by Jared Brosius, senior advertising and public relations
The transition from coursework to the workforce can be difficult if college students are not adequately prepared with hands-on experiences.
The College of Journalism and Mass Communications gives students this necessary experience through its advertising and public relations campaigns class. It fulfills the capstone course requirement that gives students a chance to apply everything they have learned while in college into a final project.
“Since the college has so many elective options, students bring different talents to their teams, just like in the real world,” said Andrea Gaghagen, an adviser for the CoJMC.
The campaigns class has been offered for about 20 years. The original intent of the class was for students to work on a campaign and pitch it to an actual client. Past clients involved with the class include big names, such as American Red Cross, Bank of America, the New York Times, Adidas, Apple, Ameritas, Lincoln Children’s Zoo, the Nebraska State Historical Society, the USDA and many more.
Professor Nancy Mitchell, one of the founders of the campaigns class, said the goal of the class was to be a culminating experience of the college.
“It gives students a chance to try out what they want to do,” Mitchell said.
In the campaigns class, students have one client throughout the semester. Each professor chooses one or multiple local or regional clients. Students are then put into teams based upon their skills and what role they would like to fulfill in their future careers.
This semester, professor Kelli Britten’s class is working with FarmAfield. The company is relatively new in the ag tech field, so the teams were tasked with defining the target audience of the company in an attempt to grow the investor group.
Professor Diane Krajicek’s class is working with Southport Marketing on behalf of the Heartland Chevy Dealers to create marketing campaigns around the Chevy Trax.
Professor Adam Wagler prefers to have each team working on different clients or projects. Wagler also takes a technological approach to the class by working with civil and mechanical engineering students on three different product development and user engagement projects. The projects include research and development of a new product with Raikes and Nelnet, new ways to activate data to improve University of Nebraska–Lincoln sustainability practices, and event engagement tactics for Baja Racing.
“Instead of resembling an agency, (the campaigns class) resembles more of an in-house marketing team,” Wagler said.
Students who have taken the campaigns course in the past have nothing but positive remarks.
“It was fun to see it all through and to actually implement it,” said Lindi Riley, a graduate student in the college, “not just doing work for the sake of doing it.”
