2019 Bateman Case Study Competition

2019 PRSSA Bateman case study competition by oklahoma state university

by Alex Mangold, Jacey Gellasch, Maria Mancera, LeAnn Wilson, Jean Michel Chaplin Faculty Advisor: Dr. Danny Shipka, professional Advisor: skye cooley

executive summary As an institution, Oklahoma State University defines diversity as engagement in meaningful actions, behaviors, and conversations that reflect a commitment to recognizing, understanding, and respecting the differences among students, faculty, staff, and visitors throughout the OSU system. Although OSU public relations and communications community values diversity and inclusion at its core, communications students at OSU feel that their actual exposure to diverse connections, education, authentic experiences and ideas is lacking.

The PRSA Foundation’s mission is to promote diversity among public relations professionals and companies so that they can best serve the public good and address the needs of a diverse world. Using the Diverse Voices book, the PRSA Foundation is launching a first-of-its-kind diversity initiative designed to empower minorities in all stages of their careers; while also educating employers on ways to support their growth.

The Oklahoma State School of Media and Strategic Communications (SMSC) currently lacks a strong PRSSA chapter and therefore lacks an avenue to connect students to the PRSA Foundation. Exposure to PRSSA and PRSA as organizations are low, with the number being lower for diverse groups.

To combat these issues, our 2019 Bateman team created the “Strength in Differences” campaign. We communicated through branding that aimed to showcase how accepting and celebrating diversity in our field creates power, enrichment and dimension.

We rebranded our PRSSA chapter to be united under these beliefs and to serve as a connecting tool, resource and most importantly as the face the PRSA Foundation’s mission for all students pursuing communications on campus.

Throughout our campaign, we used PRSSA to raise awareness of the PRSA Foundation and to engage communications students of all backgrounds in open conversations about diversity and inclusion. We planned free, convenient events and activities that were highly accessible. We personally visited classes in the SMSC, went to the agricultural communications and marketing departments to expand our outreach and to speak about our campaign. We used local multi-cultural field leaders as panelists at our events and brought in Neil Foote, one of Diverse Voices contributing authors, to be the keynote speaker at our main event.

To ensure the continued sustainability and longevity of the PRSA Foundation’s mission at OSU, we successfully installed a full executive board for PRSSA. One of the features of our PRSSA executive board is the creation of the diversity and inclusion chair position. We also successfully integrated the book into classroom curriculum in SMSC.

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research SITUATION ANALYSIS A survey of OSU’s SMSC students conducted by our Bateman team revealed that, though our target audience highly values diversity, they do not believe themselves to be in a part of an exceptionally diverse environment. Our target audience lacks awareness of what the Public Relations Student Society of America has to offer them. The general lack of awareness as to what PRSSA is, or has to offer, our campaign initiative to found a new OSU PRSSA chapter, and our target audiences want for a more diverse environment provides us with the unique ability to introduce PRSSA to the SMSC student body as an entity founded on the principal of diversity.

The SMSC students surveyed clearly demonstrated a value in diversity and a want to be a part of diverse groups. Our Bateman campaign promotion of PRRSA as a place welcoming of, and founded upon, adding diverse voices into our community, we believe, will resonate very well with our target audience.

SECONDARY RESEARCH To better understand the importance of diversity within our field and how to promote it on our campus and within the school of SMSC, our team analyzed the PRSSA Diversity Toolkit, PRSA’s Diverse Voices and other online business articles regarding prosperity within an organization due to a diverse working culture.

We also analyzed other PRSSA chapters and their efforts surrounding diversity and inclusion in an effort to bring best practices into our own chapter. This gave us a more realistic conception of the expectations we should set during the rebuilding of our own chapter as well as giving insight into how sustainability could be achieved.

PRIMARY RESEARCH

Overall, diversity is clearly appreciated among those surveyed, though Hispanic and Native Americans have less inclination to see their majors and departments as highly diverse places. The value of PRSSA is seen as most strongly related to professional and networking type benefits, and less as a place offering diversity. General knowledge of, and exposure to, PRSSA is low among those surveyed, with likelihood to seek out more information on PRSSA as one of the lowest scored survey items.

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target audience This campaign was designed to promote diversity in the public relations profession. To do this, we decided to center our target audience around students and faculty of public relations-related majors on the Oklahoma State University campus. In order to make a change in the workplace, it must start with students who will enter it in the future. Rather than limiting ourselves to demographic divisions, we focused on behavioral and ideological segmentation.

Students, our primary target, we see as being the agents of change on campus. We wanted to educate students on the importance of diversity, so they might take the next step and further promote diversity once the campaign has ended. Our campaign will help students incorporate inclusivity practices into their everyday lives. We see faculty as serving a supporting role to our campaign. With the support of faculty, students will be able to make sustainable changes.

