Meet. Prey. Love. - The Campaign · Strategy 2: To partner with student organizations and local businesses to engage different groups of students to support the “Meet. Prey. Love.”

South Hollywood PR

Meet. Prey. Love. - The CampaignLouisiana State University

Adviser: Dr. Erin Coyle

South Hollywood PR Members:Claire Biggs

Kittu Pannu

Robbie Petro

Mia Bullard

South Hollywood PR

Table of ContentsCover Page............................................................Page 1

Table of Contents..................................................Page 2

Campaign Summary..............................................Page 3

List of Itemized Expenses.....................................Page 7

List of In-Kind Donations.....................................Page 8

Timeline................................................................Page 9

Challenges and Opportunities.............................Page 10

Media List...........................................................Page 11

Why “Meet. Prey. Love.”?..................................Page 12

Final Evaluation of Campaign............................Page 13

Table of Appendices............................................Page 14

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Campaign SummarySituation Analysis and Client Background: The CW Television Network is the result of a 2006 merger between UPN and The WB. The CW Television Network’s primary audience is women 18-34 years old, and it is the only network to exclusively target that audience. The CW has recently decided to reduce its programming to five nights a week. Tribune, the largest owner of The CW affiliates will fill the vacated time.

The network’s number one rated show is “The Vampire Diaries,” which returned for its second season Sept. 9; it airs at 8PM EST, and it is followed by a new show, “Nikita.” The CW is ranked fifth among other networks. Other shows on The CW Television Network include “One Tree Hill,” “90210,” “Gossip Girl,” “Life Unexpected,” “America’s Next Top Model,” “Hellcats,” “Smallville” and “Supernatural.”

Problem statement:

We need to influence women 18-34 years old to learn more about The CW Television Network and its most successful show, “The Vampire Diaries.” Through our research, we discovered that while 75 percent of people surveyed had heard of the show, only 20 percent actually tuned in on Thursdays to watch “The Vampire Diaries.”

Research: After we had selected the members of the South Hollywood PR team, we set out to compile extensive research on our client and our audience. To complete our primary research, we used two tools: surveys and polling random students. With the survey we created, we were able to figure out what challenges we had ahead of us. We found out how many students had heard of and/or watched the show, what was the best way to reach out to students who had not heard of it, and what would entice students to attend an event for “The Vampire Diaries.”

We were not surprised to learn that many students were suffering from vampire fatigue. One of cable television’s most popular shows, “True Blood,” filmed part of its seasons in Louisiana, and the next installment of the “Twilight” saga will start filming in Baton Rouge in November.

On that note, our team embarked on our secondary research phase and explored the history of vampires in popular culture and in Louisiana to see which themes remained popular and relevant to our target demographic. Our secondary research included a detailed report of our student demographics, through which we found that more than half of LSU’s student population was female. We also researched which events had the highest student attendance last year, which helped us create an event that would be successful.

Finally, our research revealed that we would be working under a significant planning consideration: football season. Football season is the main LSU activity during the fall semester. We discovered that our campaign would have to work around the upcoming football season and, at the same time, capitalize on it to compel students to work with and support our campaign.

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Campaign SummaryPlanning:

Goal 1: Increase awareness of “The Vampire Diaries” and The CW Television Network on Louisiana State University’s campus.

Objective 1: To inform at least 250 students about The CW Television Network and “The Vampire Diaries” during the two week campaign period.

Strategy 1: To create awareness for the “Meet. Prey. Love.” Campaign by utilizing local media and social networking.

Tactics: • Create a Facebook group for our campaign to promote our events and messages and provide correct information about “The Vampire Diaries” and The CW Television Network. • Create a Twitter account to promote our Facebook group and our events to local businesses, student organizations, and other groups on Twitter. • Send press releases to KLSU Radio Station, TigerTV, “The Daily Reveille,” “Tiger Weekly,” the Baton Rouge Chapter of PRSA, and “Scene Magazine” to garner coverage of our events and campaign.

Strategy 2: To partner with student organizations and local businesses to engage different groups of students to support the “Meet. Prey. Love.” campaign.

Tactics: • Attend every PRSSA meeting and encourage members to support the campaign and our events by volunteering and bringing their friends. • Form a partnership with “Up ‘til Dawn,” a student organization that raises awareness for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. We will promote a service portion of our campaign that also promotes “The Vampire Diaries,” because vampires can only stay “up ‘til dawn.” • Attend meetings at every sorority house on campus to encourage students to get more involved with our campaign and to attend our events. • Offer an incentive, such as free cupcakes, to the sorority house that supported our campaign the most.

