As part of the PR module one half is assessed on a group presentation. We have been asked to arrange ourselves into groups in order to promote a product, service, issue or person to a designated target audience.
Below is a timeline of events showing the process of the presentation and the ideas and framework behind the campaign.
Post 1-Thursday 28th February 2013
Today we have arranged which group we are going to be in for our group presentation, and what we are going to focus on for our campaign. There are six of us in our group and today we made the first major decision of what we are going to base our campaign around, skin cancer. We decided that we wanted to promote the education of skin cancer as a service to those who may not have the knowledge about the dangers of skin cancer. We have chosen to focus on young adults in a foreign country, possible Spain. This decision was based around the idea that those living in a hotter country may not have the same education about the dangers of skin cancer as they have become accustomed to the weather.
Post 2-Tuesday 5th March 2013
We met up as group today to finalise the idea of our campaign. We have decided that we are definitely going to promote the education of skin cancer to those living Spain. We want to target those aged between 14-18 as we feel that this age group will be the most beneficial to our campaign. We have chosen area’s of research that we need to explore, so that we can start our planning for the campaign with the best background knowledge possible so that we use our time most effectively. Below is a list of area’s that we need to research, and how this has been divided between us as a group;
Demographic-Harriet
Viewing Figures of Mass media in Spain-Will
Health Education in schools in Spain-This is what I will be researching
Health System-Amy
Skin Cancer-Emily
Science behind sun-cream-Alex
World Health Organization– We will all be researching this.
Post 3- Monday 11th March 2013
For the past few days I have been researching the World Health Organization as well as researching the health education in schools in Spain.
World Health Organization
http://www.who.int/uv/faq/skincancer/en/index1.html– This is the link to the page I was looking at which gave me a background to skin cancer and some useful statistics.
Last week we decided that we would pitch our campaign to the World Health Organization (WHO). Who is the directing and and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. They are responsible for providing leadership on global matters, shaping the health research agenda, monitoring and assessing health trends and much more. The role of WHO in public health focuses on its core functions, those which are relevant to this campaign are listed below;
- Providing leadership on matters critical to health and engaging in partnerships where joint action is needed
- Setting norms and standards and promoting and monitoring their implementation
- Monitoring the health system and assessing health trends
I think choosing WHO as a organization to pitch our idea to, and to chose them to front our campaign is a great choice. Each year on the 4th February WHO team up with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to support Union for International Cancer (UICC) to promote ways to each the global burden of Cancer.
Health education in schools in Spain
I haven’t been able to find a great deal on the health education in Spanish schools. What I did manage to find was a company called Solsano who produced a skin healthcare programme to target sun safety in elementary school ages. This was the first Spanish health education programme for sun safety. Their objective was to evaluate Solsano’s effects on students knowledge, attitude and practices about sun safety. Their main message is that there are both benefits and dangers associated with sun exposure.
What was interesting to find out was that public health advisor’s recommend that the routine practise of sun protection behaviours is best started in childhood. For our campaign we decided to focus on 14-18 year olds, however the study found that younger children are more receptive than adolescents to practise sun protective behaviours and are more amenable to the instructions of parents and other adults.
Post 4- 12th March 2013
We have just had our second meeting as a group to discuss the progress of our campaign and to go over the details of our separate research. We have decided that we are a skin cancer charity, the specifics of the charity will be discussed over the next few weeks. We are looking to pitch to the World Health Organization to get funding to promote our campaign, which is a skincare education directed at 14-18 year olds in schools.
We discussed numerous ways in which we could advertise and promote the education, but we came up with the final idea of using sports as our unique selling point, as sports, especially football is very popular in Spain. We will produce unique sports days at schools around Spain, in which we will incorporate the use of suncream and the education of skincare. We are looking to also pitch to suncream brands such as Ambre Solaire and Nivea for free testers, using the idea of free advertising to promote their sales in Spain, and give these out to the school children. We are also looking to attract a celebrity, hopefully a famous sports person that would help attract the children, and help to associate promoting healthy skincare and the education with that famous person. We would like to idealy attract someone who knows, or has had skin cancer themselves, or a skin cancer scare, so that they would be more inclined to help raise the awareness of our campaign.
