April 27, 2007

The Carolina Agency helps promote arts festival to college students

It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to publicize a first-ever event. The Columbia Festival of the Arts is the first celebration of Columbia-based, accomplished artists and established performers in sculpture, painting, dance, music and theatre. Underwritten by major media and corporate sponsors, the event promised not only to put Columbia on the map but provide an excellent outlet for The Carolina Agency’s involvement.

The Carolina Agency (TCA) is an on-campus, student-run public relations firm dedicated to giving clients a new edge on their public relations and communication campaigns. TCA is made up of a faculty adviser, a graduate assistant and students ranging from first time freshmen to experienced seniors, all whom bring a variety of creative minds, unique ideas, and energetic personalities to the group. 

This semester, The Columbia Festival of the Arts was one of a select group of clients the agency agreed to take on — largely due to the excellent opportunity to promote the arts to a new population.

In the past, not only has The Carolina Agency created campaigns for on-campus organizations such as the Colonial Center and Parking, but they have also expanded their base to serve other organizations in the Columbia area. This semester, The USC Technology Incubator, non-profit home-repair organization Homeworks, and the Columbia Festival of the Arts were picked to receive energetic support from TCA staff. Working hand in hand with supervisors of these organizations, the group of students and faculty helped their particular clients design and produce a successful campaign to catch target audience attention, encourage participation and support.

Click below to view posters created by The Carolina Agency for the festival.

For The Columbia Festival of the Arts client, TCA’s main objective was to generate general support of the arts and specific attendance at the festival events by college students because, as Festival co-chair Marvin Chernoff pointed out, “…there is too much gray hair among the traditional supporters of the arts in Columbia.”

The students had a lot of positive material to work with. Not many cities the size of Columbia can boast that they have more than 26 galleries within city limits, or that their local collegiate gospel choir has been named best college gospel choir in the country five out of seven years, not to mention three ballet companies, a world renowned symphony orchestra and several theatres!

To accomplish their goal of reaching college students, TCA, in partnership with the festival organizers, began work in January to design a campaign that would attract the eye of young adults and encourage them to participate in the festivities. But what could catch the hearts and minds of busy college students focused on school, work and having fun? TCA knew, and they used this knowledge to create a multi-faceted, integrated campaign. The first part of the campaign involved traditional communication vehicles like flyers, t-shirt give-aways, press releases and ads in student-media to generate student interest.

But because college students are new media consumers, TCA also incorporated digital components into their campaign like pre-movie advertising at The Russell House theatre, YOUTUBE viral e-mails, facebook social marketing and even a customized student Web page that linked back to the Arts Festival page.

Other out-of-the-box tactics the team used included a progressive poster campaign (different posters were placed in the same spot for several weeks in a row creating buzz and interest in the content), a slide for the WRHA on-campus cable channel and a Greene Street t-shirt give away complete with street performers. The t-shirt event featured free, arts festival t-shirts, information packets and a teaser sticker placed on each shirt encouraging the students to wear the shirts at specific events during the festival to receive other prizes which included zoo tickets, ballet tickets, concert tickets etc. All students were also asked to wear their shirts at the festival’s free closing concert at Findlay Park to maximize the effect on traditional media expected to photograph the event.

TCA faculty advisor Jeff Ranta said, “This was a great opportunity for our students to experience first hand the challenges and triumphs of real PR work on a very interesting and exciting event. I am very pleased with the way things came together, and we are grateful to be a small but vital part in such an ambitious undertaking.”

Article submitted by The Carolina Agency