Public Relations Plan

Mercury Global
November 19, 2014

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Executive Summary

The Grand Mountain Public School District in the Adirondack region of New York state has

seen a major decrease in student enrollment due to local jobs reducing and people moving to
more heavily populated areas. Furthermore, Grand Mountain High School has 55 students but
must ensure an enrollment of 70 students by next September in order to avoid consolidation with
another high school, which is 70 miles away. To address this dilemma the school plans to enroll
international students. However, there are concerns that the homogeneous community may be
resistant to a large influx of foreign students.
Through this plan, Mercury Global intends to launch a campaign titled Spring 4 Change,

which aims to persuade the community of the benefits of welcoming international high school
students into the community.
Spring 4 Change is a one-month diversity and economic awareness campaign that will

begin April 2015. The purpose of the campaign aims to change the preposition of the community
by engaging the community in several events that will include an informational session,
international cooking lessons, an international cook-off and a cultural fair that will be held at Lake
Placid.

Goals

The ultimate goal of the campaign is to change the predisposition of the community

on the idea of opening up their community to international high school students. This will be
achieved through the following objectives:

Increasing the communitys knowledge of different cultures.

Educating the community on the economic benefits of having international high school
students join the community.

Demonstrating the value of adding diversity to the community.

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Strategies
Spring 4 Change is a one-month diversity and economic campaign starting on April 1,

2015. The strategies of the campaign include choosing the actual name of the campaign, a kickoff weekend event, social media and broadcast promotion and an international cook-off.

Title of The Campaign

April marks the beginning of the spring season, which symbolizes change. The goal of

the campaign is to show the Adirondack community that the change of having international
students becoming a part of the community has benefits. Mercury Global considered these
aspects when choosing the title of the campaign to show how they could physically spring
up for change.

Enhance Your Mind Kick-off Weekend

The first weekend in April will begin the kick-off event, Enhance Your Mind. The

weekend will include three days of events with the objectives of increasing the knowledge
of the economic value of having international students join the Adirondack community, the
knowledge of different cultures, as well as the value of adding diversity to the community. The
events are the following:
Enhance Your Pockets: An informational session that will highlight the economic
benefits of welcoming international high school students to the community.
Cultural ExChange: A two-day cultural fair that will include food tasting, cultural

performances, rides, arts and crafts activities and a world market. The world market
will be a place where individuals can buy fabrics, spices and other items from different

countries. This event addresses the objectives of showing the value of diversity and
increasing the knowledge of other cultures.

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Social Media and Broadcast Promotion

In early March, television and radio broadcast promoting the Spring 4 Change

campaign will begin. Starting in mid-March, a countdown will begin to the Enhance Your
Mind kick-off weekend event. Mercury Global intends to use the social media platforms
of Twitter, Facebook, Wordpress and Pinterest during the campaign using the hashtags
of #Spring4Change, #EnhanceYourMind, #EnhanceYourPockets, #EnhanceYourPalate and
#CulturalFair2015. Recipes from the cook-off will be posted on the official Spring 4 Change.
Pinterest account and various blog posts will be posted about the different events.

There will be a 15 and 30-second commercials promoting Spring 4 Change, as well

as 15-second public service announcements on local radio stations about each event.
Additionally, there will be advertisements of the Spring 4 Change events in the publications of
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, Lake Placid News and the Chronicle. There will also be billboards
that will promote the three main points. The billboards will state, Enhance your pockets,
Enhance your mind, Enhance your palate, Spring 4 Change.

Enhance Your Palate International Cook-off

Starting April 8, each Wednesday cooking lessons will be offered to the community

that will end with a cook-off competition at the end of the month. Each week, participants
will learn a dish from three countries, starting with dishes from China, Brazil and Germany.
April 29, participants will be able to compete in a cook-off of their favorite dish learned in the
event. Contestants will be judged on the accuracy of the dish, taste and overall appearance.
The cook-off will have grand prize package that will include a $200 cash prize.

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Target Audience

The target audience for the Spring 4 Change campaign is the entire Adirondack

community. The primary audience is the school board members of the Grand Mountain Public
School District. The secondary audiences are the parents of high school students and local
business owners. However, other audiences that the campaign intends to reach include members
of the community that do not have children in high school and members of the community who
do not own businesses.

Target Media

The target media for the Spring 4 Change campaign are morning radio talk shows,

cultural print and digital publications, social media platforms, and television and radio
news.

Resources and Budget

Mercury Global will bring extra in-house team members, pro bono, to execute the

campaign for the month. Local businesses have offered to contribute venues for some of the
events.

The Budget to execute the entire campaign is $70,000. This price includes the

distribution of media promotion to different media outlets, the cost of venues for the
different events and the food that will be offered at the cultural fair. There will also be
sponsors of various events. These sponsors include Wells Fargo, Marriott and MasterCard.
These companies promote diversity as their corporate social responsibility.

Evaluation

After the awareness month, Mercury Global plans to measure the knowledge of the

benefits that the campaign presented through a quick online survey and phone interview,
which will ask questions that address if their predisposition has been altered and if they have
learned from the events that they attended.

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