Over the next few weeks we are looking to research skin cancer more in depth, and the ways in which we can help those living in Spain to reduce the risks of skin cancer. We also need to look at the most effective ways to get the children to listen to our campaign, and come up with exciting ideas to include in our sports days.
Post 5- 6th April 2013
We have decided on further research for each member of our group to study. The different area’s that we each have to research have been divided equally so we each get an equal amount of work to research. Below is the list of who will be looking at what;
Emily Apps: Demographics
Amy Hesford: Logistics (sponsorships, locations)
Mitch Syrett: Online presence
Harriet Emily Alden: research existing events (pool parties, festivals etc)
Alexandra Jones: research young skin cancer patients in spain. real life stories.
Laura Finlay: investigate existing skin cancer campaigns (i.e. slip,slap,slop)
William Whittaker: legal, finances
Post 6- 10th April 2013
My current role in the group is to research existing skin cancer campaigns. This can provide background research for our campaign, I will be looking at campaigns which have been successful and the methods that were used within these campaigns that made them work. I will also be looking at those campaigns which were unsuccessful and how we can learn from their mistakes.
One campaign titled ‘Slip Slop Slap’ which was an Australian health campaign launched in the 1980’s is a good foundation for our current campaign aimed at teenagers in Spain. http://www.sunsmart.com.au/news_and_media/media_campaigns/slip-slop-slap/ This is the link to the Sun Smart website which campaigned ‘Slip Slop Slap’.
Slip Slop Slap
- One of the most successful health campaigns in Australia’s history launched in 1981‘Slip, Slop, Slap!
- A TV advertisement featured a seagull dressed in board shorts and sang the song
‘Slip, Slop, Slap!
It sounds like a breeze when you say it like that
Slip, Slop, Slap!
In the sun we always say ‘Slip, Slop, Slap!’
Slip, Slop, Slap!
Slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen and slap on a hat
Slip, Slop, Slap!
You can stop skin cancer – say: ‘Slip, Slop, Slap!’
- Cancer Council believes its Slip! Slop! Slap! campaign has played a key role in the dramatic shift in sun protection attitudes and behaviour over the past two decades.
Though we don’t have the budget to come up with a TV advertisement, a jingle or a catchy phrase could be one of the ways to help promote our campaign, at the very least a catchy title.
Post 7- 26th March 2013
I am still looking at previous campaigns to get an idea of successful PR techniques that we can use to help promote our campaign.
http://www.bad.org.uk/site/715/default.aspx This is a link to Sun Awareness Campaign which included some useful techniques in their campaign. The British Association of Dermatologists (BAD) run a campaign each year around skin cancer, called Sun Awareness. Each year they have a national Sun Awareness week in May. They include pop-up tents where you can have moles checked, which I think will be a great feature to include in our own campaign.
Post 8- 1st May 2013
Our campaign has changed slightly at our most recent group meeting. Instead of using sports days at various schools across Spain, we have decided to create a pool party tour. The idea is that we will host parties across Spain in the eight weeks leading up to the end of the school term. By advertising the party using local radio stations and social media we hope to gain attention leading up to a grand finale pool party in Barcelona in which students can have the chance to win tickets to be able to attend. The parties will include a pop-up tent in which they can have their moles checked, and also find out their skin type. The pool parties will be a fun interactive way of showing the students the importance of using sun protection. The demographic has been narrowed down to 16-18 years. This age group is the most independent age, and also if we use a wider age group it will be harder to appeal to everyone.
Post 9- 8th May 2013
This week in our group meeting, we started writing up the brief for the campaign. We also issued out specific area’s of interest for people to focus on for the next couple of days, the area’s of interest included;
- Media
- Venue’s
- Health professional
- Graphics
- Promotion
As one of the journalists in the group I have decided to focus on the media. As organisers of the campaign, we need to attract attention from local media in the form of local radio stations, newspapers and magazines. These organizations will help promote our campaign, which will gain attention and help our campaign reach the maximum coverage.
