Executive Summary
This is a PR campaign proposal prepared by Pacific PR group to Newlandia Educational Foundation. This campaign is geared towards getting third-party news coverage for NEF. This will in turn raising its profile to the people of Newlandia.
To achieve the stated aim, this campaign clearly identified and described systematic sets of PR tactics, each with a predisposed finite and specific vision. If adopted and launched, these communication tactics will be implemented on a continuous mode.
In the initial stages, the author outlined key issues currently hampering the performance of NEF. The opportunity and problem statements are clearly outlined in this section.
Following was a clear identification of the objectives of the proposed campaign. Succeeding this section will be an analysis and statement of research findings.
The author notes that the targeted publics were segmented into four major groups. The core part of this campaign, namely the strategic section, succeeded the targeted publics.
The author then went ahead to draw a Gantt chart and a skeleton budget to depict the duration and estimated costs.
Towards the end, the author identified evaluation methods for determining the viability of this campaign on a 1-month cyclical basis governed strictly by management-by-objective approach.
Situation Analysis
The need of formative research in the preliminary work of communication planning is the crucial beginning to the process of formative research.
NEF Overview
Newlandia Educational Foundation is a not-for-profit organization established in the early 1990s to the credit of its major financier WordHelp as well as its minimal financier, Newlandia Government. The organization boasts of being a small but a productive entity with estimated active staff of 6.
As the organization expands to serve the increasing educational needs of the Newlandians, this charitable organization has been forced to source for additional financiers to comfortably service its increased needs.
Some of these needs include the need to build an additional 3 new schools in the Southern Region and supporting the already established units in the regions of Calina, Rajan and Shalel. As such, NEF has recently targeted donations from the Newlandian public.
NEF’s vision has been to let all Newlandians access their educational needs regardless of their sex, religion, or economic standing. The related mission statement has been to provide every Newlandian with an access to literacy and education.
Opportunity statements
Pacific Research team established the following as some of the opportunity statements which NEF can capitalize on to raise on its public awareness:
The presence of conscious and socio-economic leaders in Newlandia can be opportunistically used to raise NEF’s profile since these opinion leaders can be approached to deliver key public awareness messages.
For instance, the President of Newlandia Organic Coffee Growers Association, Mr. Van On is a cherished public speaker who is fluent in four languages. Lakshmi Shankaran is well known for her excellent negotiation and public speaking skills.
Jacinta Greenwood, the Executive Officer of Newlandia Environmental Council, has been known for coordinating a popular talk show at Radio South as well as advocating for women rights in Newlandia. As such, she can be a vital messenger of NEF’s awareness campaign. Moreover, the following can act as both opportunity and problem statements:
- The assertion that the impoverished aged population in the Newlandian South is looking for educational opportunities for their young children to help them break their current poverty status.
- The evidence that the segment of adult population in Batak, wealthy West and industrious North-East are neither aware of NEF’s existence nor its mission of providing education to the disadvantaged members of the society in the whole of Newlandia.
Goal/s and Objectives of program
The following are the broad goals and specific objectives of this proposed NEF PR campaign:
Goals
This PR campaign intends to:
- Increase NEF’s awareness level amongst the people of Newlandia hence improving on its general reputation.
- Inform the masses of people in Newlandia of NEF’s existing educational opportunities and how they can maximise on them.
- Inform the Newlandians leaving outside the Southern region of the current hardships facing the Southern Newlandians and how the hardships have restricted access to educational opportunities.
Objectives
- To relay the need of the 70% Newlandian business and industry sector owners supporting the existing charitable organization in the South-NEF- by donating in support of its educational activities.
- To spread NEF’s awareness campaign to at least 60% of Newlandians to ensure that they enrol their children and donate to fund its operations.
- To inform the adult population (who are 18+) in the capital (read Britak City) of how economically disadvantage the Southern Newlandians are. This will be with a view of winning their support for the existing NEF educational programme which seeks to uplift the educational standards of these Southerners.
- To bring clearly to the attention of the Newlandian public that Newlandia Children Foundation (NCF) and Newlandia Educational Foundation are two different charitable entities hence the need to give support to both organizations.
Research
Existing Research
In compiling this PR campaign proposal, the author carried out a formative research on the NEF situation and established the following:
Referring to the interview with the Director of NEF, Ms Meryn Doogood, it was established from the findings of a previous research that 1 out of 10 adults in Newlandia had heard of NEF. To add, only a small percentage (of 5%) knew what NEF’s core business was. These demonstrated that the level of public awareness for this charitable organization was very low.
The author established from the same interview that NEF relied entirely on donations. These were either from the major financier-WordHelp, the minimal financier-the Newlandia Government and the general Newlandia public.
To add, the author established that there was a charitable organization with a closely related name-Newlandia Childrens Foundation. This organization had won public support for its activities and chances were very high that most Newlandians who were donating towards its course might have thought is a sister organization to NEF, which was not the case.
Furthermore, it was found out that NEF had run short f money to implement its educational programs that included amongst others building 3 additional schools and supporting the already-operational schools. These schools lacked enough books, chairs, stationery and tables.
