Week 1: Student Response to Budget Meeting 2

ThursdayAug 9 at 9:46pm

Manage Discussion Entry

JRN 497 Week 1 Budget Meeting 2 Audience and Brand

What steps should my news team take in putting the audience first?

Hi Team, Classmates and Instructor,

The first thing in putting the audience first is to find out who they are. That is done with research.

The audience is Ashford students. That gives us a place to start. Top percentage stats list:

White 43%; Female 70%; From the south 51%; and, over 34 years old 54%.

So, my question is: Do we want to target all of the students at Ashford as a community? I think so.

Then, we need a persona for the audience. Who and what would it look like if it was a person?

Then, we need to decide what they need.

Some of what we know is that they are busy…VERY BUSY. They are tired of reading (textbooks) and need a break from concentration. What would entice them to read an article for "fun"….and maybe that would be a clue. If it was fun, maybe it would catch on. Also, I will suggest dark, large print and short articles…maybe bullet points to highlight main points with more text to enlarge on the topic if they are interested.

So, my question to the team is: What do students need to know? What would make their busy lives easier?

We know they are motivated. We know that they are worried about student debt. We know they are looking for careers. What if we did an issue on careers…..maybe how to nail an interview?

Brand: What can we do that will be different and give us a brand?

One of the things I believe we need to decide is whether or not we will address political issues.

One thing is certain, if there is bias or a political taking of sides, we will alienate customers. But, if most of the audience is liberal anti-trump people, they would gravitate toward it.

That is a question we need to decide at the outset: Does this publication explore political issues and if so, Left? Right? Or, neutral?

If we do politics, what if we were the brand that looks at both sides of the issue? We could do team articles with a conservative POV and a liberal POV and make it a discussion, maybe even a debate.

Since I am a red-hat wearing-conservative Trump supporter and love politics, I think that sounds like fun.

What if we made it in debate form and allowed our audience to ask questions and weigh in on the topics. What if it was an open forum that asked for and gave differing opinions from us and our audience? People are from all geographical areas are in the student body and we have 25 out of 100 are military. We could ask people to offer solutions to the problems facing the country and a place to ask questions.

The persona I picture for this brand would be a two headed body with one head blue and the other red, big eyed with hair standing straight up and an overall color scheme of the body is red, white and blue. We are one nation with differing minds needing to work it out. Not sure what the arms are doing, but hopefully not duking it out.

Judy Wieber