Goal 2: To encourage students to get excited about the current season of “The Vampire Diaries” and our “Meet. Prey. Love.” campaign.

Objective 1: To encourage 50 students to attend our “Do You Bleed Purple and Gold?” T-shirt painting event on the Parade Grounds on Wednesday, Sept. 15.

Strategy 1: To create awareness of the event by building upon the hype of the upcoming football season.

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Campaign SummaryPlanning (cont’d): Tactics: • Hold the “Do You Bleed Purple and Gold?” T-shirt painting event the Wednesday before LSU’s first home game on the Parade Grounds. • Pitch our T-shirt painting event as a way to create the perfect tailgating shirt. • Encourage students to act as our awareness team the entire week to create a buzz about our campaign and event on campus.

Objective 2: To encourage 75 students to attend our “Meet. Prey. Love.” event in the Holliday Forum on Wednesday, Sept. 22.

Strategy 1: To increase hype about our event, “The Vampire Diaries,” and our campaign through Free Speech Alley demonstrations, partnering with local businesses, and on-campus organizations.

Tactics: • Work with the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity to have shirtless, glittering vampires in Free Speech Alley the days leading up to and the day of our main event on campus. • Team up with Currie Boutique to take over the window display to promote our event. • Join with the LSU Wellness Center to host and promote a week-long blood drive on campus • Create memorable signs promoting our campaign such as “Would You Like To Starve A Vampire?” for our blood drive and “Real Vampires Don’t Sparkle – Watch ‘The Vampire Diaries’” for our glittering vampires.

Execution: After weeks of planning, our campaign implementation began on Friday, Sept. 10, when we launched our Facebook group and Twitter account. First, we promoted the blood drive we brought to campus beginning on Sept. 13. Our sparkling vampires were on campus and in Free Speech Alley with signs, posters and fliers. We held the “Do You Bleed Purple and Gold?” T-shirt painting event that Wednesday, Sept. 15. Our team invited local band “Rockets for Reverie” to liven up the event and attract students to our area of the Parade Grounds.

Finally, we held our main event on Wednesday, Sept. 22, in the Holliday Forum of the Journalism Building. The event began at 6 p.m. with a performance by local band “State Street Survivors.” Students were able to come in, mingle, eat and pick up giveaways at this time.

To keep students engaged, stage make-up students were on hand to apply “vampire bites” to anyone who wanted them. We also invited students to update their Facebook and Twitter statuses at our social media hub, “The Pulse.” We borrowed a Civil War era dress from LSU’s Human Ecology department to bring the historical aspect of the show to the students; part of the display included pieces from our window display at Currie Boutique. Students were offered toothpaste and toothbrushes to “Keep Your Fangs Clean” and floss to remind them to “Floss Your Fangs.”

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Campaign SummaryEvaluation:Goal 1 - Objective 1: To inform at least 250 students about The CW Television Network and “The Vampire Diaries.”

Outcome: Between our Facebook group and Twitter account alone, our fan numbers and followers exceeded 300. Combined with our placements in Tiger Weekly, The Daily Reveille, Scene Magazine, the Baton Rouge Chapter of PRSA’s Web site, and mentions on KLSU, we reached more than 300 students.

Goal 2 - Objective 1: To encourage 50 students to attend our “Do You Bleed Purple and Gold?” T-shirt painting event on the Parade Grounds.

Outcome: Sixty students stopped by to prove they bleed purple and gold and to create the best tailgating shirt ever. With that number, we exceeded our goal by 20 percent.

Goal 2 - Objective 2: To encourage 75 students to attend our “Meet. Prey. Love.” event in the Holliday Forum.

Outcome: With 125 people in attendance at our event, we exceeded our 75 person goal by 66.67 percent.

Our team discovered through our evaluation survey results that more than 90 percent of students felt the event exceeded their expectations, while 86 percent were more inclined to watch “The Vampire Diaries” after attending the event.

