35th Annual PROTOS Awards

The 35th annual PROTOS Awards and Banquet was held Friday, June 25 at the Surf and Sand Resort in Laguna Beach, Calif. The awards ceremony was hosted by the Orange County Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America and recognizes the areas of public relations programs, media relations and collateral development.


This year's theme, "The Art of PR", set out to recognize the county's best PR professionals who exemplify the theme's notion. PRSA members from another region judge and critique each entry and the winners are announced each year at the PROTOS banquet.

I had the chance to volunteer and attend this year's PROTOS awards as a representative of Chapman University's chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America. Chapman was awarded a thousand dollar scholarship to send members of its chapter to the PRSSA national conference in October during the awards ceremony.

The view from the terrace of the cocktail reception was breathtaking and the awards ceremony was entertaining and valuable. It was such a great opportunity to meet and congregate with so many talented and successful PR practitioners at such an event. I can't wait until I have the chance to attend this event as an actual PRSA member.

Invasion of the Fraudulent Press Releases

Last week a fake press release supposedly from Javelin Pharmaceuticals hit the news wires with the headline "US Supreme Court split - rules in favor of Big Pharma." The release was sent via Business Wire June 18 and is now being treated as a case of stolen identity and as a criminal investigation.

"In the wake of a fraudulent press release that is now the subject of a Federal criminal investigation, Business Wire will no longer accept client releases submitted via e-mail, effective immediately," said Cathy Baron Tamraz, chief executive officer of Business Wire.

According to Business Wire the elimination of e-mail submissions was planned to be part of a security initiative in August, but this incident has prompted the company to speed up the timetable for the changes.

All press releases will now be submitted to "BW connect", Business Wire's proprietary order-entry system, which is audited on an annual basis by leading independent network security specialists according to a press release from Business Wire.

This fraudulent release came after one was sent from PRNewswire last week targeting General Mills. The fake headline reads "Obama Orders Full Investigation of General Mills Supply Chain Following Food Recalls."

I found this incident to be rather interesting. First I thought to myself "who would actually send out fake press release and with what purpose?" I'm still filtering through the reasons in my mind, but I hope that the changes being made will stop this problem.


I feel there is already a distrust between journalists and PR practitioners. If they can't even trust that a press release is accurate or true, it could hurt the industry altogether. I doubt that a few fake press releases would do this, but if it continues, who knows.

This also devalues the trust between major news wire companies and those in the PR field. It will be interesting to see if something like this happens again.

Blogging for Beginners

So I am definitely not an experienced blogger, but I made a promise to myself that I would try to publish one post everyday. That kind of turned into one post every week day, as I refrained from posting this past weekend, but I knew the only way to have a successful blog is to be committed. In fact it's one of the most important things to do as a new blogger according to Bret Simmons of the Student Branding Blog.

Three tips that he gives are:

1. Make a commitment
2. Subscribe to and read blogs by those in your field
3. Subscribe to blogs about blogging

Okay, so far so good. I've done variations of all of the above, but I've also got a few tips of my own.

1. Pick a specific subject to focus on. When I first started blogging, I just wanted to write about everything I was interested in; music, art, film, television, PR, advertising, social media, etc. It's hard to create a brand with your blog if it's all over the place. It's also hard to decide what your next blog post will be about. Pick a subject and stick to it.

2. Edit, edit, edit. I have made numerous posts without actually reading them, only to find embarrassing and obvious mistakes. Being a beginner means that you are the only one who can catch those mistakes. It can be easily changed, but if you don't read carefully and edit appropriately, those mistakes can hinder your online image.

3. Be patient. It may feel like at first that no one is reading your blog and you're probably right. Wait and build up your posts, promote them through Facebook and twitter, and use labels. Someone might view your blog and comment.

These are just a few that I have come up with, but I'm no expert. Comment if you have any tips of your own. View more info on the Student Branding Blog here http://bit.ly/9UYvda

E-mail out, Social Media in?

E-mail as we know it is probably going away as communication moves toward twitter and other social media sites says Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Only 11 percent of teenagers e-mail daily and this, according to Sandberg, is a sign of a generational gap that will result in the decline of electronic mail.

"If you want to know what people like us will do tomorrow, you look at what teenagers are doing today," Sandberg explained to Nielsen's Consumer 360 conference this week. She started out her point by asking the audience if they had written a letter by hand in the past 24 hours. No raised hands. E-mail? Everyones hand raised. She said that there is a trend of how communication is moving. I think there is validity to this point, but that's assuming that as teenagers grow older they will remain using SMS rather than maturing by using a more formal means of communication.