Moreover, the author established that Rangi, a graduate from a low-class school namely Calina Village School had excelled and joined a reputable university by the name of Pacific. These showed that the many kids under NEF’s educational programme had the capacity to excel especially if resources were availed to them through the foundation.
Likewise, the author established that there are around 60 school-aged kids in the South of Newlandia who stayed far away from the already established schools. As such, the foundation had located land with a view of establishing schools beneath them.
Tellingly, the author established from this interview that once NEF’s public profile will have been raised; there was a likelihood that Newlandians would come to its rescue. This was evidenced by the way they had supported the highly publicised and successful charitable organization-NCF.
Additional research
The author highlighted the following as the gaps which additional research can assist in overcoming to successfully execute this proposed campaign:
The author deemed it necessary to study some of the activities or operations that have been embraced by the other charitable organization, Newlandia Children Foundation. The positives can be borrowed to assist in executing this program.
This is so since from the interview session held with Ms DooGood, it was established that this organization had a high level of awareness that had made it to receive a lot of funding thus becoming successful in the process.
There is also need to narrow research on the specific languages spoken at local community levels and customize on the same. This will ensure that specific audiences, whether illiterate or literate are reached during the implementation of the awareness campaign.
Target Publics
The author notes that socialists studying organizations have developed important concepts of linkage that constitute patterns of relationships that exist between any organization and its spread audiences. The author, drawing inferences from this assertion, identified the following as the categories of publics relevant in this proposed PR campaign:
Customers
These were further classified into potential and current customers. Potential customers included all categories of children that are likely to join NEF educational programs once the awareness will have been achieved. The current customers consist of all those adults and children who are already aware of the existence of NEF and are already benefiting from its programmes.
Producers
This was specifically composed of the financiers. In this case, the WordHelp, the Newlandia Government and the general Newlandia publics make up the producers group since they are the financiers of the NEF programme.
Limiter
This was composed of one opponent/competitor, NCH. This charity organization had acted as a key competitor since most Newlandians assumed that it a sister organization to NEF and that by donating to it, they were also in the same way donating to NEF. This was not the case at all.
Enablers
This was further classified into the media and opinion leaders. The media included the print, TV and radio stations across the island. The opinion leaders are the influential figures holding key positions in some of the Newlandia business ventures for instance Bill Klemp, who topped up as an influential businessman for long years. These categories of publics are vital in spreading the awareness messages in Newlandia.
The following pictorial depicted the above publics
Figure 1: Depicting the 4 major categories of NEF PR campaign publics
Strategy
Strategy in any PR campaign is the foundation on which the tactical campaign programme is developed to meet the objectives.
Brief strategy statement
In this campaign, author points out that the overriding strategy will revolve around publicising the earlier stated objectives with the main aim of raising NEF’s profile to attract public attention towards its programmes. The campaign will demonstrate to the Newlandians that by being informed and supporting NEF’s educational activities, the Newlandian public stands to gain as a whole.
Key Messages
Every PR campaign calls for the incorporation of sets of messages that form the key thrust of the process of communication. These messages ought to be short, concise, and clear for easy understanding by their specific target audiences. These messages are used to achieve two important roles namely that of forming the attitude and demonstrating effectiveness.
The following is a set of messages which were considered relevant in this PR campaign. These messages are linked to either a specific target audience or to multiple audiences.
- NEF is a charitable organization that provides education opportunities to the needy children in the whole of Newlandia.
- The foundation relies on public donations to fund its educational programmes.
- These donations can be presented by any member of society in the following forms: money, study materials, land, stationery or offering of volunteering services.
- There is need to embrace and support NEF programmes to weed out the cycle of illiteracy and poverty in the Newlandia societies.
- NEF is a legally registered Newlandian owned charitable organization, purposefully serving the needs of Newlandians.
- By embracing education for all, Newlandians are likely to get rid of illiteracy and increase their chances of employment. This is likely to improve the standards of living.
- By donating abundant resources to NEF, many disadvantaged students can be assisted to realize their potential just as in the case of Rangi.
- To the business or industry sector, by supporting NEF’s charitable activities, your business venture stands to improve its reputation in the Newlandian public.
Tactics
The PR as a profession is known to own a number of unique and creative tools within its armoury. The tactics chosen for this PR campaign were motivated by the specific public preferences and the following elements present in most PR campaign theories.
- The need of showing respect to the NEF donors as well as upholding continuous communication to win on their future donations.
- Channelling tactics in this campaign through carefully chosen media to attract the attention of targeted publics.
- Using the TV as a medium of communication to win on the interest of the Newlandian public.
- Developing communication tactics that call on the rich Newlandians to assist the poor in the South to attain the basic needs like education for them (the poor) to move to the upward levels (in this case read higher standards of living). This will help in reducing the level of poverty.
- The need of encoding correctly the message to be transmitted to the sender. The Proposed Tactical Devices
Drawing inferences from the PR theories above, the following is a detailed description of the proposed tactics handled on a public by public mode.
