Public Relation Final Project

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Public Relations Proposal for Sycamore Rouge SAMPLE Table of Contents Section Page Number Situation 3 Objectives 4 Target Audience 4 Strategy 4 Tactics 5 Time Table 9 Budget 10 Evaluation 11 References 12

Situation

Petersburg, Virginia is a city with a huge amount of potential. The historic district features beautiful pre revolutionary war mansions surrounded by rolling hills. Appomattox Regional Governors School, located in the heart of Petersburg, has the best arts program of any high school in Virginia. Edgar Allen Poe’s home in Petersburg is open to the public to tour daily, and views of the James River around Petersburg offer a unique getaway for any couple on a Friday afternoon. The jewel in the crown of Petersburg’s artistic community is Sycamore Rouge Theater, the only non-profit professional theater in the area. Sycamore Rouge has produced live theater for the Petersburg community since 2002, bringing Shakespeare, Wilder, Williams, and Wilson’s words to life. It has been home to experimental projects like improvised Shakespeare, and the twenty four hour theater project.

The economic situation in Petersburg is holding back the community’s potential. In 2009, almost thirty percent of the population in Petersburg was living underneath the poverty line. These poor economic conditions have helped increase crime rates over the past ten years, which as of 2010 double the national average. All of the historic attractions and artistic communities are treading water, hoping government money will continue to support their causes. Due to the insane cost of producing live theater, Sycamore Rouge is the most affected by these economic conditions. The youth of Petersburg is an extremely untapped resource for Sycamore Rouge. Many teens and young adults in Petersburg have never seen live theater, and most have never felt what it is like to put on a play. If there was surge in interest of live theater in Petersburg’s youth it would benefit both the Petersburg community and Sycamore Rouge. Sycamore Rouge would benefit from the increased ticket sales, increased community involvement and attention, as well as new opportunities to hold summer educational workshops for Petersburg students.

Objectives

· Increase awareness in the Petersburg community of what Sycamore Rouge has to offer as far as acting classes, plays, and education opportunities

· Double the number of student tickets sold to the 2013-2014 season

· Increase the number of students enrolled in summer workshops by ten percent

Target Audience

Because this is a project to benefit Sycamore Rouge and teenage residents in Petersburg, Virginia, the target audience will be exclusively focused on teens living in Petersburg. This campaign will not focus on counties outside Petersburg like Colonial Heights or Hopewell, but will only target teens living in the city limits. These teens will mostly attend the largest public high school in Petersburg, Petersburg High School. Males and females will both be equally targeted, but specific strategies may be needed to attract males who might feel like theater is only for girls. The target audience will be from the ages of fourteen to eighteen and of African American heritage. The choice to target African Americans is only based off the demographics of Petersburg, the 2010 census showing that over eighty percent of Petersburg residents are African American.

Strategy

Use a comprehensive communications campaign to create awareness and motivate the target audience to become involved and engaged with Sycamore Rouge.

Tactics

Theme of 2013-2014 Season

The theme for Sycamore Rouge’s 2013-2014 season will be Youth in Poverty. All three plays will have themes and characters that deal with life in an impoverished urban community. At least two of the three plays should be written by an African American. Producing plays by African Americans about themes teens in Petersburg can relate to will increase their interest in Sycamore Rouge. These teens will see that theater is not just for wealthy white people who have hundreds of dollars to spend on Broadway tickets. They will come to understand that they too can be involved in a type of theater that truly means something to them. Coming to this understand, teens in Petersburg will be more likely to get involved at Sycamore Rouge.

Press Release

Press releases should be issued to all local news stations detailing the theme of 2013-2014 season, Youth in Poverty. These press releases should include: the Sycamore Rouge logo, key points in the opening paragraph like the theme of 2013-2014 season, and an extremely brief summary of each play. These short summaries should make the plays look attractive to teenage audiences living in Petersburg by highlighting issues in the plays that teenagers living in Petersburg actually deal with on a daily basis. The other major element of these press releases should be the extremely reduced tickets prices offered exclusively to students in Petersburg. Hopefully news stations would express to the community the unique opportunity Sycamore Rouge is presenting by making five dollar student tickets available to teenagers in Petersburg. A caption like “live theater at the cheapest prices possible” should read in the opening paragraph of the press release. The boilerplate should include information such as the location of Sycamore Rouge’s theater, Sycamore Rouge’s contact information, and the dates of the performances.

Flyers at Public High Schools and YMCA

These flyers should be put up one week before each show opens during the 2013-2014 season. While the name and a description of the play should be provided, the flyer should grab the target audience’s attention by highlighting how theater can help teens living in Petersburg cope with their everyday struggles. Questions and themes that the plays explore which parallel the effects of poverty in Petersburg should be written in the largest font and placed in the center of these flyers. These questions will attract the student’s eye, and facilitate their reading the entire flyer which will provide information about performances. All of these flyers should also use uniform colors and fonts, as well as the Sycamore Rouge logo in order to develop a recognized image to further promote awareness of Sycamore Rouge in the teenage community of Petersburg. They should be posted frequently throughout high schools, but the campaign must approach the school’s administration to make sure Sycamore Rouge does not overstep any boundaries by posting too many flyers or flyers in inappropriate locations. Reminders to “like” Sycamore Rouge on Facebook should be included in large letters in the bottom right hand corner of the flyer. These flyers need to frame Sycamore Rouge’s 2013-2014 season as an attempt to help reform the community, not just theatrical performances.