We want and need the local media on our side. We are aiming to send press releases to the newspapers and magazines, catered specifically to their style. We are also hoping to work with the local radio stations in the area’s that we are holding the pool parties. We need to let the media know that the pool parties are a great way of interacting with young adults about the benefits of healthy skin regimes and skin protection. We want to promote the health advantages of a healthy attitude towards sun safety, our campaign makes for a great health story for the benefit of the nation. We are aiming to work with the media, to help them get a great feel good story, in our return for advertising and notoriety.
We also discussed the tactics of our campaign. One of the main questions that we needed to answer was;
‘How are we going to make the pool parties successful?’
We need to tackle the issue that although we are aiming to raise the awareness and change the attitudes of young people on the benefits of sun safety, we also need to make sure that the parties that are held are fun and something that people want to attend. To do this we are going to;
- Use the local radio station to hold a live radio show throughout the party, this provides great music, and also a chance for those attending to be live on air
- Include a promotional video
- Pool volley ball gamesPool basketball game
- Swim races for prizes
- Non-alcoholic cocktails
- buffet
Post 10-12th May 2013
Our campaign is coming together really nicely and is visually starting to look professional. We have a logo for our campaign, Piel Sesiones;
We also have our Facebook page which will be an active social media page when the target audience can interact with the campaign, and also by liking and sharing our page can have a chance to win tickets to the finale party in Barcelona. https://www.facebook.com/PielSesiones
Mitch has been very creatve and has come up with a promotional video which will be on our campaign website and also on Facebook, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2zUK8L9e2Y
We also have a live website which is how you can get tickets for the pool parties. To do this there is a questionnaire on the site. The page also tells the user about Piel Sesiones and our aims and objectives about the campaign, sponsors of the campaign, a live social networking stream and a page where photographs can be uploaded from each event which users can tag themselves in.
Post 11- 15th May-2013
This is the final week before the presentation, and so we have been fine-tuning our campaign, and practising our presentation. Each of us chose a sector of the presentation to pitch, and as I have researched the media, this will then be what I present to the panel. I have done further research into different media channels in Spain, and have finalised the list of national and regional magazines and newspapers, as well as a radio station that we will be targeting.
Magazines- long leads
o Superpop
o Spanish Glamour
o revista los 40
o Loka Magazine
o Revista Vale
o Bravo
o Spanish Cosmopolitan o Tentaciones o Todo Internet
Newspapers- short leads
o Que
o El Pais
o El Correo
o El Periodico
o Diario de Sevilla
o La Razon
o ABC
o El Dia
o Ara
o The Times on Earth
o Heraldo de Aragon
Radio Station
o KISS FM
The main newspaper which I have chosen to target is called Que. It is a free daily newspaper, published in Madrid but is distributed all over Spain. As it is free, hopefully this will mean a lot of people will come in contact with the publication, through public transport for example.
Sueperpop and Spanish Glamour are two mainstream Spanish magazines which both are aimed at our demographic. By sending out press releases to these publications, hopefully we will gain much needed print space to raise the profile of Piel Sesions and advertise the pool parties as fun and exciting events that students don’t want to miss.
The final and main media channel is KISS FM. It is a national radio station with over a million listeners. By using KISS FM as a sponsor of our event it creates a perfect partnership between us and them. We get extensive coverage of a wide Spanish audience through the station advertising our events on the radio, whilst KISS FM will get the chance to get involved with a brand new and exciting campaign that is aiming to change the attitude young people have towards sun safety and sun protection.
Our website, social media and promotional video is all coming together, and the group as a whole seem really pleased with the level of standard that of our campaign. The next few days will be allocated to sorting out our pitch documents and printing out all the relevant documents needed for when we present, and of course much needed practise!
Post 12-20th May 2013
Today we had our presentation which we are all really pleased with. I had to try and combat last minute nerves at the thought of pitching to a panel, but it went well, and it was great to see our final campaign being presented to an active audience. I think our group displayed a clear and thorough presentation, and we creative an interactive campaign for a worthwhile cause.
laurabfinlay 