Our final method of evaluation included a small fellowship portion. We revisited the sorority houses to discuss what they enjoyed about our campaign – and to hand out cupcakes. We learned they were grateful to be able to participate and to help promote our campaign; many of the sisters had started watching the show in groups after we spoke at their house. Finally, we hosted one final event in Joan Miller Hall, LSU’s only all-female residence hall. We encouraged students to come watch that week’s episode of “The Vampire Diaries” with us and to give us feedback on our campaign and event; forty students attended this informal event.

Based solely on the outcomes of our goals and objectives, our campaign was hugely successful because we exceeded every goal we set. We were encouraged by our survey results and the positive feedback we received from the different student organizations with which we worked. In conclusion, our South Hollywood PR team successfully planned and implemented a comprehensive campaign for The CW Television Network and “The Vampire Diaries.”

We screened the first episode of season two around 8 p.m. Between the first and second screenings, we passed out evaluation surveys. In addition, an “Up ‘til Dawn” representative gave a presentation on raising awareness. We screened the second episode of season two at 9 p.m. After that episode, we handed out prizes to our contest winners and mingled with the students to get their opinions on the event, our campaign, and “The Vampire Diaries.” The event ended at 11 p.m.

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I temized Expenses

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I temized Donat ions

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Timel ine• Team registered for conference • Research

Aug. 21 – Sept. 9

Sept. 10• Campaign begins: Facebook group

and Twitter account launched• First Facebook contest

Sept. 12• Facebook contest

Sept. 13• Beginning of Blood Drive• Event information and Press Release

sent to PRSA contact• Facebook contest

Sept. 14• Blood Drive• Pitch to Tiger Weekly, The Daily Rev-

eille and TigerTV• Facebook contest

• Blood Drive• “Do You Bleed Purple and Gold” event• Currie Boutique window display• Shirtless Vampires

Sept. 15

Sept. 16• Blood Drive• Facebook contest• Pitch to KLSU Radio Station• Shirtless Vampires

Sept. 17

• Blood Drive• Facebook contest

Sept. 22

• Shirtless Vampires• Meet. Prey. Love. (Main event)

Sept. 23• Screening in Miller Hall

Sept. 30• Campaign Book sent to PRSSA

Sept. 11• Facebook contest

• Facebook contest

Sept. 21

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Chal lenges and Opportunit ies

• Challenge 1: With almost 29,000 undergraduate and graduate students, we knew as four people that we would have to work efficiently and effectively to reach our target population.

• Opportunity 1: We wanted to partner with numerous student organizations that appeal to a wide variety of students. We chose to reach out to each sorority on campus, as well as a few fraternities to find volunteers for some of our demonstrations. We planned to work with volunteer organizations to promote the campaign while offering students a chance to give back to the community.

• Challenge 2: During the fall months at Louisiana State University, football dominates other student activities. It is extremely challenging to schedule events on campus during the season that do not involve football in some way.

• Opportunity 2: We decided to use our season’s first home game to our advantage. We organized a T-shirt painting event with one of our school’s slogans, “Do You Bleed Purple and Gold?” We wanted to find the perfect way to bring together football fans and vampire lovers. We hoped to attract the fans who would enjoy the opportunity to create what we called “the perfect tailgating shirt,” while keeping our campaign in the forefront of their minds. We knew students would be more interested in a campaign promoting a show about vampires if we could tie it to LSU, specifically with the theme of blood and bleeding and one of our school’s athletic slogans.

• Challenge 3: We noticed that many students were suffering from vampire fatigue, which was largely due to the popularity of “True Blood” and “Twilight.” Because we live in a state where “True Blood” has filmed some of its seasons and the next installment of the “Twilight” saga will be filmed, we anticipated that many students would assume “The Vampire Diaries” was no different from those vampire stories that garnered regional publicity. Because of this, we made sure through many of our tactics that students knew our campaign and how “The Vampire Diaries” was different from both “Twilight” and “True Blood.”

• Opportunity 3: We decided to capitalize on the growing movie industry in Louisiana by drawing support from “Scene: Louisiana’s Entertainment Magazine.” We also researched vampires and their presence in popular culture and history in Louisiana to see what aspects of those tales were most appealing.

