First year students from BA (Hons) Public Relations have recently worked with London-based global tiger conservation charity, 21st Century Tiger, on an important campaign to increase fundraising for anti-poaching efforts in Sumatra.
The charity asked students to create ideas for visuals, leaflets, posters and online materials to support its new ‘Tiger Champions’ campaign.
21st Century Tiger wanted ‘Tiger Champions’ to be unlike the adopt-an-animal style campaigns run by many other wildlife conservation charities. They asked students instead, to raise awareness of a responsibility to protect wild animals, primarily against deforestation and poaching, and focus away from the idea of ‘owning’ them.
‘Tiger Champions’ campaign mock-ups presented.
The initial campaigns were presented in a ‘press conference’ scenario in collaboration with students from BA (Hons) Journalism. This meant that PR students also had to consider the media messages for the campaign, as well as delivering end-to-end event management, from issuing invitations to hospitality.
Students gather for ‘press conference’.
Students role play as representatives from 21st Century Tiger and present their campaign ideas amongst peers.
BA (Hons) PR students in ‘press conference’ with BA (Hons) Journalism students.
Finally, students presented their detailed campaign ideas to 21st Century Tiger.
Adrian Crookes, Course Leader for BA (Hons) Public Relations, says ‘we find that “learning by doing” activity helps our students understand how their academic studies can be practically applied. The fact that we worked with a client and presented to BA (Hons) Journalism students made this assignment very realistic – a taste of what students will encounter in PR practice.’
Find out more about BA (Hons) Public Relations