Campaigns class is capstone course

By NANCY MITCHELL
Advertising department chairwoman

  Sometimes the things that require the most work are also the most rewarding. That’s how advertising students seem to feel about the advertising and public relations campaigns course.

  “This course was the most difficult class I have taken in my college career. But it was the most rewarding.”

  “Overall, this class taught me greatly about working with others, trust and responsibility.”

  These comments from course evaluations are typical of students’ responses to campaigns, the capstone course in the advertising/public relations sequence. On the first day of the course each semester, the instructor teaching the class tells students to hang on to their hats for the roller coaster ride they’re about to experience.

  Campaigns is the culmination of the coursework in the advertising/PR major. The course permits students to participate in an agency-like setting and to take one of the roles found in advertising agencies: copywriter, designer, public relations specialist, media planner or account supervisor. The team works together for the entire semester on a project for a real client.

  Professors who teach campaigns interview potential clients prior to the start of the semester. The teachers look for the educational potential of the project and for a well-focused communication problem that calls for an advertising and/or public relations solution. Clients for recent projects have included: the Lincoln Children’s Museum, Lincoln Children’s Zoo, the Nebraska Army National Guard, the Urban Indian Health Center, the Seniors Foundation and the Methodist Hospital Foundation.

  Students meet with clients early in the semester and have periodic contact with them as they work through the project. The result is a plans book, which analyzes the client’s situation, summarizes and explains research pertaining to the project and presents advertising/public relations objectives and the creative solutions proposed by students. These books are presented to the clients at the end of the semester during a session attended by the clients’ key decision makers, the dean and associate dean of the college and interested faculty.

  Some students claim the course is the most difficult class they take during their college career.

  “It was a very different experience from other courses,” one student said on an end-of-semester evaluation.

  The professor takes the point of view of a facilitator rather than an all-knowing teacher. The faculty believe that by the time students enter campaigns, they have all the skills necessary to complete an advertising or public relations campaign. Students integrate what they have learned in the previous classes and apply their ability to think analytically and strategically. They gain a fuller understanding of the advertising/public relations process and develop confidence that they can solve communication problems.

  Learning how to work as a team is as important to the process as understanding fundamental advertising and public relations concepts. It is essential that students learn to work together, constructively criticizing and being criticized. Sometimes the instructor teaching this course has to be a skilled counselor.

  Most semesters the student teams emerge as close-knit groups who, having survived all-nighters at the end of the semester, can proudly point to their plans books and talk about all their good and bad experiences together.

  The real payoff for the students comes when they know they’ve done excellent work for their client, when they can include their work in a portfolio to show potential employers and when they see clients like the Lincoln Children’s Museum, the Seniors Foundation and the Urban Indian Health Center using the campaigns they created.