Digital Bridges Open House

This semester was a crazy ride in PR Campaigns. In addition to it being our last public relations class EVER, our "senioritis" was intensified drastically after we had to change our campaign three times.

Originally, we were assigned the "Digital Inclusion" campaign. We were to spread awareness about the distribution of 250 discounted wireless accounts for families with low to moderate income. After working on this project for nearly three months, however, my group was informed that the city had not approved the accounts yet, and we were to be given a different campaign to carry out in less than one month.

Our second campaign was to coordinate a ribbon cutting ceremony for Digital Bridges with the Milledgeville Baldwin County Chamber of Commerce. Sounds fun, right? Negative. After planning around President Leland's calendar, we were able to narrow when we could have the event down to two days... Both being less than three weeks away. We selected the date that was the farthest away (only a little over two weeks) and began planning the event. The next week, we were informed that the university did not want students planning the ribbon cutting ceremony with the chamber, so our campaign was changed AGAIN.

Our third and final campaign was to plan an open house for the foundation. Our goal was to spread awareness about Digital Bridges and what they had to offer to the Milledgeville community. Instead of targeting the low to moderate income families or local business owners, this time, our main focus was to target the Milledgeville community (residents and college students). Through various forms of promotions, our event had a total turnout of 384 people ranging from college students to senior citizens.

Following is a quick summary of our strategy:

Media
Traditional

• Radio: A PSA was written and distributed to the three main radio stations in the Milledgeville area. We chose FM radio stations WKZR, WVKX and WMGZ, because each of these stations targeted a different demographic.

o WKZR-FM, Country 102.3: Country radio
• Ran three times a day from April 14 to April 21.
• The PSA was also run the same amount for the same period of time on WKZR’s AM station.

o WVKX-FM, Love 103.7: Urban contemporary radio

o WMGZ-FM, Z97.7: Hot adult contemporary radio
• Aired on Z97 Community Calendar weekdays from April 13 to April 21 at 7:50 a.m. and 3:50 p.m.
• Listed on Z97 Community Calendar on website – z97.us
• Discussed on radio show “Weekends with Tori” on Saturday, April 17 and Sunday, April 18.

• Newspaper: A press release was written and distributed to the two major newspapers in Milledgeville.

o The Union Recorder: The newspaper is published five days each week. Circulation of approximately 7,416 copies.
• Published on April 21, 2010

o The Baldwin Bulletin: This newspaper runs once a week with a circulation of about 3,600.
• The Baldwin Bulletin was unable to run our press release due to lack of space available in the paper.

o The Colonnade: The Georgia College & State University student newspaper. Published every Friday. Circulation of
approximately 6,000 students.
• Published a review of the Digital Bridges Open House in their Friday, April 30 edition.

Social

• Digital Bridges’ Open House was promoted on the two major social networks used by college students.

o Facebook: An event was created on Facebook to notify students and other users of the Open House. It gave detailed information about the event and information about Digital Bridges, including the location and mission statement. There were 1,040 people invited with 89 confirmed guests. Messages were sent to the guest list informing them of the Twitter competition and reminders of the event.

o Twitter: Ten tweets were tweeted by Digital Bridges informing their followers of the event and Twitter competition. In addition, members of our group tweeted about the event and competition several times on our own Twitter accounts.

Non-Traditional

• To help get the word out about the event, 300 quarter-page flyers were distributed around campus. Group members passed out flyers directly, left several at the GCSU Bookstore, and placed them on the windshields of cars parked around campus.
• In addition, 15 11x17 inch flyers were distributed and hung at local businesses in Downtown Milledgeville, the GCSU Bookstore, and on bulletin boards scattered around campus.
• 100 table tents were placed on the tables in the GCSU Dining Hall.
Promotions
• Free food: At the open house, guests were able to enjoy free Dominos pizza, hot wings from Amici Italian Café, Edy’s Ice Cream with toppings, and lemonade.
• Jump drives: The first 100 guests received a free 1 GB jump drive courtesy of Digital Bridges. The jump drives were decorated with the Digital Bridges logo and tied with a ribbon. The ribbons had a letter attached giving the foundation’s website and gave gratitude to guests that came out to the event.
• Twitter contest: A Twitter contest began one week prior to the event. The competition stated: “Give one tweet explaining how Digital Bridges can improve your quality of life. Best answer wins a $25 iTunes Gift Card!” The winner, Sarah Applebury, picked up her prize at the event.
• Z97 live remote: The Z97 “prize patrol” van was parked in front of Digital Bridges for the entire duration of the event. A member of the Z-Crew was present and broadcasted live from the event.


The staff at Digital Bridges was extremely pleased with the turnout and the overall success of the event. Although it was extremely stressful at times, it was all worth it in the end!