Intercom Systems in High Schools

The intercom system is used in large public high schools to disseminate important information to their community. Hopefully high schools in the Petersburg area would agree to briefly profile Sycamore Rouge a few days before a play’s opening and direct their students to the flyers posted in the school’s hallways and community boards for further information. Multiple announcements made over a few days would increase the effectiveness of this tactic. Some students interested in theater may be late to school one morning, and if the announcement is made only once, those late students may not become aware of the opportunities at Sycamore Rouge. While not every student necessarily will listen to the morning announcements, this tactic is valuable because it will reach large amounts of the target audience at once.

Showcasing a Scene of each Play at Local High Schools

To promote each play one scene, running roughly twenty minutes, should be presented at major high schools in the area, most importantly Petersburg High School. After the scene is over a talk back with the actors and the director should be held with the students to answer questions and spark further interest in the students. English teachers would be asked to participate in this process by bringing their classes to the school auditorium for one day to see the scene and participate in the talk back. This would allow hundreds of students to see a portion of the play and listen to the actors and director answer questions over the course of one day. After seeing a small portion of the play, students would hopefully want to hear the rest of the story and make an effort to get out to a performance. Perhaps they will relate to a specific character, and want to see how they deal with their issues throughout the play. The actors talking after the performance will give the students an opportunity to hear what it is like to be in a play, increasing their interest in attending summer workshops and future Sycamore Rouge auditions. A plug should be given by one of the actors for the free summer workshop for students, encouraging students to register early before all the spots fill up. At the talk back the director should make sure the students know when the performances are and how inexpensively the tickets are priced.

Posting Videos on the Internet

Sycamore Rouge’s Facebook and Youtube account should post videos profiling actors, directors, and rehearsal processes of each show. These “insider accounts” of the productions will increase excitement and awareness of these shows. A few videos each week should be posted in order to attract return viewers and keep them consistently excited about upcoming productions. An employee skilled in video production should be employed in this campaign in order to produce quality work which will most likely attract audience members and potential participants. Poorly made videos will only make the public identify Sycamore Rouge as an unprofessional company.

Web Presence

Sycamore Rouge’s webpage will be kept up to date during this campaign. There will be a page dedicated to the season as a whole, and a page for each individual production. The home screen for Sycamore Rouge will profile the play currently in production. If there isn’t a play currently being produced, the home page will then showcase events that are in the near future. Updates on Sycamore Rouge’s Facebook will consistently be posted, but they must always have a specific purpose; posting for the sake of posting results in an overwhelming amount of information, causing the page’s visitors to miss the most important posts. Having an active Facebook page will gain a following when Facebook users “like” Sycamore Rouge’s page. Sycamore Rouge should also post information about their 2013-2014 season to pages that the target audience will visit such as their high school’s Facebook group and other community networks.

Timetable

Date Activity

June-July - Meet with high school administration to get dates approved for touring one

scene of each play followed by a talk back, and confirming that each

school will allow Sycamore Rouge to post flyers in their hallways and use

their intercom systems to deliver the students news

August 1 - Release press releases detailing Sycamore Rouge’s 2013-2014 season

September 1 - Flyers are posted in Petersburg high schools as soon as school is in

session. These flyers focus on the 2013-2014 season as a whole

- The first cast interview is posted on Facebook followed by an additional

cast member interview every other day until all major cast members are

interviewed.

· Sycamore Rouge website updated to reflect current production

September 9-13 - Announcements over school’s intercom system made each day

advertising the first production which officially opens Saturday

September 14

- Flyers posted in schools about the first production

- Friday September 13 cast tours with director to local schools to show one

scene and talkback to increase publicity and excitement in target

audience

September 14 - First production opens

October 1 - Second press release sent out reminding the target audience that only a few

weeks are left to see the first production

- Announcement made over the intercom at local high schools reminding

the target audience that only a few weeks are left to see the first production

October 20 - Videos posted on Facebook giving a “behind the scenes” look of the

second production

- Cast interviews are then posted every other day

- Sycamore Rouge website updated to reflect current production

November 1 - Press release to all local news stations about opening of second production

November 4-8 - Announcements made each morning at high schools plugging the second

production

- Flyers posted at local high schools advertising the second production

- November 8 a scene from the second production tours followed by

talkbacks

November 9 - Second production opens

November 28 - News release sent to remind target audience that only a few weeks are left

to see the second production

January 22 - Videos posted to Facebook giving a “behind the scenes” look at the third

production

- Cast interviews then posted every other day

- Sycamore Rouge website updated to reflect current production

January 16 - Press release sent profiling third production, informing public of its

opening

January 20-24 - Announcements made each day at high schools plugging third production

- Flyers posted around local high schools

- January 24 the third production tours one scene followed by a talk back

January 25 - Third production opens

February 20 - New release sent to remind public that only a few weeks are left to see

the third production

Budget

· Staff time

· Cost of the flyers

· Paying the actors for their time touring the scenes at local high schools

· Cost to produce the video interviews in a professional manner

· Cost of sending out press releases

Evaluation

The success of this campaign will be determined by the following criteria:

- Did the sale of student tickets double in the 2013-2014 when compared to past seasons at Sycamore Rouge?

- Did the number of students enrolled in summer workshops increase by ten percent?

- How many media clippings did this campaign inspire over the 2013-2014 season?

References

"City of Petersburg." City of Petersburg. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2012.

"K.B Saine." Telephone interview. 10 Oct. 2012.

Wilcox, Dennis L., and Glen T. Cameron. Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Print.