groom I have: a nice executive pen, a Swiss army knife, and champagne bubbles. I plan on adding a note pad, shout wipes, mints and still working on a few other ideas. I also purchased a sports bag and water bottle in which I will put a gift certificate for a college admissions sports video to be auctioned at one of the events I am planning. I am not sure I will still do this for my presentation. My best find was frosted see-through folders with a black border. They have two pockets and a business card holder. I am making these into media kits to hand out for class along with champagne bubbles and some sort of food yet to be determined. Only my list of tools is due the Friday I go back to school. I do not present until May 8th. I want to go back with most of the stuff I am using to present, but Professor Frisina will circle which things she wants me to develop. Hopefully, she will pick the same ones I am already developing. Also, when I get my work done I will be working on a demo with my Dad. It is going to be the one I will show to schools, so it will include clips from plays, recitals, graduations, and sporting events. I just have to find the time to do it. More updates later, for now I have to finish a paper.
Public Relations, Media Kit, Public Relations Campaign, Brides, Grooms, Demos

Hello everyone! This is my very first post. Currently I am a sophomore at Hofstra University. I am majoring in Public Relations and minoring in English. I was involved in The Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) for awhile but this semester my schedule has not permitted it. This semester I am finally taking my first Public Relations class. I love it. One of the things we have discussed is tools in which we can educate the public about our clients. I think blogs are the next big tool in Public Relations. So this blog is a way for me to improve my skill and knowledge of blogging.

My teacher, Professor Frisina, is amazing. Basically, everything we learned at the beginning we are going to apply to our final project, which is to create a PR campaign with an unlimited budget for a person or company that we have direct access to. I chose my Dad's company Advantage Video Productions. He is an event videographer who films and edits everything from weddings, to plays, to graduations. For the past couple of weeks I have working with him to complete each part of the project. I will be including links to all of the things I create for this project.

First, we had to do a "Backgrounder" for a client. This is basically every little bit of information we can find on our client. Because our only audience is our teacher, it is written in a slightly different manner. I basically interviewed my dad for a long time. I broke down my backgrounder into Company History, Personal History, Current Company, Equipment, and Future of Company. Double-spaced, it ended up being 12 pages long. However, having all of the information that I could ever need for my campaign organized is well worth it. One of the reasons I chose PR for a major was because I love to write, so it was not a big deal for me. Because I was so thorough I ended up getting an A+ on it.

The next step was stating my Objectives for Advantage Video Productions. This was a lot shorter. Most of my Dad's clients are people that are getting married. My Dad in his early 50's now and all of the physical work required at weddings is a lot harder for him now. So, one of his goals is to do less weddings and more plays. One of my biggest objectives is to develop and organize a relationship between the local high schools and Advantage Video so that he can get more plays and fewer weddings. He can also do graduations, music and dance recitals, and athletic events. He still wants to do 5-10 weddings per year. So, I also had to include educating engaged couples about his company as an objective. He also does plays and recitals for churches, so I included maintaining a relationship with them as well. Finally, my Dad doesn't advertise at all. He only has business cards; no website, no yellowbook ad, nothing. People know about him through their friends and family who he filmed things for. That is great that his work is that amazing for people to talk about it and recommend him. I put as one of my goals to educate the community about my Dad and his company more. He is interested in doing even more pro bono work than he has already done, so I included that as an objective as well. One of the things I messed up on was including tools in my objectives. I said that I want to redo his business cards and create stationary for him. Despite this I still received a check plus, so I guess it wasn't that big of a deal.

On Friday March 31st, our Audiences and Messages were due. I first made a list of all of my audiences. The idea was to niche everything down into the smallest possible group. So local high schools became administration/staff, students, and parents. Administration/staff became principal, board, avf teachers, directors, producers, conductors, coaches ect. My four major un-niched groups were local schools, bridal parties, churches, and community. This ended up being so many audiences when niched that I completely forgot the media, which is the center of PR. Opps... I only plan on involving the media when my Dad has events though, which I explained to my teacher. I'll know Monday what she thinks.

That same Friday we had a guest speaker. One of the reasons my teacher is so great is her connections. (Previously to this we met a 23-year-old Hofstra Graduate who did PR for 3 clients at the Tornio Olympics) The two women we met Friday work for Quinn & Company. One of the women was Carla Caccavale, the partner in charge of travel. They were very interesting and informative. Currently I am interested in doing PR for movies, books either through a PR firm that specializes in those fields or directly for a company like New Line Cinema or Penguin Books. I know I want to travel as part of my job, but previous to this I never thought of doing PR travel. I am interested in looking at them for an internship next summer.

So nothing is due this Monday, but I am still working on little things, like redesigning my Dad's business card. I hope that the tools and tactics part of the project will not be due until after spring break. That way I can go home and talk to my day directly about them. A lot of the stuff I want to do for real, not just as part of the project so I want his input. I also am stuck on what to do for the schools. He already has some relationships with producers and directors, but I need to think of an event that he could actually do to get more of them as clients. I might focus on the board and the directors/ producers/ conductors instead of the students. But if the students don't buy the copies there is no point. The two things that I came up with so far is to send out letters or brochures about what he can do for them. The other which I am not sure he would actually do is to have an information seminar about his services for schools and basically bring all of them in groups out to dinner. It's something I need to work on a lot because it’s the main part of my campaign. The wedding event and charity events are going to be a lot more fun and creative. I doubt I have any audience yet but if anyone has a suggestion or thought about what I've done so far leave it as a comment.

Hofstra University, PR, Public Relations, Quinn and Company, PRSSA