This is good news for marketers. It is harder to reach a demographic or audience through e-mail than it is through Facebook. With over 400 million users sharing intimate personal informations on Facebook, advertisers and public relations practitioners can target users at ease with specific messages.

It will be interesting though to see where communication goes, but of course only time can tell. Watch Sheryl Sandberg here http://bit.ly/aJ9wNi!

Create your own hashtag

Did you know that hashtags can now be claimed and created? That's right, if you have created a hashtag or commonly use one with friends, coworkers, or classmates you can now make it official by using "What the Hashtag", an online encyclopedia for Twitter. Find it here http://wthashtag.com/Main_Page


I decided to give it a try by making the #nsac an official hashtag on the site. NSAC stands for the National Student Advertising Competition. The hashtag is used by those who compete in it and is dominated by the students at Chapman University. All I had to do was write what it stood for and it is now official along with statistics about the hashtag itself. Take a look here http://wthashtag.com/Nsac

If you feel embarrassed about asking your social media savvy friends what a specific hastag means, you can look it up on the site. It's a pretty cool resource for those of us who use twitter and could come in handy when we're looking for a specific hashtag or feel like creating a new one.

What is the Next Breath?

After you have the inhale moment when you get into an accident and the exhale moment once you realize you have insurance to cover it, what comes next? The Next Breath. The Next Breath is the public service campaign communicated through social media that the PR Department of Circle Advertising, of which I was a member of, worked on as part of "Feel Free", the winning campaign for State Farm at this year's National Student Advertising Competition.

The Next Breath supplements the Feel Free campaign by empowering young adults to pass on the Feel Free moment through giving. After conducting a psychographic survey we designed a Next Breath event that would not only match the big idea, but that would incorporate core values of State Farm such as helping people to realize their dreams.

Our event was held at a local venue in Orange and featured three expressions of feeling free: art, music, and writing. Local artists donated pieces of work to be sold for charity. Next Breath attendees could sing karaoke with a live band. There were also two boards that let students express themselves in words. One that asked attendees to write what makes them tense, and another that asks what makes them Feel Free.

People could tweet what makes them feel free at the event and could also take pictures of art they liked as well as their peers singing karaoke. We had over 120 people attend and raised a couple of hundred dollars that went to UNICEF for Haiti relief. Our research showed that the 18-25 demographic would most likely donate to a charity for children or disaster relief.

As part of the sub-campaign students could win the chance to donate $1000 to the charity of their choice as part of the Give Away Giveaway. We found that our demographic is more likely to donate to a charity if they choose where the money goes. If someone tweets @statefarm with the hashtag #feelfree they will be entered into the contest.

Our team worked hard on creating the Next Breath and we are all so proud of it. The best moment was seeing our Next Breath slide up on stage after winning the NSAC national championship.

Chapman For The Win

Last week students from Orange County's Chapman University traveled to Orlando, Florida with one dream. It wasn't to go to Disney World, though some did, or to see the new World of Harry Potter, which didn't open for another week. It was to have the chance to be named champions of the American Advertising Federation's National Student Advertising Competition.

Each year over 150 schools around the country compete for the championship by creating a multimedia campaign for a real life client. This year's client was State Farm and the campaign was to be geared at the 18-25 independent market. After winning first place at the District 15 competition against powerhouse schools such as UCLA and USC, Chapman's team, Circle Advertising, booked their tickets and boarded their planes to make their way to the theme park capital of the world hoping that this was their year to shine.


After watching 17 schools present their campaign for the judges, it was Circle Advertising's turn to go. Our team waited in anticipation to see how the judges would react. They seemed to like it, but was that enough to constitute us as winners. Only the awards announcement, which happened a few hours later, would let us know. We stood there as the fourth through second place winners were announced. No Chapman University was said. Did we actually do it? Had we won?

"And the winner is..." one of the judges started. "Chapman University!" A moment of silence swept the school as we all became shocked at what we just heard. Then a roar of excitement and pure bliss. We rushed the stage to accept the award.

It was, as cliche as it sounds, a surreal moment and one that will never be forgotten. Chapman's campaign "Feel Free" was based on the research found in over 5,000 surveys and countless other means of information. It came from the fact that there is an inhale moment, a gasp of panic that occurs once you get into an accident . State Farm is the exhale moment; the moment when you can feel free and move on with your life.

And that's how Circle Advertising felt after winning: They felt free.

Watch our 30 second spot here http://vimeo.com/11197544