THE PR OLYMPICS WITH BRENDA MELARA

THE PR OLYMPICS WITH BRENDA MELARA

DIVE INTO THE LIFE OF THE PRSSA PRESIDENT AND BATEMAN TEAM

BY JOEY MARTINEZ

Brenda Melara is a Long Beach State public relations major and marketing minor graduating in the spring of 2022. She is the president of the Public Relations Student Society of America’s chapter here in Long Beach, also known as the PRSSA, as well as an intern at a healthcare specialized public relations agency, Samson PR Group.

In addition to Melara’s busy schedule, she is also involved with the Bateman team at LBSU.

The Bateman team is composed of five PRSSA members who spend the semester creating, implementing, and promoting a real campaign for a client. They then present their results on a campaign book in competition with tens of other schools doing the same campaign. The school that has gotten the most impressions from their campaign wins. Melara has named it the PR Olympics.

The process of making and going through a PR plan with the Bateman team includes first doing research, then the planning process like creating objectives for spreading information about a national to world issue. Next is implementation and tracking of people they reached out to, such as keeping track of signatures and participants at an event. This semester, the Bateman team’s client is the Lymphoma Research Foundation, a group dedicated to researching and spreading awareness of lymphoma cancer with implementations of the campaign beginning February 7. They then determine whether their campaign was successful.

“Even if you don’t meet the criteria that doesn’t mean your campaign wasn’t successful because it doesn’t matter if it was a hit or if it could just reach a couple of people. At the end of the day you spread awareness on lymphoma. Like you didn’t know that lymphoma was common amongst teenagers rather than everyone else and now you do you know?”

They have to keep track of their outreach otherwise the client wouldn’t know what they were doing for them.

“Just by doing something, just by thinking critically and examining your audience and having a purpose and actually doing something, you’re already making a difference rather than if you weren’t doing anything.”

On what Melara does in the PRSSA:

“My duty as president is to be there for my team.”

She keeps track of everyone and their projects while trying to find any way to assist them.

“The women in the chapter from the executive board are doing great things. I find that if I give them the freedom to explore and make something of their own that is so much more rewarding for them and for me rather than micro-managing all of their projects… I love it.”

Melara was elected president after spending one semester as Director of Events, one as Director of Alumni Relations, and another implementing her fundraising ideas. When recounting her experience on the board, she mentions that “It was definitely a plus because I think I can relate and I can understand them better because I was already in their shoes once and I understand the amount of work that many of their roles require.”

Melara and her experience in the PSSRA

“One piece of advice that recently stuck with me was ‘don’t be afraid to make mistakes.’ This profession is really broad and there are so many options on what you can do and what you want to go into… I would say don’t be too hard on yourself.” When asked about the most memorable experience she’s had in her career, Melara recalls the time when she was director of alumni and had the goal of starting a mentorship program.

If the plan worked out, members of PRSSA would be able to sign up and be paired with professionals in the field they were interested in. She didn’t have the time to implement it, however she was elected president the semester afterwards. Once she was president though, the new director of alumni took over the project. Melara worked with them to bring the project into fruition in the fall of 2021, pairing over 20 students with mentors with both students and professionals alike giving thanks to them for the newfound connections.

“It was great to see how something I started was picked up by another person and I was able to guide them to the point where they are now confidently running that project.”

The mentorship program now has more and more students applying.

“It was something that previous chapters had wanted to incorporate for a long time and we kind of made it a reality.”

For Melara’s final message

If you are interested, go to PRSSALB.com and become a member. Melara advises to apply this semester as most of the executive board members will be graduating and there will be more opportunity. Any major can apply.

“This was an opportunity for me to look at all the sides of public relations because there are many areas of PR… so this gave me the opportunity to try them out, make mistakes, think of a project that might be interesting and go from there.”