Semester-Long Project

---

---

Overview

In COMSTRAT 310 students work in teams to generate original social media, PR, and advertising campaign elements for a single advocacy stance or initiative. Students will take a stance on an issue or create support for a policy/idea and advocate for that topic through strategic marketing and campaign planning throughout the semester.

In this course, students will create digital assets as part of an integrated campaign. In preparation, they will establish a project founded for concept, audience, and message. They will engage in visual storytelling and digital content creation for a website, social media channels, email marketing, online advertising and blog.

Categories for semester-long projects:

• Equality and diversity (age, disability, gender, race, etc)
• Empowerment (increase in self-efficacy)
• Environment (preservation, conservation, etc)
• Education (accessibility, resources, equality, etc)
• Other Suggestions

Roles on Teams: As a group, you will designate team members as follows…

• Account Manager – Project manager, client relations
• Assistant Account Manager – Assistant project manager
• Creative – Copywriter
• Creative –  Art Director (visual design)
• Digital – Web creation/development/social media
• Research and/or Media – Market and client research, media planning

Course Deliverables

1. Part 0: Team orientation, setup and establishing your team charter
2. Part 1: Creative brief, brand content, and identity package
3. Part 2: Online presence and preliminary digital content
4. Part 3: Branded materials, digital content creation, and Campaign #1 strategy
5. Part 4: Campaign #1 implementation, monitoring, and metrics
6. Part 5: Campaign #2 planning, implementation with new content creation, monitoring, and metrics
7. Part 6: Final Report & Presentation

Project Success Metrics

1. Identified the problem – or challenges your semester-long project addressed
2. Established a vision and goals for your fictional advocacy campaign
3. Completed an exercise in naming your campaign initiative.
4. Established a foundation for your project – identifying your organization’s mission, philosophy, and tone, conducting a SWOT analysis and mini competitor review, and crafting core messages for your advocacy stance through 5W’s, key terms and phrases
5. Designed a logo and visual identity for your organization/cause
6. Created a profile of your ideal customer/supporter by outlining characterizations, level of awareness, goals and motivations, challenges and frustrations, and media usage habits
7. Completed a customer decision process grid outlining an ideal customer’s behavior as they journey through stages of engagement with your organization
8. Established a plan and vision for your website and social media engagement strategy
9. Created and designed a website for your advocacy campaign including top level pages and the integration of Google Analytics, and search engine optimization on every page
10. Established social media channels including about and bio information and images.
11. Designed two digital campaign strategies including the community of interest analysis, content strategy, campaign messaging, editorial calendar, and plan for monitoring campaign effectiveness through various metrics points.
12. Implemented your campaigns including blog posts, social media posts, paid ads, and design and distribution of HTML emails.
13. Monitored and reported on metrics from your campaigns with an emphasis on Google Analytics, social media metrics, advertising and email performance.

---