Overall, we targeted a diverse population of students and faculty of public relations-related majors such as strategic communications, marketing, agriculture communications, graphic design as well as undecided majors.

D iverse I mpactful Liked Leader O utgoing Nice Dillon is a member of the School of Media and Strategic Communications faculty at Oklahoma State University. He enjoys teaching students in his class and discussing various public relations situations with students outside of class.

C ommitted Authentic Nearby D iverse A cademic Connected Eager Candace is a sophomore agriculture communications student at Oklahoma State University. She is involved in a number of different organizations, regularly participates in class and loves all-things public relations.

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Key messages Are there Strength in Differences?

Differences, when positively perceived promote quality performance. A research of 258 MBA students supports that a demographic diversity can positively impact productivity, creativity and conflict.

Why are there Strength in Differences?

Differences serve as an advantages in team efforts. A study from the University of California found that in 100% of their sample size of financial service firms with high demographic heterogeneity saw a increase in quality of work after employees were exposed to the norms of their fellow employees with different work tactics.

Who can insure there are Strength in Differences?

YOU! Diversity is about the recognition, and appreciation, of perspectives, cultures, and the differences of others. Seeing these differences allows you to better reflect on yourself, to see yourself as part of an entire community of people, to understand your actions in relation to how they impact those around you. Recognizing diversity helps us to recognize the fullness of our world, and our role within that world.School faculty, a participant from our focus group, who is an orientation leader for incoming freshmen, explained how OSU makes an effort to diversify it leadership to help new students from different backgrounds feel they can relate to someone and feel welcomed.

challenges and opportunities Challenge 1: Low understanding and low awareness of PRSSA and lack of knowledge on how to become a member; these challenges increase with diverse groups.

Opportunity 1: We used locations in the SMSC facility for meetings of PRSSA to ensure students could easily find events and meetings. To facilitate membership enrollment, we created a Google form students could easily access and had familiarity with using. To better inform diverse groups about PRSSA, and generate awareness, we created a diversity position on the PRSSA executive board.

Challenge 2: Lack of diversity within our school and low opinions on the diversity provided within the SMSC. Although focus group participants and survey participants noted their appreciation of diversity, survey numbers demonstrate OSU has not done well in providing students with an environment that feels inclusive.

Opportunity 2: Our PRSSA chapter served as a place to connect students to diverse individuals and ideas by including a broad panel of public relations professionals at our PR Day event in an effort to create a more inclusive environment.

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objectives, strategies and tactics OBJECTIVE 1:

To raise awareness of the PRSA Foundation’s mission and “Diverse Voices: Profiles in Leadership” by engaging members of our target audience and gaining a 100% increase in relevant media impressions.

Strategy 1: Communicate consistently through a campaign message that appeals to our intended audience and closely reflects PRSSA’s broad definition of diversity and inclusion.

Rationale: By rebranding PRSSA with a unique logo and new purpose, we draw attention from our target audience. From the Diverse Voices book, we learned how there is value and strength in differences.

Tactic A: Create unique campaign branding to communicate “Strength in Differences” as a foundational pillar of OSU’s PRSSA chapter, using lifting hands as a symbol. Use OSU’s official orange color to create a sense of familiarity and unity with multi-colored triangles representing a respect for differences.

Tactic B: Engage the target audience in conversations about our campaign and ask them to take a diversity pledge by tabling in OSU’s student union; the largest of its kind in the U.S.

Strategy 2: Engage our target audience by hosting PRSSA’s first annual Public Relations Day centered around diversity and inclusion within the public relations and communications fields.

Rationale: From our survey results, we learned that our target audience audience was interested in many of the tactics described below.

Tactic A: Host Neil Foote, one of the “Diverse Voices: Profiles in Leadership” contributing authors and a multi-cultural communications field leader, as the keynote speaker for the event.

Tactic B: Host a panel featuring diverse professionals comprising local public relations and communications field leaders; including Dr. Chad Perry, Marcia Brookey and Dr. Asya Cooley. The panel will center around the importance of diversity in the public relations profession and how to better incorporate those practices into everyday professional settings.

Tactic C: Feature networking opportunities, free professional headshots and resume reviews for student attendees to take part in.

Tactic D: Feature Kayla Dunn and J.T. Gragg, Student Government Association President and Vice President candidates whose campaign centers largely around diversifying OSU’s campus, at the event to speak about the importance of diversity and inclusion.

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objectives, strategies and tactics Strategy 3: Integrate “Diverse Voices: Profiles in Leadership” into course curriculums within Oklahoma State University’s School of Media and Strategic Communications.