Tactical devices for the customer public
The campaign proposes to make use of the local radio stations for PR news releases since most of the locals in Southern Newlandia are illiterate for the print media. The PR team should specifically approach Radio South as the key tactical device upon which NEF awareness ‘gospel’ should be spread. Their popular weekly talk show ‘Open Line’ should be encoded with the message and broadcast in all local languages.
The chosen presenters should allow listeners to call in and pose questions that seek any information on the operations of the foundation. NEF awareness campaign stands to spread to higher levels within the first two months from the launch of this tactical campaign.
To add, the PR team intends to organize road shows that will involve an approximated 10 vehicles playing Newlandia popular music. The road shows will make temporary stops at designated points where locals will gather to find out what the campaign is all about.
During the gatherings, famous local artistes and comedians will be allowed to make presentations to the public. NEF awareness campaign will then be spread to the amused local residents. Posters, flyers, pamphlets, t-shirts all printed with NEF awareness messages will be distributed at these road-shows.
Moreover, large TVs will be stationed at local shopping centres and local leaders trained on how to relay videos to the local residents. These videos should capture the benefits associated with education and present NEF as the local foundation that needs the support of all Newlandians to provide educational opportunities to the poor Newlandians.
Tactical devices for the producers
The PR campaign team has proposed to make use of the print media and the national TV stations since these classes of people consist of the wealthy Newlandians. As such, depending on the availed budget, adverts endowed with NEF vision and mission statements will be paid for in the print media for instance the Newlandia Times that is renowned for selling well in business and metropolitan areas.
The Newlandia Broadcasting Corporation should be approached to send NEF awareness campaign messages in their popular sections of the news coverage. For instance, the Business Report has emerged to be very popular with the business elites who also top up as potential donors to NEF.
Tellingly, the campaign team intends to approach socio-economic opinion leaders and respected members of the business elite to spread the awareness message. In this case, the sponsorship theory that stresses on the need of the sponsor assisting the foundation by donating, fundraising or spreading the awareness campaign will have been utilized to the maximum.
Tactical devices for the enablers
This group is made of the media and the opinion leaders. As highlighted in the above section, the opinion leader’s group includes highly respected members of the society like Mr Rohan Sing, Bill Klempf and others who are to be approached by the campaign team and tasked with donating and/or acting as messengers for spreading the NEF awareness campaign as the sponsorship theory alludes.
The media, other than acting as tools upon which the campaign messages will be relayed, will also be required to come on board on a willing basis and act as donors to the foundation. They can then use this for building their own reputation or image in the Newlandian public gallery.
Tactical devices for the limiter
The campaign team does not intend to use any tactical devices nor spend resources to discredit the image of its major opponent-Newlandia Childrens’ Foundation (NCF). Instead, our PR team proposes to carry out further research to determine some of the success factors behind NCF’s initiatives and if possible, incorporate in NEF’s future PR campaigns.
The following tactical devices are also proposed to run on a concurrent basis:
- Creating solid press kits that incorporates NEF’s information, brochures, its staff profile as well as their pictures and bios to demonstrate their competency for this charitable organization
- Using of the existing popular social blogs for instance twitter to communicate the message to literate audiences who interact with the internet.
- Prioritizing and managing news releases through agenda setting to control on the negative aspects that might result in the course of implementing the campaign.
- Developing a dynamic websites that will be regularly updated with NEF awareness messages.
- Attending to special business or educational conferences and spreading NEF’s awareness message.
Timeline
The following Gantt chart has been proposed to assist the execution team to meet strict deadlines when co-ordinating the proposed communication activities.
Budget
The following skeleton budget has been prepared to capture the details of requisite materials, human capital and operating costs associated with this venture. This was prepared with the primary aim of letting NEF know what it can meet or not (Davies 2011). As such, its main sponsor WordHelp is likely to allocate funds to the most affordable areas of the campaign.
Evaluation
In this proposed campaign, Pacific PR intends to carry out both ongoing and end reviews to determine the success of the chosen campaign elements. To achieve this, the reviews will be matched to the earlier specific objectives in the manner below:
- To assess if 70% of Newlandian business and industry sector owners would have come to the rescue of this financially troubled organization, the PR team proposes to use the monthly list of NEF financial donors and establish a number of businesses that would have joined the supporting team. The number of donors will be calculate as a fraction of the total registered businesses and multiplied by 100 to determine the exact %-age (e.g. 65/250*100)
- To assess whether 60% of Newlandians will be informed of NEF’s existence, conclusive surveys will be conducted at each month and the analysis of the findings from the Newlandian public presented to study if the 60% target will have been achieved or will be in the process of being attained.
- To review whether the 80% adult population in Britak will have been informed on the economic disadvantages facing their fellow Newlandians in the south, the PR team intends to carry out reviews in Britak using the Radio and TV media. Listeners will be allowed to call in and acknowledge or deny whether they are aware of the economic hardships facing their fellow Newlandians in the South.
- Finally, to assess whether the Newlandian public will have known the differences that existed between NEF and NCF, a quantitive survey will be carried by the campaign team. In this survey, team members will randomly sample an estimated 20 persons per urban area and request them to fill the identical and simple questionnaires that will seek to test the respondents to state the differences between these two organizations.