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Media L istOnline

Broadcast

PRSA - Baton Rouge Chapter

Sadie Wilks

(225) [email protected]

Scene Magazine

Danielle Taraby


Manship Web site

Nicole Dahmen


The Daily Reveille

Sarah Lawson


Tiger Weekly

Charlotte Guerdry


Manship Weekly

Kyle Bove


RadioPrint

PRSSA Newsletter

Jennie Armstrong


KLSU Radio Station

Nick Boudreau


TigerTV

Sarah Plumb


Print

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Why “Meet . Prey. Love.”?Meet.Through our research, our team found that while people had heard of “The Vampire Diaries,” they did not know much about the plot, the characters, or the type of show it is. We wanted to introduce our target audience to The CW Network and “The Vampire Diaries.”

Sample Facebook Post:

Need a good reason to tune in to “The Vampires Diaries” this Thursday at 7 p.m.? We’ll give you two: Meet Damon and Stefan Salvatore – two brothers who take sibling rivalry to a whole new, sexy level.

Sample Tweet:

And you thought your ex was bad…Meet Katherine: she’s dangerous, she’s sexy, and she’s making her return to Mystic Falls in the season premiere “The Return.”

Prey.By researching past events on campus and polling random students, our team discovered that students at Louisiana State University are more inclined to participate in and attend events if there is an incentive for them. We had contests on Facebook every one or two days – careful not to fatigue our Facebook group with posts – that generated interest in the show as well as cultivated a competitive spirit, with students encouraged to “prey” on their fellow Tigers. We also used our students’ school spirit to our advantage, playing up that this was a national competition, encouraging our students to think of our competition as prey.

Sample Facebook Contests:

Thirsty? Have a drink with Damon Salvatore. But remember, if you’re drinking with this bad boy, you’re not getting something fruity or on the rocks – you’ll be sucking blood. First five to comment on this status with their blood type (or drink of choice) win a prize! Prey nicely!

Love. We want to encourage our audience to fall in love with “The Vampire Diaries.” We emphasized that this is a show about relationships, with siblings, lovers, friends, and enemies. We believe that there is an aspect of the show for everyone to love, which is why we chose to screen the first two episodes of this season during our main event.

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Final Evaluat ion After evaluating the goals and objectives our team set, we have found that our campaign was extremely successful. Our team reached The CW Television Network’s target audience of 18-34 year old women through social media, placements in many newspapers, coverage on Web sites and blogs, and attendance at our events. We met and exceeded every objective we set. Much of that success is due to use of our research. Through our introductory survey, we discovered what students wanted and tailored our main event to accommodate their requests. We also found out how students learned about campus events and what they knew about our client, The CW Television Network.

Many of the surveyed students had heard of “The Vampire Diaries.” While most students did not watch the show, we knew we could use the fact that they had heard of it to our advantage. We then used the information gathered in our survey to determine the best methods of reaching our target publics and to disseminate information about The CW Television Network and “The Vampire Diaries.” We made sure students could find information about the show and our campaign through Facebook and Twitter, and also in “Tiger Weekly,” “The Daily Reveille,” and Free Speech Alley demonstrations. We were surprised to find that many students were informed of on-campus events through email from student organizations, which prompted our team to utilize many of our organizational connections.

Because we have such a large population of LSU students, we knew that it would be advantageous to hold smaller, highly publicized events before our main event during the campaign period. While we were not able to keep track of exactly how many students attended the five-day blood drive, we received positive feedback. The blood drive was successful because we partnered with the Wellness Center to bring the blood drive vehicles to campus. Many students who attended our main event said they had heard of “Meet. Prey. Love.” through the blood drive. Students were informed of our event and “The Vampire Diaries” because of our sparkling vampires in Free Speech Alley. Likewise, more than fifty students attended our “Do You Bleed Purple and Gold?” T-shirt painting event held on the University Parade Grounds. This also increased awareness about our main event, the show and our campaign.

After evaluating our main event on-site through surveys, we were thrilled to find that most of the students who attended our main event were more inclined to watch “The Vampire Diaries” after attending the event, and that most were planning on watching the episode that aired the following night. While we feel there were some areas of our campaign that could be improved, our team is proud that we reached out and engaged our target publics and that, according to our surveys, 86 percent of respondents would tune in to watch “The Vampire Diaries” this season.

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Table of AppendicesAppendix A.......................Press Releases

Appendix B...............Surveys and Results

Appendix C.........................Social Media

Appendix D.............Placements and Clips

Appendix E....................................Fliers

Appendix F.................................Pictures

Documents

Meet. Prey. Love. - The Campaign · Strategy 2: To partner with student organizations and local businesses to engage different groups of students to support the “Meet. Prey. Love.”