Rationale: From our focus groups, we learned that students that engaged in conversations about diversity and inclusion after interacting with the book materials were more open and successful.

Tactic A: Research course curriculums, potential lesson plans and test student response to “Diverse Voices: Profiles in Leadership” content using a focus group.

Tactic B: Pitch “Diverse Voices: Profiles in Leadership” to professors using information gained through our research.

Tactic C: Familiarize the student body with the book by highlighting featured segments throughout campaign materials and on social media.

OBJECTIVE 2:

Demonstrate the power of OSU’s Chapter of PRSSA as an avenue for the PRSA Foundation’s mission and ensure “Strength in Differences” in our chapter by increasing awareness of the club and increasing membership by 25% by March 11, 2019.

Strategy 1: Ensure campaign longevity and success by integrating “Strength in Differences” as a foundational pillar of

our PRSSA chapter.

Rationale: From our secondary research, we gained insight from the Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit as to how to build and recruit for our PRSSA chapter on this foundation. From our surveys, we learned that there is a need for more SMSC clubs and for a place for students to obtain diverse experiences.

Tactic A: Use PRSSA’s social media accounts to post all campaign content.

Tactic B: Outline plans for sustainability; including a diversity meeting each semester, and the establishment of a diversity and inclusion chair.

Tactic C: Recruit a diverse PRSSA chapter executive board to demonstrate to chapter members, faculty and other students of public relations-related majors that our chapter is focused on the promotion of “Strength in Differences.”

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objectives, strategies and tactics Strategy 2: Increase PRSSA’s digital presence to engage a larger audience and educate them about the campaign.

Rationale: From our focus groups, we learned that students that engaged in conversations about diversity and inclusion after interacting with the book materials were more open and successful.

Tactic A: Redesign OSU’s PRSSA chapter website.

Tactic B: Create an OSU PRSSA Instagram account.

Tactic C: Post compelling social media content in order to influence the target audience to engage with the OSU PRSSA chapter to further expose the audience to the “Strength in Differences” message.

Strategy 3: Use PRSSA to host events centered around diversity.

Rationale: From our survey, we learned that 50% of participants are in no SMSC clubs. However, many of the benefits that PRSSA potentially could provide students were received well.

Tactic A: Host a free site visit to PR agencies in Oklahoma City for students in the School of Media and Strategic Communications; visiting Anglin Public Relations and Saxum.

Tactic B: Reintroduce PRSSA to OSU students by hosting the first PRSSA meeting of the semester in order to educate attendees about the opportunities PRSSA has to offer and the value of diversity and inclusion within our chapter.

budget (See A-1)

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evaluation OBJECTIVE 1: EXCEEDED! Our first objective was to raise awareness of the PRSA Foundation’s mission and the Diverse Voices book by engaging our target audience and gaining a 100% increase in relevant media impressions.

• We exceeded in bringing awareness of PRSA by establishing a new PRSSA executive board, in which we included a Diversity and Inclusion Chair.

• We exceeded by gaining 301 followers on Instagram.

• We exceeded by increasing our chapters memberships by 50%.

• We exceeded by increasing our media impressions by 2,013.16% with 50,329 impressions.

OBJECTIVE 2: EXCEEDED! Our second objective was to engage our target audience by hosting PRSSA’s first annual public relations day, centered around diversity and inclusion within the public relations and communications fields.

• We utilized our campus resources to ensure students were aware of the event, this included in-class invitation presentations, emailing, social media, flyers and professor support.

• Beyond the panel we provided free professional headshots and resume reviews at our event to pull in an audience.

• We were purposeful in including a broad panel to present at public relations day. We were sure to have representatives of PRSA at our event.

• To tie in Diverse Voices we invited collaborating author, Neil Foote, as our keynote speaker, who shared his experience in the field.

conclusion Our “Strength in Differences” campaign has successfully informed our target audiences about OSU’s PRSSA chapter, the “Diverse Voices: Profiles in Leadership” book, promoted diversity in the public relations profession, and shown the public mission for OSU’s PRSSA chapter, we believe our campaign will have a lasting impact on the School of Media and Strategic Communications at OSU. 8

budget IN-KIND DONATIONS

EXPENSES

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ITEMS WITH NO COST

MEDIA IMPRESSIONS WEEK 1

WEEK 2

WEEK 3

WEEK 4

TOTAL: 50,329

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primary research FOCUS GROUP (KEY TAKEAWAYS)

SURVEY (KEY TAKEAWAYS)

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secondary research

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EXAMPLE SOCIAL MEDIA POSTINGS INSTAGRAM:

TWITTER:

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PRSSA WEBSITE

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events: pr day

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events: PR Agency Site Visit

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events: prssa meeting

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